Farmer was NJ’s attorney general when 9/11 happened.
AB Wire
John J. Farmer Jr., the New Jersey attorney general when the 9/11 terrorist attacks happened, has said that he ordered an investigation the same day, into reports that Muslims were dancing in the streets of Jersey City and Paterson on Sept. 11, 2001, to celebrate the destruction of the World Trade Center, but found it to be bogus.
Farmer comments, reported by The New York Times, on Tuesday, was in response to comments made by Donald Trump in Birmingham, Ala., on Saturday, when he said that “thousands and thousands of people were cheering” while the World Trade Center towers fell on Sept. 11, 2001.
“Hey, I watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down. And I watched in Jersey City, N.J., where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering,” said Trump.
Reporters were unable to find any evidence for his story, but Mr. Trump stuck with it in a television interview on Sunday. “It did happen,” he said. “I saw it. It was on television.”
Few people, if any, could address the circumstances more definitively than Mr. Farmer, who went on to serve as senior counsel to the federal Sept. 11commission, reported the Times.
Farmer said he was in the state’s command center, in Liberty State Park in Jersey City, directly across the Hudson River from the burning wreckage of the trade center, on Sept. 11, 2001. The New Jersey State Police radio antenna had been on top of one of the towers, cutting off communications.
“We were forced to rely on runners for intelligence about what was happening across the river and in New Jersey,” Farmer said. Open jubilation at the mass death, Farmer said, might quickly be followed by rioting and more deaths. “If true, we would have had to mobilize the State Police and National Guard and locked the place down,” he said.
“We followed up on that report instantly because of its implications,” he added. “The word came back quickly from Jersey City, later from Paterson. False report. Never happened.”
The Times noted in the report: “Political campaigns are notorious for the damage they do to truth, but Mr. Trump’s presidential run has erased any boundary lines that would segregate rumors, facts, mistakes and outright falsehoods. This month, he posted a graphic on Twitter that purported to show that 81 percent of white murder victims were killed by blacks; in fact, 82 percent of whites are murdered by whites.”
Confronted by Bill O’Reilly of Fox News, Trump essentially shrugged: “I retweeted somebody that was supposedly an expert, and it was also a radio show.” He has said, variously, that 200,000 or 250,000 Syrian refugees would be coming to the United States; the Obama administration’s actual goal for next year is 10,000, as FactCheck.org reported.
Farmer said that isolating and stigmatizing Muslims now, whatever its short-term political appeal, would spawn more alienated Muslim youth and potential recruits for the Islamic State.
“Whatever the message, it is just plain wrong to cite thousands of Muslims dancing in Jersey City or Paterson on 9/11 as support,” Farmer said. “That simply never happened.”
1 Comment
As a Muslim who lived in Washington in 2001 and appreciated the beauty and sincerity of American people, I can confirm that this is a load of CROCK. Everytime this embarassing presidential candidate opens his mouth, he lives up to his name and TRUMPs the previous CROCK. It is truly a sad reflection on the people supporting such an egotistical and bigoted candidate. He lives a lavish fairytale life on the back of all those who bailed him out of his misfortunes when he liquidated multiple of his companies that failed.
So please American voters – shut him up and stop any further embarrassment to your nation.