Judge Jeanine Pirro: And with me now the founder of the Investigative Project, Steve Emerson. All right Steve, welcome. A great night for you to be on. Alton Nolen's Facebook page. You've seen it. What does it tell you about him and what his intentions are?
Steve Emerson: His Facebook page is replete with statements, pictures that emphatically reveal his allegiance to radical Islam, his hatred of the United States, his support of 9/11 attacks, his support of killing Americans, his support of Osama bin Laden. It's a road map to his affiliation and his support to radical Islam. It's proof of the fact that he's a jihadist.
Judge Jeanine: So when you say that he has the markings of a jihadist, tell us why.
Emerson: Let me add a couple of other things here. Not only does the Facebook page prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt [that he was a jihadist], but the fact that his computers that were seized by law enforcement show that the websites he visited also revealed that he was looking at radical websites that were radical Islamic websites going for the killing of Americans. He was converted in jail to be a radical Muslim. The first step that is done by jihadists to prove, after when they start converting people, which he was doing, after he was released from jail, to prove that they can carry out acts of terrorism. So I'm looking at a scenario here, we don't know, let me say Jeanine, what actually prompted him to pop. He was fired from his job. We don't know that he was carrying out this beheading as a jihadist or that he was carrying it out because he was fired. But he carried it out as a jihadist in a jihadist manner, a decapitation which is an Islamic way.
But this guy was a ticking time bomb and I'm positive in saying this. That if he didn't carry out this attack now at this point he would have done it in the future. And there are tens of thousands of others like him lurking outside, in the United States who haven't done this but are jihadists and are just waiting to do it. And that's the problem. Because as you know as a judge, you need a criminal predicate in order to charge somebody. Just because they express their support for jihad and willingness to kill, you can't charge them, you can't open up an investigation.
Judge Jeanine: Of course not, but Steve let me say that it is the intent, it's the circumstances surrounding the crime both before and after that give us some sense of what the individual was thinking. And I think for the American people they're wondering if this is a carrying out of a jihadi, a lone wolf carrying out his own jihad or if this is something bigger than that. But make no mistake Steve, this guy is imprisoned and actually tried to escape from detention and did escape. He was charged with assaulting an officer. He just got out of state prison. And we're going to talk a little later in the show about the radicalization of some of our inmates to Islam based upon what they're learning in prison. But with this case, how do we know whether or not his trying to recruit other people to join Islam is indicative f his being a jihadist?
Emerson: Well first of all there were profiles done [by the FBI and CIA] a couple years ago about Muslim inmates who are converted to Islam and what they actually do in prison and what they do after they get out of prison. The first thing they do out of prison in order to prove their loyalty to Islam is to actually try to convert people to Islam to prove that they are true Muslims. The second thing they do after they prove that is to do other steps [that prove they can be trusted to carry out terrorist acts]. I believe this [current situation] is going to lead to other people involved, [like] somebody who was running this guy frankly.
Number two, I believe that if we find out that he popped or that he carried out this killing because he was angry about being fired, [that] if he wasn't fired he would have [ultimately] carried out…[sometime] else, a jihadist killing, because he was a radical jihadist that believed in killing Americans. And frankly Jeanine, there are tens of thousands of others like him in this country. I have no doubt that we are going to see other things like this, like are going on around the world. We are entering a global jihad. And the fact is this administration, the Attorney General, the White House, they have banned the use of the term 'Islamic terrorism.' He, [the] Attorney General who is retiring should be tried on obstruction of justice because I can tell you, [and] this is not publicly known, he has quashed the indictments of terrorist charges against known terrorist charities because he didn't want to alienate Islamic communities in the US.
Judge Jeanine: I wish I had more time Steve to talk to you about that. Steve Emerson, thanks so much for being with us this evening.
Emerson: You're welcome.