When Donald Trump was trying to get his Muslim ban 2.0 to pass muster in the courts early in his administration, he tasked the departments of Homeland Security and Justice to produce a report about terrorist activity committed by immigrants. That report so grossly inflated the link between foreign nationals and terrorism that watchdog groups sued the Trump administration for violating a law that prohibits federal agencies from spreading blatant disinformation.
Now Mother Jones has uncovered a key reason that the report was so bogus: It was partially written by Frank Wuco, an Islamophobic conspiracy theorist who had "a habit of role-playing as a jihadist." That's right: Wuco, who’s currently a senior arms control adviser at the Department of State, had a fake jihadist alter ego called Fuad Wasul.
One of the places Wuco would portray Wasul was on a radio show he hosted in which he ran a regular segment called "Ask the Jihadist." To add a special hint of realism, Wuco dressed up in character, donning a keffiyeh and shouting in broken English phrases such as, “We’re make jihad for Allah!” When Wuco returned to being himself, he would profess his desire shoot Wasul right between the eyes.
According to reporting by Mother Jones’ Noah Lanard, internal emails from August and September 2017 show that Wuco—not to be confused with Wasul—was managing production of the terrorism report for the administration. Its main finding was that since 2001, people born outside the U.S. accounted for nearly three-quarters of "violent extremist incidents" resulting in fatalities inside the U.S. But the authors conveniently ignored any terrorist acts that were executed by individuals without international connections—in other words, domestic terrorists.
Wuco has held his current arms control post at the State Department since possibly August, according to The Washington Post. But he isn't just a one-trick pony: He's also promoted birtherism, the false accusation that former CIA Director and Trump critic John Brennan converted to Islam, and the idea that the U.S. should have nuked Afghanistan the day after 9/11. Good to know U.S. tax dollars are being used to employ the best and brightest.