Background Briefing on Christmas Day Terror Plot

Senior State Department officials gave the press a briefing today following the release of the White House review of the Christmas Day terror plot. It shed some light on the question of why the State Department did not immediately know that Abdulmutallab had a U.S. visa, and why the lack of that knowledge wasn't really pertinent to the matter of why the visa wasn't revoked before he got on his flight to the U.S.

Read the entire briefing here. A few quotes:

QUESTION: The one thing that the report says about the State Department is that there was a misspelling of the name. Whose misspelling was that?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Okay. There was --

QUESTION: Where?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Someone checked, and I’m not going to go into who, but some --

QUESTION: No, no, no. I’m asking which agency, not which specific person.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: State Department. State Department checked to see if the person had a visa. There was a dropped letter in that – there was a misspelling. They used a very – they checked the system. It didn’t come back positive. And so for a while, no one knew that this person had a visa.

-- snip --

QUESTION: So, wait, can I just finish my question? So I’m not – so when it went to NCTC, then they spelled it right and you realized that he had a visa?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Yes.

QUESTION: So you’re just saying for like a week or so, or a couple of weeks?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: No – I don’t know if anyone – I don’t think anyone – no one may have checked for a visa until Christmas Day.

-- Snip --

QUESTION: Do you think that the misspelling of the name and not finding the fact that he had a visa had anything to do with whether he would be classified a PB3 [potential terrorist] or a B3 [terrorist]?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: No. Well, P3B was put in because there was a possibility, because he’s –

QUESTION: Right.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: -- the interview. As far as being anything else, no, I don’t think there was – I don’t think the not knowing that he didn’t have a visa, not reporting that – and the report says that. It says: “A determination to revoke his visa, however, would have only occurred if there had been a successful integration of the intelligence by the CT community, resulting in his being watch-listed.” So --

QUESTION: So even if he was he was spelled – even if it was spelled right and you knew he had a visa, he still wouldn’t have been – it still wouldn’t have been revoked?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: That’s correct.

-- Snip --

QUESTION: Isn’t – actually, isn’t the visa issue kind of a bit of a red herring here, because –

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: That’s – exactly.

QUESTION: If he had made – if he had gotten onto the 3B list, it doesn’t matter if he had a visa or not; he wouldn’t have been able to get on the plane.

QUESTION: That’s right.