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news4dzhozhar · 7 years

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The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) just released previously unseen notes from a 2011 interview with Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The release puts a new wrinkle in the murky backstory of its relationship to the ringleader of the Boston marathon bombing. Tsarnaev told the agents that four men dressed in suits had previously come looking for him (date not specified). They wanted to “talk to Tamerlan,” the report states. The men, who are described as “young” and “handsome,” identified themselves as FBI agents to someone whose name is redacted in the report. According to the summary, the four men said they would return the next day, but did not — at least by the time of the interview. The interview summary, known internally by the FBI as a form 302, adds a new and intriguing piece to the puzzle of when the Bureau first had contact with Tamerlan Tsarnaev. In an ongoing effort to shed light on the events leading up to the Boston bombing, WhoWhatWhy requested information about the government’s interactions with Tamerlan through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) multiple times in various ways. Each time we were denied access. Some of that information, specifically the two-page interview summary, was finally released last week to the FBI’s records vault, a kind of electronic “reading room” reserved for what the government calls “frequently requested records.” It’s not clear why the FBI released the report at this time. Officially, the FBI maintains that Tamerlan was first brought to the Bureau’s attention by a March 2011 Russian “warning” about his possible radicalization. As a result of this warning, he was interviewed by a counterterrorism agent (CT Agent) as part of an “assessment.” The newly released 302 summary is presumably the record of that interview, conducted roughly six weeks after Russia’s tip. The assessment was closed about a month later. The Bureau claims it sought more information from the Russians but did not receive any response. The way the report is written invites speculation about Tamerlan’s Russian connection. “The men said they would be back ‘the next day’ but did not return. [Redacted] and TAMERLAN have not heard from them since. TAMERLAN doesn’t know anyone who may be upset with him.” “TAMERLAN has never had any problems with Russians in the US due to his Chechen heritage… Putin and Medvedev are the problem not the Russian people. TAMERLAN has had Russian friends in the US,” the report reads. Although no definitive conclusions can be drawn from these two paragraphs, it does appear that the “problems with Russians” was the topic that brought the mystery men to Tamerlan’s door. It’s not clear from the summary whether the agents who wrote the report initiated contact or whether Tsarnaev called the Bureau because he thought they were looking for him. The summary does not reveal whether the Bureau knows who the mystery men were and, predictably, the FBI is staying mum. A spokesperson told the Daily Beast somewhat cryptically that the Bureau is letting “the document speak for itself.” Were the the four men agents from another FBI division, or from another intelligence agency? Or were they imposters? We don’t know. But in light of new revelations that many in Boston’s local law enforcement community think Tamerlan Tsarnaev played the role of an informant for the FBI, the document speaks volumes. In her new book Maximum Harm: the Tsarnaev Brothers, the FBI, And the Road to the Marathon Bombing, Boston-based reporter Michele McPhee claims many in local law enforcement now believe Tamerlan was playing multiple roles as an informant for the FBI and possibly the CIA in the years leading up to the bombing. It’s possible the four mystery men were from another agency and used the FBI as cover. It’s possible they returned after the date of Tamerlan’s interview. It’s also possible that Tamerlan had numerous other encounters with federal agents — it’s just that none of that is mentioned in this particular interview summary. For our part, WhoWhatWhy has documented evidence that the Bureau repeatedly flip-flopped about its interactions with Tamerlan. Initially, when Tamerlan’s identity was made public after he was killed in a shootout with police — and while his younger brother Dzhokhar was still hiding in a drydocked boat — the FBI denied having any contact with either of the bombing suspects. The feds didn’t admit to having known Tamerlan until after Russian media reports quoting the mother of the Tsarnaev brothers; she said that the FBI had interviewed Tamerlan two years before the bombing, under suspicion of being a radical. Only after the mother’s report appeared did the FBI acknowledge that agents had conducted an “assessment” of Tamerlan after the March 2011 warning from Russian security officials. The Bureau claimed to have found no link between Tamerlan and any “terrorism activity.” But doubts about when the Bureau first took an interest in Tamerlan have surfaced. The day after Tamerlan’s death and Dzhokhar’s capture, a “senior law enforcement official” told The New York Times that in January 2011 two FBI agents from the Boston field office interviewed Tamerlan and family members. These interviews took place three months before Russia’s warning. Tsarnaev’s mother told Russian media that agents met with Tamerlan and family members numerous times. She said the Bureau was “controlling him [Tamerlan], they were controlling his every step.” Two months after the bombing, then-FBI Director Robert Mueller admitted during congressional testimony that Tamerlan’s name had in fact come up twice in FBI files prior to Russia’s warning. “His name came up in two other cases,” he said. The exchange was noteworthy. Mueller was fielding pointed questions from Rep. Steve King (R-IA) about when the Bureau first learned of Tamerlan Tsarnaev. King had just returned from Russia, where he received a briefing from Russian officials on what they knew about Tamerlan. King and other lawmakers had traveled to Russia to get information about the Tsarnaevs, in part because of FBI stonewalling. There has been a lot of finger-pointing between US and Russian officials about who knew what and when about Tamerlan Tsarnaev and what he was up to. Not long after the bombing an unnamed “high-ranking” official told The New York Times that the bombing might have been averted had the Russians not withheld information they had on Tsarnaev. The obvious implication from the Times article: it was Russia’s fault. Russian officials vehemently dispute this, claiming they repeatedly shared their concerns about Tsarnaev with their American counterparts, only to be told to mind their own business. This would make sense if the FBI thought Tamerlan was what intelligence agencies call a “valuable asset.” Whatever the truth about who knew what and when, it’s clear both country’s security services were playing a dangerous cat-and-mouse game, withholding what they knew or even suspected about Tsarnaev. And now we can add this mysterious report about four men who claimed to be agents of the FBI visiting Tamerlan at some time prior to his 2011 interview. Who were these men? Another intriguing part of the report is its date: April 22, 2011. According to McPhee in Maximum Harm, the FBI was in contact with Russia’s Federal Security Service (which takes the acronym FSB in English) the very same day as Tamerlan’s interview. The topic? Another Russian immigrant with a Muslim background living in Boston: Ibragim Todashev. Todashev, a mixed martial arts fighter and friend of Tamerlan, was shot and killed in Florida by federal agents who were interviewing him after he allegedly attacked them. Agents say he was in the process of confessing to his and Tamerlan’s participation in a 2011 triple murder in Waltham, Massachusetts, when he flipped a coffee table, striking one of the agents in the head. The shooting was deemed justified as self-defense by a review conducted by the Florida State Attorney. McPhee reveals that the delegation of US Congressmen who went to Russia after the bombing were made aware of a communication between the FBI and the FSB on the topic of Ibragim Todashev. The date of that communication? April 22, 2011, the same day as Tamerlan’s FBI interview. Although WhoWhatWhy has not independently verified that date it’s possible that Ibragim Todashev is the name redacted from the 302 summary and that he was the individual initially approached by the four mysterious men. Was the FBI querying the FSB for information on Todashev? This seems entirely plausible, although the Bureau has not offered up any details to the public since he was shot and killed by an FBI agent weeks after the Boston bombing. About four months later, Tamerlan and his friend Ibragim allegedly committed the savage murder in Waltham. Inexplicably, neither was interviewed about the murder at the time, despite being known associates of the victims, and despite the fact that both of them were on the FBI’s radar. Or maybe it’s because they were on the FBI’s radar that they weren’t questioned. According to McPhee, “seasoned investigators” from the Boston area told her that Tsarnaev wasn’t questioned because he was “too valuable as an asset” to the FBI to be investigated for the murder of three drug dealers. Maybe Todashev got a free pass too. It appears the Bureau is not coming entirely clean about its pre-bombing knowledge of Ibragim Todashev either. Then-FBI Director Robert Mueller was asked about this by another Congressman who had been to Russia, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN). If McPhee is correct, Cohen could also have been aware of the communication between FBI and FSB about Todashev the day Tamerlan was interviewed. In fact, Cohen asked Mueller how the FBI first became aware of Todashev. “Was it through the FSB, or was it your own investigation?,” Cohen asked. Mueller dodged the question by telling Cohen: “We came upon him in a variety of ways.” WhoWhatWhy discovered previously that Todashev’s name appears multiple times in FBI indices in the years before the bombing. However, we did not see any entries from 2011. As with Tsarnaev, the Bureau clearly had an interest in Todashev long before he died at the hands of an FBI agent. What is it about the pre-bombing contacts between Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Ibragim Todashev and the Bureau that necessitates all the secrecy and subterfuge we’ve seen since the bombing? Maybe those four mystery men know.

#tamerlan tsarnaev #jahar tsarnaev #dzhokhar tsarnaev #ibragim todashev

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saucesense13-blog · 5 years

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Superfly Review: A Fun, Violent Remake of a Blaxploitation Classic

There?s a lot of snappy dialogue in ?Superfly,? Director X?s fun, swaggering, and violent update of the 1972 blaxploitation classic, but one quote in particular follows the film?s hero like some kind of thug life phantom: ?It doesn?t matter how smart you are in a world of stupid motherfuckers.? That?s the crux of the problem for Youngblood Priest, the savviest coke dealer in all of Atlanta ? he?s the best player in a game that no one can ever win (or even hope to survive).

It doesn?t matter how careful you are, or how rich you get, because someone in the drug trade is always on the brink of cutting you down. Maybe it?s that trigger-happy kid from the local gang who?s always looking for some petty excuse to unload his Glock. Maybe it?s those crooked local cops who shoot innocent black men for sport, or blackmail them for obscene amounts of money. Maybe it?s the Mexican cartel lord who likes to throw employees out the door of his private plane, and murder his enemies by emulsifying them into a blood-red turd of goo. It doesn?t matter. As one especially wise character puts it: ?Dance with the evil long enough and he?s going to step on your feet.?

With this subversive summer surprise that reaches into the past with some help from the Future (the ?Jumpman? rapper producing the film and curating its soundtrack), Director X relocates the action from Harlem to the ATL while keeping the gist of the original intact. Hyper-current as it is, this ?Super Fly? remake is still the story of an enterprising young man who?s trying to escape the cycles of violence that rule the world around him. Played to smooth-tongued perfection by ?Black-ish? star Trevor Jackson, we like Priest from the first time the camera tracks him ?Goodfellas? style through the corridors of an Atlanta garage. We like him even more after he walks up to the most armed and aggro gangster in the place and sweet talks some humility into him; threading the needle between charm and danger, it?s one of the sharpest moments in Alex Tse?s uneven script.

Priest has been working these streets since he was 11, and he knows shortcuts that most people can?t even see. He knows the best trauma center in the city. He knows what church your auntie goes to, and even what she prayed for last Sunday. He knows how to part his luscious hair like Prince circa 2006, and to satisfy his libido on the up-and-up (in an eminently baller tweak to the original, Priest trades in a secret sidepiece for a polyamorous situation where two beautiful women are always waiting in bed for him when he gets home).

Jackson sells us on all of this in an instant, his silky voice seldom rising above a whisper. Priest is a hustler with the flash of a disposable camera, but he never overdoes it ? even when he?s somehow managing to pull off a soldier jacket that he must?ve borrowed from Chris Martin?s tour wardrobe, all that style is just a warning to his enemies that he?s not your average hood, and maybe also a reminder to himself that he doesn?t really belong here.

Priest stands out from the crowd at the city?s hottest strip club, where bills rain from the sky and a group of tetchy gangsters stand on the balcony dressed in white like they?re cos-playing ?Belly.? These idiots call themselves ?Snow Patrol? (presumably because they?re huge fans of the cheesy, third-tier British rock band of the same name), and they need to move a lot of money to keep up with their dry-cleaning bills. When Juju (Kallan Rashad Walker), a rash and ambitious young member of their ranks, tries to kill Priest for no reason, he kickstarts a chain of events that pushes our hero to the breaking point. ?This wasn?t the first time I?ve been shot at,? he says, ?but it?s gotta be the last.?

But first, Priest has to slow-motion Judo fight with Juju, dodging bullets like he?s the only guy in Atlanta who knows they?re living in the Matrix. It?s a stylistic choice that comes out of nowhere, Director X (aka Julien Christian Lutz) dropping it into the mix just after he?s established a steady vibe that feels like a ?Grand Theft Auto? game designed by Migos. But that?s just how this ?Superfly? rolls, code-switching between genres at the drop of a hat as it tries to shake free from the same restraints that box in its characters. http://ow.ly/Zr1J101nKYb , even (or because) it means that a single 20-minute stretch of the third act manages to contain an apartment shootout, a Lamborghini chase, some hip-hop at a funeral, a hilarious, brutal twist in the telenovela side-plot about a Mexican drug cartel, and a Big Boi cameo that will hopefully presage a second career in politics.

It works because the characters keep things anchored to some kind of dramatic reality. More famous for his music videos (e.g. Drake?s ?Hotline Bling?) than his previous narrative features (which include 2015?s ?Across the Line,? a solid drama about the struggles of a black hockey player), Director X impresses by letting his cast take the wheel. The film has its flair ? the night exteriors are rendered with a high frame-rate blur that channels Michael Mann, the action set-pieces are well-staged for such a run-and-gun production (even if Snow Patrol look kinda silly dressed up like the ski troops from ?Inception?), and an extended three-way in Priest?s shower is shot like a scene out of ?300? ? but ?Superfly? puts its people first.

And it?s a memorable, well-rendered group. In a brilliant casting decision, Priest?s screw-up best friend and partner-in-crime is ?Mudbound? and ?Straight Outta Compton? breakout Jason Mitchell, the kind of generational talent who raises everyone?s game; his Eddie is both the movie?s comic relief and its soul. The great Michael Kenneth Williams inevitably channels his work on ?The Wire? as Scatter, Priest?s drug supply and dojo master. Lex Scott Davis is the more privileged of Priest?s two girlfriends (the other is Andrea Londo), and finds rare moments of grace to fight back against a movie in which women are mostly stereotypes, shrews, and sex dolls.

Which brings us back to the biggest thing that this ?Superfly? has in common with Gordon Parks, Jr.?s original: They both glamorize the gangster lifestyle, even as their heroes do everything in their power to escape it. Being the slyest coke dealer in Atlanta seems terrible, except for when it?s completely awesome. Of course, these characters are just making the best of the hand they?ve been dealt, and Jackson?s focused performance sells us on the idea that Priest would give it all up for a new start in a place where guns aren?t the subtext beneath every conversation.

Even when things spin out of control, and Tse?s script crams enough plot for an entire season of ?Breaking Bad? into https://www.thanostv.org/movie/superfly-2018 (another thing this remake has in common with its source material), you never lose track of where Priest is trying to go, or why he?s trying to get there. Yeah, he?s the smartest guy in a world of stupid motherfuckers, but he?s also got real pride in a world where everyone else is busy feeding their egos. That?s what makes him Superfly.

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