A pair of experts refuted one of the Trump administration’s key deflections about the suspected Washington, D.C., gunman.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other top administration officials claim the suspect was “unvetted” after coming to the U.S. in 2021 from Afghanistan, where he worked with CIA-backed units, but former State Department official Joel Rubin told MS NOW that claim was absurd.
“This question, you know, the idea that somehow Afghans just show up unvetted in the United States is, is farcical,” said Rubin, who served in the State Department during the Obama administration. “That’s just not accurate. There are many programs, one, in particular, [the] Special Immigrant Visa program, SIV, which has had strong bipartisan support for years on Capitol Hill. Thousands of people who worked with American forces in Afghanistan, as well as in Iraq, met conditions through vetting that enabled them to come to the United States. That doesn’t mean these are people who aren’t going to ever commit a horrific, heinous act like we just saw. But the idea that there was no vetting, that somehow there was a free for all that people walked in from Afghanistan is is just not accurate.”
“It’s politicizing this, it’s unnecessary,” Rubin added. “We need facts before we need these kinds of statements that that are based not on what the long term process has been for years. That was the process, including during the Trump team, Trump term number one, and so that’s a process that needs scrutiny, clearly, but highly doubtful that this person just came in without anybody checking his background.”
Security analyst Rob D’Amico, a former Marine and FBI agent, agreed with Rubin and highlighted suspect Rahmanullah Lakanwal’s work with CIA-backed groups before he came to the U.S. and reportedly was granted asylum in April 2025, during Trump’s presidency.
“If you don’t think the CIA does background checks when they allow people onto their bases and work with their operators and their agents, I mean, that’s just that that in itself, you’re saying the CIA is not doesn’t know how to do it,” D’Amico said. “I had Afghans working for me as FBI [Legal Attaché)], and all of them had very serious background checks, and some of them I did sign for the visas, and, again, as I said, they just don’t show up here. I just don’t like that this whole thing is being politicized to show it. Yes, the withdrawal from from Afghanistan was hasty. There’s a lot of things that could have been done better, but people just didn’t show up, and a lot of the vets that work with them really helped these people get in and were the ones backing them to get in.”
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