DOJ Agrees To Brief Congresswoman Bice After FBI Arrests Tied To Oklahoma Terror Plot

The Department of Justice has agreed to brief the member of Congress whose Oklahoma congressional district appears to be at the center of the Election Day terror plot arrests. The FBI last week arrested an Oklahoma City man from Afghanistan who was allegedly planning a terrorist attack in the U.S. in support of ISIS.

Both of Oklahoma’s senators, James Lankford, and Markwayne Mullin, were informed in advance of the FBI’s planned arrests last Monday. Congresswoman Stephanie Bice, whose 5th District includes most of Oklahoma City, was not. And she was none too pleased that she only learned about it after the fact, on social media. "Look," Rep. Bice said in a Zoom interview Tuesday afternoon, "I represent a community that's been impacted by terrorism, and for a lapse in judgment by either DOJ or others to not at least inform me of what's happened is really, I think, disappointing."

Congresswoman Bice says she quickly reached out to the Justice Department to get briefed on the matter but was told "they couldn't give [her] a briefing at the time." A follow-up letter Bice sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland seems to have done the trick.

"As of this morning," Bice stated, "we have now learned that the DOJ has agreed to give me a briefing and that'll be scheduled in the next, you know, 24 to 48 hours."

Bice hopes they will be able to give her answers to several questions, some of which she alluded to in her letter to Garland, writing, that the incident "…raises continued concerns about the aftermath of the Administration’s catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan and inadequate vetting of evacuees."

"The withdrawal from Afghanistan was a disaster," Rep. Bice reiterated in the interview. "There were individuals that came here that did not receive proper vetting and this is, I think, an example of that."

Federal officials have yet to publicly discuss Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi's vetting. Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas was asked about it Sunday morning on Face the Nation.

"When we vet -- and we do so intensively -- when we vet an individual, it's a point-in-time screening and vetting process," Mayorkas said. "If we obtain information subsequently that suggests the individual could be in danger, we take appropriate law enforcement action. That is exactly what we did in this case."