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Authorities Say Speculation on Rainbow Bridge Explosion ‘Not Responsible’ as Fox News Reports It as Terrorist Attack

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Canadian authorities said it’s irresponsible to speculate about the explosion at the Rainbow Bridge border crossing on Wednesday, as the investigation continues. Meanwhile, Fox News reported the explosion was an attempted terrorist attack without naming sources.

We’re taking this circumstance very seriously, but to speculate on the origin of this particular circumstance, the reasons why this may have happened, until we have more accurate information is simply not responsible,” Dominic LeBlanc, Canadian Public Safety Minister, addressed reporters at about 2:20 p.m. local time.

At 2:30 p.m., Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed the Canadian Parliament.

We will continue to be engaged, we will provide updates. The update I can give right now is there are four border crossings that are right now closed, Rainbow Bridge, Whirlpool Bridge, Queenston Bridge and Peace Bridge. Additional measures are being contemplated and activated at all border crossings across the country. We are taking this extraordinarily seriously,” Trudeau said.

READ MORE: ‘Shameful’: Trump’s Praise of Hezbollah Terrorists Denounced by Israeli Gov’t. Official

U.S. President Joe Biden has also been briefed on the explosion, according to The Guardian. The vehicle reportedly was coming from Canada into the U.S. when it was flagged for a secondary inspection by border officials. At this point, the car rapidly accelerated and drove through a fence and onto the bridge plaza, then drove towards the inspection lanes, hit a structure and exploded, according to the Niagara Gazette. The two men inside the vehicle were killed, and a border patrol official was injured.

Fox News called the explosion an attempted “terrorist attack” according to Reuters. Other outlets, however, including CNN, have said that it’s unclear whether or not it was an attack, an accident or a medical emergency that caused the acceleration. It is also unclear if there was an explosive device or if the car exploded on impact.

“Those bomb technicians are an absolutely essential part of this response. And they should be able to tell pretty quickly whether or not there was an explosive device in that vehicle. If the answer is no, and this is entirely the result of either unintentional or an inadvertent vehicle crash, that’ll tell us how quickly they’ll be able to restore service to that side of the bridge,” Andy McCabe, former deputy director of the FBI, said on CNN.

Josh Campbell, CNN’s Security Correspondent, also pointed out that if the explosion is a terrorist attack, it doesn’t look like other terrorist attacks.

Yeah, I’m just not seeing it,” Campbell said.Most terrorists … their intent is to cause you know, mass loss of life as much loss of life as they can. And so just the very nature of that you have two individuals who are in a vehicle at the same time, that’s unusual. I mean, typically if you have you know, two terrorists, for example, they would select different targets and work to try to maximize the harm.”

McCabe agreed with Campbell that what happened was “something that really any car could do,” regardless of whether or not it had explosives.

I think there’s a lot of circumstances that point in that same direction, as Josh Campbell was saying just few minutes ago, from what we know about terrorist operatives, and the way that they stage attacks. If you had a vehicle that was … loaded with explosives that you intended to detonate, you wouldn’t crash the car and then detonate the explosives. You’d wait, you take the car in an unobtrusive way, unremarkable way, as close as you could possibly get to the target and then you would intentionally detonate it, and that doesn’t seem to be that doesn’t fit the circumstances that we’re aware of so far.”

However, McCabe also said that it wasn’t a sure thing that the explosion wasn’t an attack.

It starts to look more like trying to potentially, you know, two people trying to essentially push their way across the border because they’re afraid of getting stopped if they tried it in the lawful way,” McCabe said. “But we can’t rule out the fact … that this could have been two people trying to make some sort of a statement that ended up unfortunately in a life-taking way for themselves.”

Featured photo by Ad Meskens via Wikimedia Commons

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Fox Hosts Try to Convince Viewers Trump ‘Not Really All That Different’ From Them

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Fox News hosts are suggesting that President Donald Trump is just an average guy.

In a segment on the cable network’s “Outnumbered” on Wednesday, co-host Harris Faulkner told her colleagues, “it’s ironic, though, but he’s not really all that different.”

Faulkner then sought to portray Trump — a billionaire real estate developer who owns multiple golf courses and the Mar-a-Lago resort — as relatable, describing him as “just a guy’s guy” and “not really all that different” from ordinary Americans.

“He loves McDonald’s,” she said.

“He likes to hang.”

“He loves his family.”

“And kind of, like, not that McDonald’s is poor to being, like, an all American, but I think it is — love those fries,” Faulkner remarked.

READ MORE: House Republican Calls for Bondi to Testify Over Epstein Files ‘Failure to Comply’

“But, I mean, he’s all those things that you don’t have to have a billion dollars or have to have zero dollars to get,” she exclaimed. “He’s just a guy’s guy.”

Faulkner went on to say that Trump “respects women.”

“He’s hired a lot of tremendously talented women — we’ve met them.”

“My dad,” she added, “used to say, the test of a man is how he treats the women in his life.”

“Can he be that alpha, and be loving, and generous, and all those things?”

Co-host Riley Gaines added, “They called him a misogynist but really he’s the worst misogynist, ever.”

READ MORE: Trump Blasted Federal Prosecutors as ‘Weak’ for Not Targeting His Adversaries: Report

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House Republican Calls for Bondi to Testify Over Epstein Files ‘Failure to Comply’

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A prominent House Republican is calling for U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to testify before Congress over her failure to comply with the requirements of federal law surrounding the release of the Epstein Files.

The Epstein Files Transparency Act required the federal government to release all unclassified documents in the Epstein files by December 19. Reports state that less than one percent of all the documents have been made public.

U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), the lead co-sponsor of legislation forcing a vote on the release of the files, on Wednesday said that the Attorney General “should be called to testify in the House Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight Committee where she must answer for her failure to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act.”

READ MORE: Federal Officer Who Shot Renee Good ‘In Hiding’: Report

Congressman Massie also called it “unusual” that Bondi has “never appeared in front of the House Judiciary Committee.”

Massie, along with California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, last week asked a federal judge to consider appointing a special master to oversee the production and publication of the Epstein Files.

“Put simply, the DOJ cannot be trusted with making mandatory disclosures under the Act,” Massie and Khanna wrote to Judge Paul E. Engelmayer of the Southern District of New York, according to Politico.

“I think it’s the quickest way to produce, to expedite the document production, because these lawyers at the DOJ understand what judges can do in courtrooms,” Massie added. “And they are already communicating with that judge, even though they’re not communicating with us.”

U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) told CNN that “Donald Trump continues to lead a White House coverup of the Epstein files.”

“Why has it been weeks now, weeks, that the date has passed, where all the files should have been released to the Congress and to the public? We have received one percent of the files. That is criminal, it’s illegal. What is Pam Bondi and Donald Trump hiding?”

READ MORE: Trump Blasted Federal Prosecutors as ‘Weak’ for Not Targeting His Adversaries: Report

 

Image via Reuters

 

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Federal Officer Who Shot Renee Good ‘In Hiding’: Report

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer Jonathan Ross, who reportedly fatally shot Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, at point-blank range in Minneapolis last week, is now said to be in hiding.

“I know for a fact now he has to be in hiding … for the safety of him and his family,” Trump border czar Tom Homan said during an episode of the “Will Cain Country” podcast, according to The Hill.

Homan alleged that there are “wanted” posters with Ross’ picture and license plate number, and said that Ross is receiving death threats.

“It’s beyond the pale,” Homan added.

READ MORE: Trump Blasted Federal Prosecutors as ‘Weak’ for Not Targeting His Adversaries: Report

He also suggested that Ross may decide to take legal action against those who have labeled him a murderer.

Vice President JD Vance said that Ross and all ICE officers have absolute federal immunity. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said Ross has “federal immunity.”

“The precedent here is very simple,” Vance said, according to CNN. “You have a federal law enforcement official engaging in federal law enforcement action – that’s a federal issue. That guy is protected by absolute immunity. He was doing his job.”

Legal experts disagree.

“The idea that a federal agent has absolute immunity for crimes they commit on the job is absolutely ridiculous,” said Michael J.Z. Mannheimer, a constitutional law expert, told CNN.

The Trump Department of Justice has said it will not open a civil rights investigation into Ross’ shooting of Good.

President Donald Trump claimed that Good was acting in a “disrespectful” manner while he defended the ICE officer.

READ MORE: Trump Declares Grocery Prices ‘Rapidly Down’ as Cost of Food Surges to 3-Year High

 

Image via Reuters 

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