IRS currently employing convicted associate of jihad terrorist

This is insane, but it is also completely consistent with the way that the Obama Administration has operated from the beginning. It purged counter-terror trainers who spoke honestly about jihad terror (including me) from counter-terror training programs, while turning a blind eye to the unsavory connections of people like Mohammed Elibiary and Arif Alikhan.

“(EXCLUSIVE) IRS Currently Employing Convicted Terrorist Associate,” by Patrick Poole for PJ Media, March 6 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):

While IRS officials were targeting Tea Party groups for special scrutiny of their 501(c)3 tax exempt applications, the IRS also hired a policeman who had been prosecuted by the Justice Department — and convicted in federal court — of using his access to the FBI’s NCIC system to tip off a terror suspectabout the bureau’s surveillance. The leak wrecked a major terror investigation.

He is still at the IRS.

Weiss Russell (he has changed his name from “Weiss Rasool,” the name under which he was convicted), is currently employed as a financial management analyst in the IRS Deputy Chief Financial Officer’s Office.

In 2008, Russell/Rasool was prosecuted for his role in tipping off Abdullah Alnoshan, a close associate of al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and a friend of Russell’s from their mosque. According to the Justice Department’s Statement of Facts filed at the time of Russell’s indictment, Alnoshan provided license plate numbers to Russell for cars he believed were conducting surveillance on him. Russell then checked those plate numbers in the FBI’s NCIC database, which came back to a leasing company which federal prosecutors claimed would have tipped off Russell to the bureau’s surveillance.

He left a phone message for Alnoshan that the FBI intercepted.

Prosecutors also claimed that on more than a dozen instances, Russell checked his name, the names of relatives, and other friends to see if they were listed on the Violent Crime and Terrorist Offender File on NCIC without an authorized reason for doing so.

According to the Washington Post, Russell’s tip-off to Alnoshan actively obstructed their investigation:

The target was arrested in November 2005, then convicted and deported, according to court filings in Rasool’s case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeanine Linehan said that the target and his family were already dressed and destroying evidence at 6 a.m. when agents arrived to make the arrest, indicating that they had been tipped off.

Alnoshan was deported to Saudi Arabia in December 2005. Russell was indicted in January 2008, and pleaded guilty in April 2008.

While prosecutors had requested jail time for Russell after he failed a polygraph just a week before sentencing, the judge sentenced him to two years of probation. He continued on the Fairfax County police force while an internal affairs investigation was conducted. Reportedly, he was eventually given the choice to resign or be fired. He resigned in August 2008.

Chris Farrell, director of investigations at Judicial Watch, told PJ Media:

Somebody like Russell who betrayed his oath as a police officer and was convicted in court essentially for aiding and abetting the subject of an open terror investigation has absolutely no business with any position of trust and responsibility with the government.

If as reported he holds a top financial analyst position within the IRS, it’s not just a disgrace to a discredited agency but an insult to the American public. Russell has already betrayed his country and shown that he can do enormous damage and abuse his authority and powers, which he is now free to do within the IRS….

Read it all.