(NOT MY) GOVERNOR glen 'hayseed' youngkin (I do live in Virginia) should know, as a Christian (I will leave judging his claim of faith up to God) that it is sinful to lie, bear false witness, deceive, mislead, promote hate and prejudice and racism. Unfortunately it seems that is what his political career is based on. This apostacy he promotes as Christianity in his life and politics is why so many are leaving the faith. He should be ashamed. From the Washington Post.....Regarding undocumented immigrants see https://bucknacktssordidtawdryblog.blogspot.com/2024/10/elon-musk-enemy-of-open-borders.html
Youngkin: Jordanians ‘crashed’ Quantico. Feds: It was an Amazon delivery.
Virginia’s governor has used the arrest of two undocumented men who misunderstood directions to stop at a check-in station to inflame fears over illegal immigration.
“We have folks that have crashed the — illegal immigrants — that have crashed the front gate at Quantico in a box truck, trying to gain access to Quantico,” Youngkin told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Oct. 14 in one of multiple national television appearances — plus speeches at the National Republican Convention and a rally in Virginia with then-Republican nominee Donald Trump — where he has invoked the episode to criticize the Biden administration’s border policies.
Federal prosecutors — who initially charged the pair with misdemeanor trespassing, but later dropped those charges — say that, while the Jordanians were in the country illegally and are in the process of being deported, they did not crash the gate or intend to do any harm at Quantico.
Mohammad Dabous, working for an Amazon subcontractor, was trying to make a delivery to the post office in the town of Quantico, which can only be accessed through the gates of the military base, Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander Amico, who handled the case, said in a court filing. Hasan Hamdan was a passenger in the truck.
“Marine Corps … agents spoke with Mr. Dabous’s supervisor at the subcontractor delivery company, who confirmed Mr. Dabous’s employment and verified the scheduled authorized delivery to the Northern Virginia town of Quantico on May 3, 2024,” Amico wrote in a motion filed Sept. 13 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
The same filing noted that neither man had any known terrorist links. “The FBI has not identified any national security concerns regarding either defendant,” wrote Amico, who also said he consulted the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “Neither defendant is on the watch list.”
At Quantico’s main gate on Fuller Road, Dabous presented officials with a delivery manifest and photo identification, then drove the vehicle toward a holding area as directed, according to Amico’s filing. Things went awry there, as Dabous continued toward the entrance of the base that encompasses the Prince William County town of 582 residents and failed to stop at the holding area for an inspection. Military police deployed “denial barriers” to prevent the truck from crossing into the base.
Hamdan’s lawyer said in a court filing that the men speak limited English and misunderstood the directions about the holding area. Dabous stopped the truck before reaching the barrier, so there was no crashing or ramming of the gate, filings from the defense and prosecution said. He then moved the truck back to the holding area as directed, where an inspection turned up no weapons or contraband.
Quantico officials issued Dabous and Hamdan citations for trespassing, a petty offense punishable by a maximum six months in jail and a $5,000 fine. They then turned the pair over to ICE because of their immigration status. The men were later released on bond from ICE custody.
The U.S. attorney’s office dropped the charges Oct. 3, but the deportation proceedings continue.
“I am glad that the government did the right thing by dismissing the case,” Courtney Dixon, the assistant federal public defender who represented Hamdan, said in an email to The Washington Post.
Dwight Crawley, who represented Dabous, declined to comment. Amico did not respond to a request for comment. Federal officials declined to identify the Amazon subcontractor who employed one or both of the undocumented immigrants. Officials with Amazon did not respond to a request for comment. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
At first the episode drew the kind of media attention typical of criminal cases involving misdemeanors. Which is to say, none at all.
That changed when Matt Strickland, a Virginia military veteran, Republican activist and grilled-cheese restaurateur known for bucking the state’s coronavirus pandemic restrictions, wrote about the incident on Facebook.
“Terror attacks are coming soon. A box truck just ran through the gate at Quantico Marine Corps Base. Even if nothing was found in the truck, it’s a problem. That’s what we call a dry run,” he posted May 6.
Alongside that, Strickland posted an image of a text message saying that a box truck had recently “run the gate” with two men inside, one with a Virginia driver’s license, the other “a known Jordanian terrorist who just crossed the border not 3 days prior.” Federal officials have not publicly disclosed how either man entered the country.
Strickland told The Post last week that the text came that from a Quantico employee he knows. “It wasn’t just somebody who works at the PX,” he said, referring to the local market, or “post exchange,” at the base. “They would know about this. … So I put it out on social media, and it kind of spread like wildfire. I didn’t expect it to.”
His post got picked up by the news site Potomac Local News, which posted a story May 10 stating that “multiple sources” said one of the men “is on the U.S. terrorist watch list.” The New York Post followed up with several articles, including one that speculated in the headline that the incident was a possible “ISIS dry run.”
On May 22, Youngkin got involved. He demanded a briefing from federal officials in a letter to President Joe Biden, which the governor posted on X. The governor acknowledged in the letter that “federal partners” had already shared some information with the state, but noted that they “did not engage with Virginia officials” until May 16 — nearly two weeks after the fact and “after the event had received national media coverage.” He still had many questions, Youngkin wrote.
“Basic information regarding how these men entered the country, if terrorism is being considered as a motive, and the contents of the box truck that attempted to enter Quantico, should be made public,” he wrote. “At this point, I cannot even begin to adequately assess the true nature of these potential threats — let alone take the necessary action to fulfill my duties as Chief Executive and Governor of the Commonwealth.”
Republican members of the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security followed up with a letter of their own the day after Youngkin’s, seeking information from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and FBI Director Christopher A. Wray.
Committee members have not received answers to their questions, according to two committee aides, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the issue. Youngkin spokesman Christian Martinez said the governor never got a response.
The White House press office did not respond to a request for comment.
In interviews and speeches, Youngkin has routinely mentioned the Jordanians at the Quantico gate as part of a trio of problems — along with fentanyl overdoses and sexual assaults — that he attributed to Biden’s border policies. He also has sought to connect the incident to breaches of other military facilities.
“Just a few months ago, Quantico Marine Corps Base’s front gates were literally rammed by two Jordanian illegal immigrants in a box truck trying to get into the base,” Youngkin told a breakfast gathering of GOP activists at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July. “It’s happened to bases in California. It’s happened all over the country. We have people coming across the border who want to do our nation harm. We must stop it.”
Though court filings have since shown that the men have been cleared of wrongdoing beyond their illegal presence in the country, Youngkin seems unlikely to give up the talking point, relaying it as a cautionary tale about illegal immigration and potential terrorism.
“President Joe Biden’s Justice Department has quietly dismissed the charges without acknowledging what truly matters — two illegal Jordanian immigrants came dangerously close to breaching the premier Marine Corps Base Quantico, just outside our nation’s capital,” Martinez said in an email to The Post on Thursday.
And the inflated version of the story has gained a life of its own among GOP leaders outside of Virginia, who see it as a way to blame Democrats for illegal border crossings that soared under Biden during a mass exodus of migrants from Venezuela and other countries.
“Notwithstanding the dismissal of these charges, Americans deserve answers on why these two individuals were here illegally,” Rep. Mark Green (R-Tennessee), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said in an email to The Post, which claimed one of the men “entered through the Southwest border, claimed asylum, and was released into the interior just a month before the incident at Quantico.”
“The circumstances surrounding this event remain concerning, and I urge the Biden-Harris administration to respond without further delay to Congress and the American people,” Green’s email said.
Strickland, who got the terrorism rumor rolling on Facebook, said he is not sure what to think now that the charges have been dropped.
He remains wary, having spent years in Afghanistan and Iraq with the Army and as a Blackwater contractor. But he also thinks it is possible that the whole thing was just “an honest mistake” by a pair of delivery drivers with limited English.
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