WASHINGTON (AP) — Two government officials familiar with the Orlando shooting say FBI investigators have so far not turned up persuasive evidence that the gunman was pursuing gay relationships.
The FBI began investigating the possibility after media reports quoted men as saying that Omar Mateen had reached out to them on gay dating apps and had frequented the Pulse nightclub. One man claimed in an interview with Univision to be Mateen’s gay lover.
But the officials say the FBI, which has recovered Mateen’s phone and conducted 500 interviews, has not been able to corroborate those accounts. They add, however, that the investigation is ongoing and that nothing has been formally ruled out.
The officials are not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Is it me or is this article horrible and difficult to credit?
“Government officials familiar with the Orlando shooting” - that could LITERALLY* be any fucking person working at any level of government in the United States. Everybody with a pulse and a TV or a computer is “familiar with the Orlando shooting” FFS.
But…no persuasive evidence, huh?
So, worthless article writer, what did your “government officials” say about that evidence and why it was not persuasive? Has the FBI talked to the man? Do they offer any motive for some guy to come out of the woodwork and claim - with some specificity - he was the gay lover of a mass murderer? Not exactly the type of thing someone would make up, I’d think. What’s the upside? A shit-ton** of FBI attention?
But whatever, AP writer, just avoid asking any useful questions. Instead write this gobsmacker:
I seriously doubt that the FBI didn’t consider the angry-repressed-gay-man angle until after CNN started reporting on it. They have his phone and they have interviewed hundreds of people. Were they not going to do any of that until CNN reported on what the bartender said?
Did Mateen have Grindr, Jack’d, or Adam4Adam on his phone or in his browsing history? Sorry, AP, that’s just a rhetorical question, I guess - not something you should actually ask your two “government officials”.
*not literally, but pretty close
**same as a regular ton, but made entirely of shit