Category: Bureaucraps

Former Career US Diplomat Charged With Secretly Spying for Cuban Intelligence for Decades

MIAMI (AP) — A former career American diplomat was charged with serving as a secret agent for communist Cuba going back decades in what prosecutors portrayed as one of the most brazen and long-running betrayals in the history of the U.S. foreign service.

Manuel Rocha wept as he sat handcuffed in Miami federal court on charges that he engaged in “clandestine activity” on Cuba’s behalf since at least 1981 — the year he joined the U.S. foreign service — including by meeting with Cuban intelligence operatives and providing false information to U.S. government officials about his contacts.

The complaint unsealed Monday is short on specifics of how Rocha may have assisted Cuba. But it provides a vivid case study of what American officials say are long-standing efforts by Cuba and its notoriously sophisticated intelligence services to target U.S. government officials who can be flipped.

“This action exposes one of the highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the United States government by a foreign agent,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “To betray that trust by falsely pledging loyalty to the United States while serving a foreign power is a crime that will be met with the full force of the Justice Department.”

The 73-year-old Rocha, whose two-decade career as a U.S. diplomat included top posts in Bolivia, Argentina and the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, was arrested by the FBI at his Miami home Friday. He was ordered held following Monday’s brief court appearance pending a bond hearing Wednesday. His attorney declined to comment.

The Justice Department did not reveal how Rocha attracted the attention of Cuba’s intelligence operatives nor did it describe what, if any, sensitive information he may have provided while working for the State Department and in a lucrative post-government career that included a stint as a special adviser to the commander of U.S. Southern Command.

This image provided by the Justice Department and contained in the affidavit in support of a criminal complaint, shows Manuel Rocha. The Justice Department says Rocha, a former American diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, has been charged with serving as a covert agent for Cuba's intelligence services since at least 1981. Newly unsealed court papers allege that Manuel Rocha engaged in "clandestine activity" on Cuba's behalf for decades, including by meeting with Cuban intelligence operatives. (Justice Department via AP)

This image provided by the Justice Department and contained in the affidavit in support of a criminal complaint, shows Manuel Rocha. The Justice Department says Rocha, a former American diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, has been charged with serving as a covert agent for Cuba’s intelligence services since at least 1981. Newly unsealed court papers allege that Manuel Rocha engaged in “clandestine activity” on Cuba’s behalf for decades, including by meeting with Cuban intelligence operatives. (Justice Department via AP)

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The FBI Stole Millions From Individuals Who Were Not Charged With a Crime – the Victims Are Suing

An FBI raid on private safe deposit boxes has triggered a significant legal battle over civil asset forfeiture and the lengths to which federal authorities can use the practice, which has often been referred to as “Policing for Profit.”

The outcome of the court proceedings could turn this into a landmark case that helps to further define the parameters in which federal law enforcement can use the controversial procedure.

FBI agents cataloged Cartier bracelets, Rolex watches and stacks of cash as they combed through safe deposit boxes seized from a Beverly Hills business accused of money laundering. But the owners of many of those boxes were not accused of any crimes.

After hearing arguments from both sides Thursday, a panel of judges from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will decide whether the sweeping raid violated customers’ Fourth Amendment rights.

“I think the public sees this and recognizes that this is just a total abuse of people’s constitutional rights,” Institute for Justice senior attorney Rob Johnson told Fox News, adding that he felt “extremely optimistic” about the panel’s forthcoming decision.

On March 22, 2021, the FBI seized around 1,400 safe deposit boxes from U.S. Private Vaults, a Beverly Hills–based company that, according to court documents, was regularly used by “unsavory characters to store criminal proceeds.”

Agents took about $86 million in cash from the boxes, as well as a trove of jewelry, gold bars and coins, silver and other valuables. In May of that year, the FBI “commenced administrative forfeiture proceedings” against an unspecified number of the boxes, according to court documents.

The procedure the FBI used to seize this property is known as civil asset forfeiture, which empowers local, state, and federal governments to take a citizen’s property if they suspect that it has been used to commit a crime. In many states and at the federal level, one does not have to be convicted – or even charged – with a crime for officers to seize the property.

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Apple Reveals Governments Use App Notifications to Surveil Users

In a chilling revelation that feels all too familiar, Apple has confirmed that governments are using push notifications for the surveillance of users — an imposition on personal freedoms and a glaring example of state overreach.

This unsettling news was disclosed in response to Senator Ron Wyden’s urgent communication to the Department of Justice. Wyden highlighted that foreign officials have been pressuring technology companies for data to track smartphones via apps that send notifications.

These apps, he noted, put tech companies in a pivotal role to assist in governmental monitoring of app usage.

Senator Wyden urged the Department of Justice to alter or revoke any existing policies that restrict public discourse on the surveillance of push notifications.

In a reaction to this, Apple stated to Reuters that Wyden’s letter presented them with an opportunity to divulge more information about government monitoring of push notifications. The tech giant clarified, “In this case, the federal government prohibited us from sharing any information. Now that this method has become public we are updating our transparency reporting to detail these kinds of requests.”

The letter from Wyden reportedly stemmed from a “tip” about this surveillance activity. An informed source confirmed that both foreign and US agencies have been requesting metadata related to notifications from Apple and Google. This metadata has been allegedly used to link anonymous messaging app users to specific accounts on these platforms.

While the source, speaking to Reuters, did not specify which governments were involved, they characterized them as “democracies allied to the United States” and were uncertain about the duration of these requests.

“In this case, the federal government prohibited us from sharing any information,” Apple said in a statement. “Now that this method has become public we are updating our transparency reporting to detail these kinds of requests.”

Apple, meanwhile, has advised app developers to refrain from including sensitive data in notifications and to encrypt any data before it is incorporated into a notification payload.

However, this relies on the developers’ initiative. Importantly, metadata such as the frequency and origin of notifications remains unencrypted, potentially offering insights into users’ app activities to those who can access this data.

The news, which is hardly unexpected yet nonetheless deeply troubling, underscores the precarious path we seem to be treading, one that veers ominously towards policies that infringe on civil liberties.

The key cog in a functioning democracy, our judicial system, and its informed oversight exists precisely to prevent such oversteps. It endows a suspected individual with the crucial right to mount a robust defense against unwarranted infiltration by the state government. Alarmingly, the situation at hand eerily mirrors scenarios where private entities and individuals are strong-armed into being active partners in such covert operations, all the while being legally bound to cryptic silence.

Meet the new FISA, same as the old FISA
Question O’ The Day
Wonder what dirt does the DOJ have on him?

Mike Johnson Backtracks, Caves to Deep State, Democrats on Slipping FBI Spy Power Reauthorization into Defense Bill

Speaker Mike Johson (R-LA) backtracked and caved to the deep state and Democrats, moving to slip a deep state authorization into the defense bill.

Reports say that congressional leaders, including Johnson, agreed to put an extension of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The bill would extend Section 702 until April 19.

Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) released a video statement after she said that leadership asked conferees, which includes herself, to agree to the 3000-plus page NDAA, which is “being released behind closed doors without even getting time to read it!”

The Peach State conservative blamed Johnson for negotiating with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to “cut a deal” that would contain prohibitions against funding for abortion and “trans surgery prohibitions” that were in the House-passed NDAA under former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).

She explained:

It also would pass a CLEAN FISA extension. Not to mention, more of your taxpayer dollars sent to Ukraine to fund the proxy war. No member of the NDAA conference had any influence on this process. It was done in secret meetings with no input from conferees. Now, we’re supposed to just grin and take it with no say in the final bill. Is the GOP really going to fund abortion vacations and trans surgeries, fund the Ukraine war, all with a CLEAN FISA extension under Speaker Johnson?

This was a total sell-out of conservative principles and a huge win for Democrats.

Congratulations to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, you should all be excited to vote for this!

I’m a HELL NO! [Emphasis added]

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene / X

The news comes as a shock to many of those who were most intimately involved in crafting solutions to reform Section 702, a controversial surveillance law that Republicans and Democrats, progressives and conservatives, want to reform.

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Christopher Wray Says FBI Couldn’t Admit Hunter Biden Laptop Was Real Because it Was ‘An Election Season’

Senator John Kennedy grilled FBI Director Christopher Wray in the Senate on Tuesday, demanding to know why the agency did not come out and say that Hunter Biden’s laptop “was real” when it was reported on by the New York Post in October 2020. The FBI had known about the existence of the laptop for nearly a year before the contents were made public. Despite this, the FBI had warned Twitter execs to be on the lookout for potential Russian disinformation, such as a hypothetical Hunter Biden laptop.

“Why didn’t the FBI just say ‘hey, the laptop’s real?’ Why didn’t you just tell everybody ‘the laptop’s for real. We’re not vouching for what’s on it, but it’s real. This isn’t a fiction.'” Kennedy asked Wray.

“Well, I, as you might imagine,” Wray replied, “the FBI cannot, especially in a time like that, be talking about an ongoing investigation. Second, I would tell you that at least my understanding is that both the FBI folks involved in the conversations and the Twitter folks involved in the conversations, both say that the FBI did not direct Twitter to suppress that particular story.”

“But others were in government,” Kennedy said.

“Again, I can’t speak to others in government. That’s part of the point that I was trying to make because the—”

“You’re the FBI,” Kennedy interrupted, “you’re not part of the White House and part of Homeland Security. You’re not supposed to be political. You see all this controversy going on? Why didn’t the FBI say ‘timeout folks, we’re not getting in the middle of this but the laptop is real.'”

“Again, we have to be very careful about what we can say— especially in the middle of an election season— because that’s precisely some of the problems that led to my predecessor’s negative findings from the inspector general,” Wray said.

The laptop was widely derided as having been Russian disinformation. This messaging came from the Biden campaign, was disseminated from there to the intelligence community, and was picked up as fact by mainstream media outlets, many of which had to go on to eat their words as it was proven, again and again, that the contents belonged to Hunter Biden.

In addition to cracked-out photos of the younger Biden, his genitals, and his dates, the laptop contained potential evidence of influence peddling, information about the Biden family business, emails, correspondence, and more. This material has been used as a starting point for Republicans to investigate the Bidens’ relationship to foreign business partners and to insinuate that Joe Biden has been guilty of selling the power of his office during his time as Vice President in Barack Obama’s White House.

Quip O’ The Day
“Ooh no, not their performance reviews!!!! The horror!”

 

Fifth Circuit Denies ATF’s Request For Stay on the Districts Courts FRT Injunction

After what seems like a year of defeats for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in the courts, the ATF keeps losing. This time, it is forced reset triggers (FRT).

The case, National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) v. Merrick Garland, was filed by Rare Breed Triggers and NAGR in a Texas Federal District Court challenging the ATF’s opinion that forced reset triggers such as the Rare Breed FRT-15 are machine guns. The ATF has been sending out letters to and visiting owners of the triggers demanding that the users turn over the items to the ATF or face possible charges for violating the National Firearms Act of 1934. At least three people have been charged with NFA violations for having FRTs. A conviction for violating the NFA could carry a penalty of up to ten years of imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.

Federal District Court Judge Reed O’Connor ruled in early October that the plaintiffs had proven that they were likely to succeed on the merits of the case. Judge O’Connor issued a preliminary injunction (PI) barring the ATF from taking enforcement actions over forced reset triggers. The ATF appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and asked the court to stay the lower court’s decision.

The Fifth Circuit has now reviewed the ATF’s motion and denied the requested stay, meaning the injunction will remain in place for now, protecting the public from the ATF taking enforcement actions over Rare Breed’s FRT-15. The Circuit Court believed the defendants didn’t meet the requirements for a stay on the injunction.

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17 governors call on Biden, Yellen, congressional leaders to prevent foreign adversaries from buying US land

Joint Governors Letter CCP

Republican Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is leading a letter with 16 of her fellow GOP governors, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, to the Biden administration and congressional leaders in both chambers to tackle the growing issue of China buying American land.

“But national security demands a national response from national leaders,” they continued. “The responsibility is now with you – follow the lead of our States and prevent CCP amassing of American lands.”

The governors noted that it “is no secret the communist regime in China is acquiring swaths of real property throughout the United States” and that very recently, a subsidiary of a Chinese-controlled company “bought two hundred and seventy acres of land in Green Charter Township, Michigan, not far from the Camp Grayling National Guard facility.”

“Unfortunately, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States declined to block – or even review – this plainly alarming transaction,” the governors wrote.

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Former Kentucky FBI agent pleads guilty to federal charges, admits taking guns from storage

A former Central Kentucky FBI agent pleaded guilty Monday to federal charges after he illegally took guns from an FBI storage office, according to court records.

Michael Van Aelstyn, 45, pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and possessing an unregistered firearm, according to court documents. He was originally charged with possession of a firearm made in violation of the National Firearms Act, possession of an unregistered firearm, and unlawful transfer of a firearm to an out-of-state resident, according to a May indictment.

Van Aelstyn is alleged to have removed two illegal firearms from a suspect’s home, transported them to an FBI office for storage, and later removed them from the evidence room, taking them to his residence, according to court documents.

Van Aelstyn also gave an AM-15 multi-caliber rifle to a man identified in court documents as “MH,” and told him “he should not let anyone else know the source of that firearm.”

Another gun, a Cugir Mini Draco pistol, was allegedly destroyed by Van Aelstyn and thrown away, according to court documents.

Van Aelstyn also illegally possessed a 20-gauge Winchester shotgun with a sawed-off barrel, which was not registered in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record, according to the plea deal.

His attorney, Thomas Bullock, declined to comment Tuesday.

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ATF Violates Agreed Upon Timeline By Filing For An Appeal In Pistol Brace Case

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has filed a notice of appeal in a case challenging its rule against pistol braces (FINAL RULE 2021R-08F). Gun Owners of America (GOA) filed a motion for summary judgment a day later.

The case, Texas v. ATF, is a joint effort between GOA, Gun Owners Foundation (GOF), and the state of Texas to take down the ATF’s pistol brace rule.

Just a day before the ATF rule was due to go into effect, Federal District Court Judge Drew Tipton for the Southern District of Texas issued a preliminary injunction (PI) for all GOA members, barring the ATF from taking enforcement actions against them. This ruling came on the heels of the Mock v. Garland Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that blocked enforcement of the rule on Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) members. Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) also got a preliminary injunction against the rule before the rule’s effective date.

“For these reasons, the Court GRANTS IN PART Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction, (Dkt. No. 16). Defendants are ENJOINED from enforcing the Final Rule against the private Plaintiffs in this case, including its current members and their resident family members, and individuals employed directly by the State of Texas or its agencies. The preliminary injunction will remain in effect pending resolution of the expedited appeal in Mock v. Garland,” the order reads.

Since then, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has expanded the injunction to cover everyone in the nation, effectively killing the ATF’s rule. Before that happened, according to GOA, all parties agreed to the timeline in the Texas v. ATF case.

It is unlikely that the Fifth Circuit of Appeals would overturn Judge Tipton’s decision. The Fifth Circuit is openly hostile to the ATF’s use of the rule-making process.

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Incremental Strategy to Reform & Repeal the National Firearms Act

Previously, this correspondent wrote an essay on Incrementalism v. “all or nothing”. It was well-received:

Roland T. Gunner ~ “Mr. Weingarten, I take my hat off to you. This article is the best thing I have read in modern memory. Now, tell me, how do we get incremental movement on repealing the NFA? And for all you naysayers, sit down, shut up, or help us get it done.”

Incremental movement is happening to dismantle the National Firearms Act (NFA), bit by bit. The ultimate goal is repeal.

Here is how it is being done, and what needs to be done in the future.

Educate Gun Culture & The General Public

When people understand the NFA is the result of a political compromise that did nothing to stop crime; but results in thousands of Americans being punished for peaceful acts, support for the NFA drops to politically irrelevant numbers. Support for the NFA is fairly wide, but very shallow, propped up by the dominant Media and their creation and proliferation of false narratives.

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Redefining Adulthood to Deny Second Amendment Rights

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Why Does My ‘Efficient’ Dishwasher Take a Zillion Minutes for a Load?

For months, Donna King experimented with the various settings of her washing machine, trying to get her clothes to stop coming out covered in detergent residue. In the era of tightening water and energy standards, King thinks the machine just doesn’t use enough water, with clothes emerging nearly dry to the touch.

Counting down the hours

She regularly runs her T-shirts through the machine a second time. The hairstylist in Oak Ridge, Tenn., sometimes brings laundry loads into work to use the heavy duty setup there.
“I’m all for saving the environment but this ain’t the way to do it, if you got to do something two or three times,” the 59-year-old said. “The standard is great on paper, but when it comes to practical and real life situations, it’s a bunch of s—.”
King hacked her machine with a water pitcher—she now adds seven or more pitchers filled with water to the machine, both at the start and midway through the cycle. That extra water tricks the machine into thinking there is a bigger load, so the washer adds even more water.

Donna King hacked her high efficiency washing machine by manually adding water. PHOTO: DONNA KING

King says her clothes now come out cleaner. “There is nothing convenient about any of it,” she said.
Other consumers are also MacGyvering workarounds for their modern home appliances, as planned and current regulations make it harder and slower to wash pots, clean pants and boil pasta.
The Biden administration has proposed tightening federal water and energy use standards further for numerous home appliances, including refrigerators and ovens, in an effort to combat climate change and save consumers money. Under a proposed rule, dishwashers would be allowed to use around 3.2 gallons of water a cycle, down from 5 gallons currently. Appliance makers and environmental groups have put forward a joint proposal for less stringent efficiency increases.

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How to Fix Damage Done to 2nd Amendment by Joe Biden

The Biden-Harris administration has done more harm to the Second Amendment than all previous administrations combined. Biden and his unelected, behind-the-scenes shot-callers have been methodical in their multifaceted war on our civil rights.

The next administration — if it’s one that actually respects the law and its citizens — will have a lot of work to do to restore the Second Amendment to what the Framers had in mind. It will be a daunting task. The Biden-Harris administration has hammered law-abiding Americans with dozens of infringements — aided and abetting by the legacy media and a variety of anti-civil rights groups, some of which received taxpayer dollars.

What follows is a list of suggestions for how to restore our civil rights. The list is neither complete nor comprehensive. It’s more of a starting point and, unlike the Constitution, a living document. It includes actions that can be taken immediately and long-term goals that may require Congressional support.

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Of course they do, they’re bureaucraps

National Transportation Safety Board Calls For Speed-Limiting Tech in Cars.

The National Transportation Safety Bureau (NTSB) is an independent review agency in the federal government. They’re the group which get called when a plane crashes, or a train goes off the rails, or, in this particular case, when a speeding car crashes into a minivan in North Las Vegas and nine people die from this one wreck alone, as happened in 2022. After reviewing that wreck, the NTSB recommends that our cars warn us, inhibit us, or prevent us from speeding.

The NTSB said on Tuesday that the 2022 North Las Vegas crash “highlights [the] need for intelligent speed assistance technology and countermeasures including interlock program for repeat speeding offenders.” What is intelligent speed assistance technology? Here is the clarification, direct from the NTSB press release:

Intelligent speed assistance technology, or ISA, uses a car’s GPS location compared with a database of posted speed limits and its onboard cameras to help ensure safe and legal speeds. Passive ISA systems warn a driver when the vehicle exceeds the speed limit through visual, sound, or haptic alerts, and the driver is responsible for slowing the car. Active systems include mechanisms that make it more difficult, but not impossible, to increase the speed of a vehicle above the posted speed limit and those that electronically limit the speed of the vehicle to fully prevent drivers from exceeding the speed limit.

It is not the NTSB’s role to carry out this recommendation. it is not a policy-making body. It is just an agency that reviews transportation disasters, figures out how they happened, and makes recommendations on how to keep them from happening.

The wreck itself that spurred this recommendation was particularly egregious but little about it sounds surprising. As the NTSB report notes, a driver and passenger in a 2018 Dodge Challenger ran a red light at 103 mph, hitting a Toyota Sienna with seven people inside. The light had been red for 29 seconds. All nine people died.

As the NTSB notes, some 12,330 people died in speeding-related crashes in 2021 alone, roughly a third of all traffic deaths in the U.S. What is abundantly clear is that something needs to change, and we all know that relying on cops to pull people over isn’t working for anybody.

The Gun Joe Biden Doesn’t Want You To Have Just Protected His Own Granddaughter

Secret Service reportedly opened fire Sunday night on three suspects attempting to break into an unmarked government vehicle parked in front of the Georgetown home of Naomi Biden, President Joe Biden’s granddaughter. Reports allege that the three offenders fled the scene after the gunfire started.

These types of scenarios are exactly why Americans advocate for the Second Amendment, but unfortunately, not all citizens have the same protection the Biden family is afforded.

Residents of Washington, D.C., are forced to navigate an onslaught of regulation and red tape before they can use firearms for self-preservation. According to D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department, residents have the “authority to carry firearm[s]” only in “certain places and for certain purposes.” Concealed carry requires a variety of applications and training, while “open carry is prohibited.”

MPDC / DC POLICE DEPARTMENT WEBSITE

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When some jihadi makes a spectacle of himself, don’t forget to put the blame where it belongs; a goobermint and its open border policy

FBI Director Confirms Hamas-Led Threats Against Americans in the U.S. Now at ‘Whole Other Level’

FBI Director Christopher Wray testified Wednesday before the House Committee on Homeland Security and revealed that, due to the Israel-Hamas war, “The threat of an attack against Americans in the United States” has been raised “to a whole other level.”

In his prepared remarks, Wray provided more context to those threats: “Since October 7th, we’ve seen a rogue’s gallery of foreign terrorist organizations call for attacks against Americans and our allies. Hizballah expressed its support and praise for Hamas and threatened to attack U.S. interests in the Middle East. Al-Qaida issued its most specific call to attack the United States in the last five years. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula called on jihadists to attack Americans and Jewish people everywhere. ISIS urged its followers to target Jewish communities in the United States and Europe.”

In short, Americans are under threat both at home and abroad; not surprisingly, Jews are most at risk from these threats.

During questioning from the House panel, Wray admitted that the threats could be tied to pro-Hamas elements and global bad actors.

WATCH:

TRANSCRIPT:

Certainly we’re in an environment where a number of tips and threats that are being reported to us have gone up significantly since October 7. We are already, as I testified earlier, already at an elevated threat environment even before October 7, and it’s gone to a whole other level since October 7.

The biggest chunks of the threats that have been reported in to us, but a good margin, are threats to the Jewish community. Synagogues, Jewish prominent officials, things like that. We also have a large number of tips and leads related specifically to Hamas and radicalization and recruitment.

As RedState has previously reported, Jews make up 2.4 percent of the total U.S. population but are the target of more than 50 percent of the religiously motivated hate crimes reported to the FBI. And this was before the October 7 massacre.

Worryingly, Wray also admitted at the Wednesday hearing that there are individuals on the terror watch list who may have slipped into the U.S. illegally and whose whereabouts are currently unknown. Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX) asked Wray, “Are there people that you don’t where they are that the FBI is searching for today? Yes or no?” Wray responded with a simple, “Yes.”

Despite Wray’s confirmation that threats against Americans by Hamas sympathizers have seen a dramatic rise in the past six weeks, the official threat level of the United States has not been raised since May 24:

The United States remains in a heightened threat environment. Lone offenders and small groups motivated by a range of ideological beliefs and personal grievances continue to pose a persistent and lethal threat to the Homeland. Both domestic violent extremists (DVEs) and those associated with foreign terrorist organizations continue to attempt to motivate supporters to conduct attacks in the Homeland, including through violent extremist messaging and online calls for violence.

It’s worth reading Wray’s entire prepared statement; surprisingly, there are a lot of good nuggets in there about the precise nature and targets of these threats.

Here we go again
Same old *stuff* again…..

Gunman suspected of killing Texas SWAT cop and 2 hostages was reportedly on FBI terror watchlist.

The gunman who killed Texas SWAT Officer Jorge Pastore in a shootout that also left two hostages dead was wearing body armor and night vision goggles — and was on the FBI’s terror watchlist, according to reports.

A search warrant for the suspect’s south Austin home — the scene of Saturday’s deadly shootout — unearthed bomb-making materials inside, calling for help from the FBI’s Evidence Recovery Team, according to KXAN.

“Cutting instruments, body armor and any tactical gear to include firearms were all said to be worn or used by the suspect,” reads the warrant, which noted that it’s “not uncommon for people with a gun, body armor or night vision to make homemade explosives.”

Neither the suspect nor the dead hostages had been officially identified as of early Wednesday.

However, a local organization called the Round Rock Area Muslims said they were all family members of a “beloved brother” who was well-known in the local community.

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