Jan 6 vs ISIS
Justice requires relativity, not popularity.
This is what my thoughts came down to, as I took the deep dive into the DOJ prosecution of American-born Allison Fluke-Ekren. She has confessed to being a high-ranking leader within the ISIS terrorist organization. Fluke-Ekren admitted to creating the first female battalion and training more than 100 women and girls, including girls as young as 10 years old. Her curriculum included the use of the fully-automatic AK-47 firearm, use of suicide belts, and use of improvised vehicle explosion devices. Her objective was to prepare women and girls to sacrifice their lives for the Islamic state. Fluke-Ekren wanted to create a “mujahidat,” or female fighter equivalent to the “mujahideen” male fighter for the “jihad” against the West.
Fluke-Ekren was charged under 18 USC §2339B, “Providing material support or resources to designated foreign terrorist organizations.” Fluke-Ekren plead guilty to the charge through a “Plea Agreement” on June 6, 2022. She was arrested in Syria and recently transported back onto US soil, where charges were already pending, under seal, since 2019.
Fluke-Ekren faces only 20 years in prison, “maximum.”
She was born in 1979 and is 42 years old. She left the U.S. in 2008, having embraced Islam years prior.
Already, the DOJ plea deal paperwork mentions “supervised release.”
Fluke-Ekren is scheduled for sentencing on October 25, 2022, and she faces the possibility of spending less time in jail than many of the January 6 defendants, including a number of those charged as “Oath Keepers.”
She is the Definition of a Career International Terrorist
Fluke-Ekren is an international terrorist who has made a career from at least 2008 to present by ambitiously rising through the ranks of several terrorist groups, including ISIS. She engaged with these groups in Egypt, Turkey, Libya, Syria, and Iraq. In her signed “Statement of Facts,” Fluke-Ekren admits even to multiple marriages to high-ranking terrorist operatives, including a sniper trainer for ISIS (deceased) and a drone operator attempting to design drone payload chemical bombs (deceased).
Fluke-Ekren is a woman who used a rapid succession of men as a tool for continual access to ISIS top leadership, designing and pitching her own plots for the bombing of a Midwest college and a U.S. shopping mall. Among those to whom she had access are recognizable criminals, like al-Bagdahdi (deceased, 2019), who personally approved funding for at least one of her plots for “mass carnage.”
Her signed “Statement of Facts” spells out other ways Fluke-Ekren demonstrated her skills and value as an American-born international terrorist by translating for top ISIS leadership some of the paper and electronic device contents stolen from the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya. (That U.S. compound was destroyed in 2012, including the murder of four Americans, namely U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods. Barack Obama was then President and Hillary Clinton was then Secretary of State.)
Defendant Fluke-Ekren has denounced America, saying she planned never to return to her country of birth. In 2018, she asked a fellow ISIS member to tell her family and friends that she was dead.
Fluke-Ekren is a jewel in the crown of Islamic terrorism, carried out both in Middle Eastern countries and abroad, post 9/11.
Perversely, the U.S./U.K. press corps painted the defendant as “speaking in a soft voice” in court (CBS News) and “broke down in tears” (CNN)/”began to sob” (Washington Post) when the judge mentioned her children. (Fluke-Ekren’s “children” are now in their 20s and expressly rejected any request for communication with her since her transport to U.S. soil.) Even a headline that screamed “Kansas woman accused of leading all-female battalion of ISIS fighters and planning attack on US college,” begins its text with “A mother…” (The Independent)
Fluke-Ekren embraced Islam prior to her move from the U.S. in 2008. As early as 2004, Fluke-Ekren had pulled her children out of public schools due to her dissatisfaction, and was reported as including a tutor in Arabic for her children (then ages 5 and 6) three times per week. She was photographed for the article wearing the headscarf, which she continues to wear as recently as her court appearances.
Upside Down Justice Via U.S. DOJ
The U.S. DOJ had the option of multiple charges against Fluke-Ekren, and they chose only one, 18 USC §2339B. Prosecutors then performed the “Offense Level” evaluation and scored her a 44. The U.S. federal sentencing guidelines chart only goes to 43. The crime, itself, plus the top of the chart allow a sentence in excess of the maximum, including to life in prison. Yet, the defendant’s plea deal, as written by U.S. DOJ attorneys says “maximum of 20 years.”
To assist with our discussion, I created a 1-page PDF that summarizes the seven plea deals struck with January 6 defendants also accused of being “Oath Keepers.” Those defendants are Caleb Berry, Jason Dolan, Mark Grods, Joshua James, Brian Ulrich, William Todd Wilson, and Graydon Young. Among the seven “Oath Keeper” defendants who plead guilty, each of those men plead guilty to a combination of crimes carrying sentences between 25-40 years, out of an extensive list of crimes charged.
Additional “Oath Keeper” defendants awaiting trial this fall are facing a combination of charges that carry 40-60 year sentences.
Another facet of the Fluke-Ekren “Plea” deal is the lack of reference to any current or future co-operation of the defendant with U.S. intelligence services or for third-party prosecution. By contrast, every one of the seven “Oath Keeper” defendant plea documents contains what I call “the infamous paragraph 9.” The “paragraph 9” provision requires the men to serve in “covert operations” at the request of the federal government, without expiration date, theoretically for the rest of their lives.
Even as I spelled the top line of this information out on Monday morning on Bill Robinson’s “Second Amendment Radio Show” and yesterday afternoon on Bill Frady’s “Lock ‘N Load,” I asked the question: is it just me or is the U.S. DOJ upside-down?
The analysis can be boiled down to this. How does an international career terrorist face a “maximum of 20 years” in jail, followed by “supervised release,” while a group of defendants plead guilty to crimes carrying 25-40 year sentences when they have no criminal history and spent less than fifteen minutes inside the U.S. Capitol?
What’s worse is that until the 2019 filing of charges against Fluke-Ekren, the FBI did its job and the rank-and-file DOJ attorneys did their jobs to draft substantive legal documents against Fluke-Ekren. Details. Dates. Specific locations. Multiple husbands. Access to hard-line leadership figures. Plans. Ideology. Disclosures concerning multiple witnesses against her.
So what changed at the FBI and the DOJ between the filing of documents in 2019 and the June 2022 plea deal?
Justice Requires Relativity, Not Popularity
Perhaps the best asset of a lead prosecutor is context. An office, filled with files of comparable and context cases. The time to analyze factors and place the defendant on a scale. The discipline of the federal sentencing guidelines, which, in reality, when done right, takes a solid block of time to properly complete every interconnected part.
The U.S. DOJ is part of the Executive Branch. It is headed by the U.S. Attorney General, who reports directly to the President.
I’m putting this fiasco directly on President Biden and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. I rarely to never ascribe messes directly to the top of the political chain because there are only so many hours in the day and the top rarely could conceivably know what throngs of government employees are doing.
What I am going to emphasize in making my case to you for this assessment is that Fluke-Ekren is a woman. A U.S. woman gunning - literally - to lead international terrorist organizations that are overwhelmingly male-dominated. A U.S. woman pushing her brand of equality on women and girls to fight and die like a man.
Fluke-Ekren is an abnormality within international terrorism circles. She stands out like a sore thumb. Just as thrilling to men inside ISIS and other groups for which the defendant has worked is the undoubted excitement trilling to the attorneys inside the U.S. DOJ that this once-American woman plead guilty without the risk of trial.
There is no way you could convince me that the U.S. AG and POTUS do not know about Fluke-Ekren at this point, and that the approval for the plea hasn’t required authorization this high up.
Fluke-Ekren is likely as thrilled about the outcome as I am horrified.
It is not the only way in which she and I are polar opposites.
And had I the access to Biden and Garland my first question would be, “Why the hell did you bring her back to the U.S. and put her in the general prison population and give the media access through an open courtroom?”
Ah, but I suppose that’s not how Biden Administration analytics are running, now is it? July 13, President Biden leaves for a trip to Saudi Arabi.
Apparently, 9/11 is over and it has been replaced by President Biden and US Attorney General Garland with January 6 as their flag.
