Bill Clinton is a little confused.
The 42nd President of the United States was stumping for his wife in Greenville, South Carolina Tuesday, discussing defense and the “need to be kept safe at home and around the world in a way that advances, not undermines, our values” when he “misspoke.”
“Keep in mind the people who perpetrated that travesty in San Bernardino had never been to the Middle East,” Clinton said in a live ABC News broadcast posted to YouTube. “They were converted over the social media.”
“So we also have a world where we got to make more partners and fewer enemies,” he said. “We have to win the argument for what a civilized world looks like.”
Clinton’s claims about the San Bernardino terrorists Syed Rizwan Farook and wife Tashfeen Malik are simply not accurate.
The Atlantic pointed out just days after the attack that killed 14 and seriously injured 22 that Malik was born in Pakistan, and Farook was born in Illinois. The couple met on a Muslim dating website, according to the news site.
CNN also highlighted the couple’s time in the Middle East:
David Bowdich, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, told reporters Thursday that Farook had traveled to Pakistan.
And two government officials said no red flags were raised when he’d gone to Saudi Arabia for several weeks in 2013 on the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca that Muslims are required to take at least once in their lifetime. It was during this trip that he met Malik, a native of Pakistan who came to the United States in July 2014 on a “fiancée visa” and later became a lawful permanent resident.
Saudi and U.S. officials said records show Farook also was in Saudi Arabia in July 2014. He was there for nine days, a Saudi official said. A U.S. official described the 2014 trip as Farook’s “last recorded” trip to the country.
And not only had the San Bernardino shooters been to the Middle East, they were not radicalized through social media, as Clinton suggested.
“We can see from our investigation that in late 2013, before there is a physical meeting of these two people resulting in their engagement and they journey to the United States, they are communicating online, showing signs in that communication of their joint commitment to jihad and martyrdom,” FBI Director James Comey said in December, according to The Blaze.
“Those communications are direct, private messages. So far, in this investigation, we have found no evidence of posting on social media,” he said.
The former president’s comments are undoubtedly an embarrassment as his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, works to regain ground from her competition in the Democratic primary, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
Polls posted to Real Clear Politics shows Clinton’s lead over Sanders has slowly shrunk in recent months.
The Blaze called the Clinton campaign out on the former president’s inaccurate comments, and a spokesman “who asked not to be named” confirmed Clinton “misspoke.”
“President Clinton simply misspoke,” the spokesman said. “His point, though, was that they were converted over the social media. So we have a world where we’ve got to make more partners and fewer enemies. That we’ve got to win the argument for what a civilized world looks like.”
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