Anderson Cooper did a fun takedown last night of the latest right-wing meme against birthright citizenship — that according to anonymous former FBI officials, there is a long-running plot to have “terror babies” born here as U.S. citizens, then flown overseas and trained to come back and attack the United States 20 to 30 years later. Last night, Cooper brought on an actual former FBI official to debunk it.
The “terror babies” plot has previously been discussed on the House floor by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX). On Tuesday night, Cooper hosted Texas state Rep. Debbie Riddle, who also pushed the great danger of the terrorist babies — though she said she would not reveal her sources and did not have the evidence on hand. So on Wednesday night, Cooper hosted Tom Fuentes, who served as the FBI’s assistant director in the office of international operations from 2004 to 2008.
“The FBI has 75 offices overseas, including offices in Jordan, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan,” explained Fuentes. “There was never a credible report — or any report, for that matter — coming across through all the various mechanisms of communication to indicate that there was such a plan for these terror babies to be born.
“Also, I’d like to add, there seems to be a lot of former FBI agents lurking in the halls of Congress and in the legislature in the state of Texas, so I’m kind of curious about that issue as well.”
“I think — in this case, I think the FBI has knocked this story down completely, officially or unofficially,” Fuentes also added. “I think at first they didn’t want to comment on it just because they didn’t want to lend any credence to the people spreading it, but realized that there has to be some comment or else the no comment, you know, means there might be some secret classified information out there, but — but there is no credible information about this particular aspect.
“And something else I caught in your interview of Debbie Riddle where she says a former FBI agent informed her office. What does that mean? They talked to a receptionist? They talked to the janitor? You don’t talk to an office. If an FBI agent was going to brief someone that’s a public official about a sensitive matter of potential terrorism, they’re not going to talk to anybody but the elected official himself or herself.”
Here is Riddle’s appearance Tuesday:
The money exchange:
Riddle: That is information that is coming to my office from former FBI officials.
Cooper: What former FBI officials — I mean, what evidence is there of some sort of long-term plot to have American babies born here and then raised as terrorists overseas and then come back here?
Riddle: Well, at this point, I don’t have the hard evidence right here in front of me. However, this is something that is being talked about by various members of Congress. This is being looked into.
This is an issue with not only folks coming across our southern border, with what is called anchor babies and coming over for the entitlement programs, and for that sort of thing, but I think that this is a lot more sinister issue.
All of these issues we need to look at because this is a critical, critical issue for all of the American — American public.
Cooper: But — but you have no actual evidence?
Riddle: Other than that coming from former FBI folks.
Cooper: Can you tell us who these former FBI folks are? What evidence they have or what evidence they’ve shown you?
Riddle: At this point, I’m not going to reveal that.
