A tricky court case came to a close on Good Friday.

The Orlando Sentinel reported that Noor Salman, the widow of the Pulse nightclub shooter, was acquitted:

Jurors listened to eight days of testimony and found Salman, 31, not guilty of aiding and abetting Mateen’s providing of material support to a foreign terror organization and of obstruction of justice. The court has kept the names of jurors secret, and went as far as having them meet at a separate location away from the courthouse every day of the trial so U.S. marshals could drive them to the courthouse. The foreman asked to remain anonymous.

The Sentinel‘s report carries the jury foreman’s statement in full. This is the last paragraph (emphases mine):

I want to make several things very clear. A verdict of not guilty did NOT mean that we thought Noor Salman was unaware of what Omar Mateen was planning to do. On the contrary we were convinced she did know. She may not have known what day, or what location, but she knew. However, we were not tasked with deciding if she was aware of a potential attack. The charges were aiding and abetting and obstruction of justice. I felt the both the prosecution and the defense did an excellent job presenting their case. I wish that the FBI had recorded their interviews with Ms. Salman as there were several significant inconsistencies with the written summaries of her statements. The bottom line is that, based on the letter of the law, and the detailed instructions provided by the court, we were presented with no option but to return a verdict of not guilty.

Independent investigative Laura Loomer was not happy:

So were The_Donald’s contributors.

After the shooting, Noor Salman left Orlando and was arrested months later — January 2017 — in California. Her attorney said Salman was the victim of domestic abuse. She denied that Salman knew about plans for the mass shooting of 49 people. (Incidentally, the Daily Mail published an article about Salman shortly after the shooting which explains more about her upbringing and two marriages.)

For people who are upset about Noor Salman’s acquittal, here’s a reminder about the Boston bombing:

There is more to the Orlando case than meets the eye.

Here’s an interesting bit of news from Monday, March 26:

Although I respect Mike Cernovich’s journalism, I did not listen to his Periscope for lack of time.

However, Gateway Pundit‘s Lucian Wintrich did a stellar job in citing the various news reports about the allegation that the Orlando Pulse night club shooter’s father was working for the FBI.

The shooting took place on June 12, 2016. Who was in charge of the FBI at the time? None other than James Comey.

If the allegation is true and Seddique Mateen had been working for the FBI between 2005 and 2016, then Robert Mueller would likely have known about it as he was the director of the agency between 2001 and 2013.

Of the Periscope, Wintrich tells us:

Independent journalist Mike Cernovich has taken to Periscope to damn the FBI’s seeming complicity in the attacks, in line with their refusal to act on a series of domestic acts of terrorism such as the shooting in Parkland, Florida. The prosecution is seemingly shielding terrorist-tied Seddique Mateen, who was already under watch by the FBI, to prosecute Noor Salman; did the FBI have advanced knowledge of these attacks, and did Omar’s father Seddique Mateen encourage his son’s attack?

Let’s look at the articles Lucian Wintrich cites.

On March 26, 2018, when Salman’s defence team began presenting their case in court, CNN reported:

A judge has denied a motion for dismissal by lawyers for the widow of the Pulse gunman after they said new details from prosecutors reveal the shooter’s father was an FBI informant who is currently under a criminal investigation.

The judge said the fact that Omar Mateen’s father worked as an FBI informant was not relevant to the case against Noor Salman.

According to a motion filed by the defense, Assistant US Attorney Sara Sweeney sent an email to the defense on Saturday — in the middle of Salman’s trial — that stated Seddique Mateen was a confidential FBI source at various points in time between January 2005 through June 2016.

The email also stated that Seddique Mateen is being investigated for money transfers to Turkey and Afghanistan after documents were found in his home on June 12, 2016, the day of the Pulse attack. The dates of the money transfers were between March 16, 2016, and June 5, 2016, according to the email.

Salman’s lawyers argued that a failure to disclose this information violates her due process rights. They had no prior knowledge of this information.

Salman was charged with:

providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization and obstruction of justice, as prosecutors say she knew about the coming massacre. She has pleaded not guilty, and her defense team has cast her as a victim rather than an accomplice.

The defense began its case Monday.

CBS also carried a report that day:

Salman’s lawyers allege the new revelation prevented them from investigating whether or not Seddique Mateen knew of his son’s plans to attack the nightclub.

According to the motion, defense lawyers allege that the decision not to give Noor Salman a polygraph was possibly “based on the FBI’s desire to implicate Noor Salman, rather than Seddique Mateen in order to avoid scrutiny of its own ineptitude with the latter.”

“Mateen’s father played a significant role in the FBI’s decision not to seek an indictment from the Justice Department for false statements to the FBI or obstruction of justice against Omar Mateen” during its 2013 investigation into his alleged threats, the motion stated.

Meanwhile, attorneys in federal court Monday will try to convince jurors that Salman didn’t help her husband as he prepared for the attack on the gay nightclub.

The New York Post reported:

Her lawyers’ federal court motion filed Monday says prosecutors contacted them Saturday night and told them about Seddique Mateen’s relationship with the feds, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

“It is apparent from the Government’s belated disclosure that Ms. Salman has been defending a case without a complete set of facts and evidence that the Government was required to disclose,” attorney Fritz Scheller said in the court filing.

The motion was filed just hours before Salman’s lawyers were slated to begin presenting their case. The prosecution rested its case Thursday.

Seddique Mateen, who was on the government’s witness list, was never called to testify — though his wife, Shahla Mateen, did testify.

Also:

Had Salman’s defense attorneys known about those transfers, Scheller argued, they would have “investigated whether a tie existed between Seddique Mateen and his son, specifically whether Mateen’s father was involved in or had foreknowledge of the Pulse attack.”

That would be relevant to Salman’s defense, Scheller argued, because the government has claimed she helped her husband invent a cover story to tell his parents about where he was going the night prior to the mass shooting.

If Seddique Mateen had “some level of foreknowledge” about his son’s plot, a cover story “would have been completely unnecessary,” according to the motion.

Mike Cernovich has been discussing this case for some time. After Salman’s not-guilty verdict, he reiterated the information about the case (start at 6:23):

Cernovich went through a lot of information in the public domain. Notably, Mateen told his colleagues in 2013 that he was radicalised. Some of his colleagues went to the FBI at that time quoting what he said.

The FBI did nothing with that information because Seddique Mateen told them not to.

Cernovich also pointed out that the FBI received multiple warnings from the public about Nikolas Cruz’s weird behaviour. The FBI ignored those, too.

The FBI seems to be ignoring warnings about unhinged people.

And what about Seddique Mateen? Will the FBI now investigate him?

This looks like a case for FBI director Christopher Wray. Will he take action?