“A powerful U.S. senator has launched an investigation into whether the FBI knew about a planned attack by ISIS-inspired terrorists at an anti-Muslim cartoon show in the Dallas area and did nothing to stop it — and also misled the lawmaker about circumstances of the 2015 attack.”

The “cartoon show” was no more “anti-Muslim” than foes of the Nazis were anti-German. I was, along with Pamela Geller, a co-organizer of the event and spoke at it, and was present when the jihadis attacked. We exhibited art depicting images of Muhammad from throughout Islamic history, many of them created by Muslims themselves. We also awarded a winner (Bosch Fawstin) of a contest for the best contemporary cartoon of Muhammad. The point was not to mock Muhammad or Islam out of some gratuitous unkindness, but to stand, in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo jihad massacre, for the freedom of speech against violent intimidation, so as to show that at least some in the West would not be intimidated into silence by threats of death. Few among establishment conservatives grasped the key free speech point that was being made.

“According to the criminal complaint, Hendricks directed the FBI informant to join them there, and allegedly said: ‘If you see that pig (meaning the organizer of the contest) make your ‘voice’ heard against her.'”

Why is Fox being so fastidiously careful not to mention Pamela Geller’s name? I am used to my role as co-organizer and co-sponsor of this event being entirely ignored, and it being presented in the media as “Pamela Geller’s ‘Draw the Prophet’ event” (we never used the phrase “Draw the Prophet,” either), but why is Fox avoiding mentioning her as well? Do they think their report about Johnson’s call for an inquiry will be overshadowed by her “controversial” reputation?

“’It is concerning that when I wrote to the FBI and Department of Justice, they never told me about the fact that they had some FBI asset, whether it was an agent or informant, tailing Soofi and Simpson,’ said Johnson. ‘Why didn’t they intervene? As a member of the Senate oversight committee, I think these agencies should be honest when we actually ask them the questions. But it begs the question, what was the FBI doing in Garland, and why wasn’t the agency direct with me when we first started writing letters about this back in 2015?’…The informant was there, parked behind Simpson and Soofi, when they opened fire….’All I know is we don’t have the straight story from the FBI,’ Johnson said. ‘We are just so fortunate that local law enforcement was able to take care of the situation to prevent another mass attack. This was a real tragedy averted.’”

Johnson is right. Clearly the FBI knew that the jihadis were going to strike at our event, and not only did they not send a team to stop them (and “local law enforcement” was only on hand because we hired them, at considerable expense), but the FBI informant was actively encouraging them to strike. It can only be concluded, as I have charged before, that the FBI wanted Geller and me dead, perhaps as an object lesson for those who dared to dissent from Barack Obama’s dictum that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” We represented the group of people the Obama administration hated most, and that the Leftist political and media establishment still hates most: putative “right-wingers” who dare stand up against jihad terror and Sharia supremacy. They were going to make an example of us. It just didn’t work out the way they had planned.

“Senate leader investigating possible FBI deception about Texas terror attack,” by Malia Zimmerman and William Lajeunesse, Fox News, April 20, 2017: