CLEVELAND – Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump should take a “more targeted approach” instead of temporarily banning Muslims from traveling to the U.S.
Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and McCaul advised Trump to move away from a general ban.
“Well, [Rudy] Giuliani, Judge [Michael] Mukasey and I advised him on this. You can’t ban all Muslims from coming in so you have to have a targeted vetting approach toward where the threats really are and coming out of, and I think that’s where he’s pivoted to and I think that’s a better approach,” McCaul told PJM at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland at the Republican National Convention.
Before the Orlando terrorist attack, McCaul revealed that the FBI was investigating more than 1,000 homegrown terror cases. He said the federal government has to find ways to shut down ISIS online communications.
“We have to close off all terrorist pathways into the United States. We also need to look at this Internet radicalization phenomenon and find ways to shut down their Internet communications so they can’t radicalize. Most of these cases involve radicalization from within the United States,” he said.
The Orlando shooter was investigated numerous times by the FBI before the attack. McCaul was asked if there is a new law that needs to be created to stop suspected terrorists from carrying out attacks. He suggested allowing the FBI to keep their investigations open for longer.
According to the Los Angeles Times, a preliminary investigation into a suspected terrorist can only run six months with the possibility of a six-month extension.
“You’ve got to operate under the Constitution predication to detain somebody, but in these cases if they change some of the policies within the Justice Department, the AG guidelines, they could leave these cases open longer so if something else came up they could know about it and try to stop it,” he said.
“There are so many of these out there and what keeps you up at night are the ones you don’t know about,” he added.
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