On Monday, March 27, Audrey Hale, a 28-year-old woman who thought she was a man, shot her way into the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee. There Hale gunned down Evelyn Dieckhaus, 9, Mike Hill, 61, William Kinney, 9, Katherine Koonce, 60, Cynthia Peak, 61, and Hallie Scruggs, nine-year-old daughter of Chad Scruggs, who is senior pastor at the Covenant Presbyterian Church, on the same site as the Covenant School.
Hale, reportedly a former student, specifically targeted the place. The shooter used an AR-15–style rifle, a 9mm Kel-Tec SUB2000, and a 9mm Smith and Wesson M&P Shield EZ 2.0 handgun. Hale would have claimed many more victims but Nashville police took her down. She left behind a manifesto that could shed light on her motive for murdering three adults and three nine-year-old children. But trans activists oppose the public release of the manifesto.
“It should not be published,” Jordan Budd, the executive director of Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere (COLAGE), told Newsweek. “The focus should be on how this was able to happen in the first place. There should not be such easy access to deadly weaponry.”
Also weighing in was PFLAG, Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, “the first and largest organization dedicated to supporting, educating, and advocating for LGBTQ+ people and their families.” PFLAG’s Laura McGinnis told Newsweek that release of the manifesto could risk a “contagion” and “the contents don’t change the outcome of the tragedy.”
Charles Moran of Log Cabin Republicans, advocates for equal rights for LGBTQ+ Americans, warned of “serious consequences” if the manifesto was released to the public. Enter Nashville City Councilman Robert Swope, who worked as Tennessee state director for Donald Trump in 2016 and now heads the city council’s Public Safety, Beer and Regulated Beverages Committee.
Swope told the New York Post that the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit is working “in tandem with” the Metro Nashville Police Department to complete “a very in-depth analysis of certain aspects of the shooter’s life.” Which aspects Swope did not say.
According to the councilman, “the manifesto is going to be released. It’s just a matter of when. There are some incredibly brilliant psychological minds and psychological analysts combing through her entire life.” Relatives of the victims, meanwhile, have reason to be wary of FBI involvement.
Supposedly on guard against domestic terrorism and violent extremism, the FBI did nothing to prevent Audrey Hale from murdering six people, including three children. In similar style, the FBI did nothing to prevent terrorist mass murders at Fort Hood in 2009 (14 dead), San Bernardino in 2015 (14 dead), and Orlando in 2016 (49 dead).
On the other hand, the FBI does boast a record of altering documents. Consider Kevin Clinesmith, assistant general counsel in the National Security and Cyber Law Branch of the FBI’s Office of General Counsel in Washington, D.C.
As the Department of Justice explains, “Clinesmith was assigned to provide legal support to FBI personnel working on Crossfire Hurricane,” the FBI’s covert operation against President Trump. Trump advisor Carter Page was a source for an OGA, a U.S. government agency, specifically the CIA. Clinesmith altered an email to show that Page was “not a source.”
Clinesmith then “forwarded the email to the FBI Supervisory Special Agent (SSA), who “submitted the fourth FISA application to the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.”
In addition to forgery, the FBI is adept at concealing evidence in murder cases.
In February 2020, DHS whistleblower Philip Haney, author of See Something Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government’s Submission to Jihad, was found dead in Amador County, California. The local sheriff handed Haney’s computer, thumb drives, and other materials to the FBI.
As of this writing, the FBI has failed to make the material public, and at some point handed the investigation to the federal Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which determined that Haney’s devices contained “contraband.” As this implies, the murder victim was a secret criminal, allied with foreign actors. The Islamic terrorists Haney exposed would have motive to kill him, but no word from the FBI of any suspects.
The FBI was also unaware that James Hodgkinson, a Bernie Sanders supporter, was carefully tracking Republican legislators. On June 14, 2017, as the representatives played baseball, Hodgkinson opened fire on them with an SKS 7.62 rifle and a 9mm pistol, wounding five and nearly killing Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.).
The FBI, then under Andrew McCabe, determined that Hodgkinson’s attack was a “suicide by cop,” a ludicrous claim that drew criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike. Consider also the case of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich, a possible leaker of Hillary Clinton’s emails.
On July 17, 2016, Rich was gunned down on a Washington street. The FBI showed no interest in the basic questions of motive, means and opportunity, but quickly grabbed Rich’s laptop computer. In 2020, the bureau admitted that it possessed the computer and with the murder still unsolved the FBI seeks to delay release of the computer’s contents until 2088, a proxy for never.
For all but the willfully blind, the FBI is the KGB and secret police of the Biden junta. As such, the bureau is not exactly the best agency to analyze the Audrey Hale manifesto, which should have been released immediately, and in full. On Monday, April 3, a full week after the murders, Hale’s manifesto still had not been made public. As the American people await revelations, they have cause to wonder what the FBI knew, and when they knew it.
The “Trans Day of Vengeance,” slated for April 1, served up the prospect of more violence. In advance of this heavily promoted event, was the FBI tracking any person of interest who purchased an AR-15–style rifle or a 9mm Kel-Tec SUB2000?
With all its resources and allegedly brilliant analytical minds, was the FBI profiling anyone who issued threats against “transphobes” in general or Christian schools in particular? The aforementioned Fort Hood case gives the people cause to wonder.
In 2009, Major Nidal Hasan, a U.S. Army psychiatrist, was communicating with al-Qaeda terrorist Anwar al Awlaki about killing Americans. As Lessons from Fort Hood explains, the FBI knew all about it but someone in the Washington office judged Hasan was not a threat and called off the surveillance.
On November 5, 2009, at Fort Hood, Texas, yelling “Allahu akbar” as he fired, Hasan murdered 13 unarmed American soldiers, and the unborn child of Private Francheska Velez, bringing the count to 14 killed, with more than 30 wounded. The Obama Administration famously called this “workplace violence,” not terrorism or even gun violence.
“Jill and I join the President and Michelle in expressing our sympathies to the families of the brave soldiers who fell today,” said Vice President Biden in a statement. “We are all praying for those who were wounded and hoping for their full and speedy recovery. Our thoughts and prayers are also with the entire Fort Hood community as they deal with this senseless tragedy.”
No word of how they “fell.” The Delaware Democrat did not name the shooter and failed to name a single one of his victims. It was all just a “senseless tragedy.”
In his initial statement on Nashville, Biden said the shooting was “sick” and “heartbreaking” but likewise failed to name the shooter or a single one of her victims, including the three children. Murder victim Mike Hill was black, but no speculation that the shooter, a white woman, could have been motivated by racism. The target was a Christian school, but no speculation that the mass murder could have been a hate crime.
“We have to do more to stop gun violence,” said Biden, who called on Congress “to pass my assault weapons ban.” For the Delaware Democrat, as Victor Davis Hanson noted, “guns were the cause of the mass deaths, not the free will of a psychopathic killer.”
Three days after the murders, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre failed to name any of the victims or identify the shooter. The Biden mouthpiece did say “our hearts go out to the trans community as they are under attack right now.”
In the White House view, “the trans community” is the victim, not Evelyn Dieckhaus, Mike Hill, William Kinney, Katherine Koonce, Cynthia Peak, and Hallie Scruggs. Say their names. The struggle against trans violence is the struggle of memory against forgetting.