- By Kyle Seraphin. Source: uncoverdc.com
On January 6th, 2021, “insurrectionists attacked the United States Capitol intent on preventing the certification of a democratic election and, apparently, inflicting violence upon elected officials… Several lives were lost, including at least one Capitol Police officer…” wrote Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), then-Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security to Transportation Security Administration Administrator David Pekoske on January 11th, 2021, in a previously unrevealed letter. This committee “focuses on legislation and oversight related to the security of the United States” with the goal of “[ensuring] that the American people were protected from terrorist attacks.”
Chairman Thompson started his letter with unproven charges and false information in this salacious statement of fiction as he requested an Executive Branch agency ignore due process and deprive thousands of Americans of their Constitutionally protected rights to travel freely within the United States (a right recognized since at least 1870.) Rep. Thompson’s account of the events on January 6th, 2021, could have been lifted directly from a far-left opinion website like HuffPost or ProPublica. While Thompson does not source his wild allegations, he could have easily credited a ProPublica article that made identical claims: law enforcement agencies were “unprepared,” and “the attack was planned largely in open internet forums.” A subsequent article by the same author falsely claimed that “Officer Brian Sicknick died defending the Capitol.”
But Congressman Thompson’s concern was not about how to better protect the U.S. Capitol. His immediate concern, less than a week after the events of January 6th, was punishing those who came to Washington, DC, without trial or investigation. He said the “perpetrators have continued to enjoy freedom of movement throughout the country. Only a fraction of the insurrectionists have been arrested, and many of those arrested have been released pending a future court date. To our knowledge, the Federal government has not prevented a single insurrectionist from boarding an aircraft.” Perhaps the Chairman is less than familiar with the U.S. Constitution to which he was required to swear allegiance in his 15 terms as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, but the 5th Amendment is quite clear on the following: “No person shall be… deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
Chairman Thompson continued with a statement he attributed to “growing online chatter,” which informed his belief that “many of the same groups that planned and carried out Wednesday’s attack intend to return to Washington, D.C., to cause further disruption and violence in the coming days, including at the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.” Those of us who were working in law enforcement during the inauguration of Joe Biden marveled at the speed and efficiency of locking down Washington DC into a Police State scene out of the Cold War. The anti-scale fencing, which was nowhere to be found during the summer riots of 2020, was installed with an efficiency that shocked the government sensibilities in a place like Washington, DC. But at the bottom of his third paragraph, Rep. Bennie Thompson says the so-called quiet part out loud: “It appears little is being done to disrupt the travel of terrorists who just attacked the seat of the U.S. Government and wish to do so again.” Furthermore:
“Please provide a briefing not later than the end of this week on the following topics:
- Current efforts to disrupt the travel of white supremacist and other domestic terrorist groups who may be planning further attacks against the U.S. Government and may be targeting the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden;
- Options available for quickly denying air carrier service to individuals identified as posing a potential threat, including TSA’s authorities to prevent individuals from flying on a temporary or flight-by-flight basis;”
After this letter was received by the top official at the TSA, many Americans who had simply traveled to the National Capitol Region on or around January 6th, 2021, were welcomed to the “Quiet Skies.” These unsuspecting (and unconvicted) American citizens were added to a secretive program known as Quiet Skies—which the TSA claims identifies “international travelers who may require enhanced screening” by a “set of risk-based, intelligence-driven scenario rules.” It further claims that “these rules have strict oversight by the Department of Homeland Security, including the privacy, civil rights and liberties, and general counsel offices.” However, several Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS) whistleblowers and retired supervisory FAM Sonya Labosco have blown the lid off some of the abuses of this program in numerous national interviews and a previous article published by UncoverDC. Additional coverage by UnCoverDC’s Wendi Mahoney introduced those unfamiliar with Quiet Skies to the “Quad S” designation.
The simple fact is—thousands of Americans are now subjected to invasive “security” screenings for several years as a form of extrajudicial punishment that was called for by a powerful Congress member and implemented by a feckless administrative agency. The saddest part for those of us who have engaged in surveillance activities of alleged but unindicted terrorists is—legitimate investigations of sworn aspiring members of ISIS or Al-Qaeda are not nearly as destructive to those members’ lives. The entire point of covert surveillance in a law enforcement setting is to document the subject’s behavior without them altering it from the heavy-handed or visible presence of police. The “SSSS” designation on the boarding passes of many attendees of a 1st Amendment-protected activity or even those who coincidentally flew into the region during that timeframe leads to an experience that is the opposite of productive for any “domestic terrorism” investigation. We only know this information because of the tireless work of the AMNC and former FAMs like Sonya Labosco.
Labosco is the Director of a private advocacy group called the Air Marshal National Council (AMNC). Historically, the FAMS have spent the majority of their time traveling internationally. Armed federal agents with specialized training to stop a terrorist hijack attempt or reclaim a seized aircraft, the FAMS are unique in their skillsets and focus on a post 9/11 airborne jurisdiction. But since January 2021, this highly specialized counterterrorism force has been aimed at surveilling Americans who have not been identified under any other federal law enforcement agency watch list.
The AMNC has been quietly working to unravel the chain of events that has led to the weaponization of this agency. This letter from Chairman Thompson appears to be one of the first movements by the eventual “Chairman of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol” (J6 Unselect Committee) to craft the Democratic Party fantasy that “white supremacists and domestic terrorists groups” were the cause of the riot that day. It also appears to be an underhanded request to the TSA, an agency Congressman Thompson’s Committee had “special oversight functions” over, to “disrupt the travel” and “[deny] air carrier service” to Americans who simply found themselves on the wrong side of the Congressman’s politics. Of note, this letter was co-signed by the Committee’s Ranking Member, John Katko, a 3-term New York Congressman who declined to seek re-election in 2022. Former Rep. Katko is currently a senior advisor to Hill East Group—a Washington, DC-based consulting and lobbying firm.
What Americans should know after reading this letter is that the Democrat narrative regarding what they would set out to show in their highly curated, nominally bipartisan Committee on January 6th was already sent out as marching orders to one of the federal government’s most inefficient and theatrical entities: the TSA.
You can read the full letter here.
Kyle Seraphin is a former FBI Agent assigned to the Washington Field Office on January 6th, 2021. After a transfer to Las Cruces, NM, he “blew the whistle” on the FBI’s partisan investigations into parents at school board meetings. He was suspended for a year without pay before “resigning,” but not before continuing to blow the whistle on numerous issues, including breaking the story the FBI was targeting Catholics with UnCoverDC. His work has spawned multiple Congressional and Attorney General investigations.
