Last week, the White House held a three-day summit to discuss domestic and international methods for "countering violent extremism."
On "Face the Nation" Sunday morning, CBS's Bob Scheiffer asked the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson a question many were wondering about the conference:
Why wasn't the Director of the FBI, James Comey, present at a U.S.-led summit on terrorism?
“It turns out that the director of the FBI was not invited," Schieffer said. "You just talked about how the FBI is working with you."
"How can you have a terrorism summit and not have the director of the FBI there?" he asked.
“Well, the FBI is definitely very, very active in our counter-terrorism efforts," Johnson replied.
"His boss, the chief law enforcement officer of the country, Eric Holder, was there. So…”
“But that’s not like having the director of the FBI there,” Scheiffer countered. “Shouldn’t he have been there?”
Johnson started, “Well, the FBI, without a doubt…”
“I know you weren’t in charge of the invitations, but shouldn’t he have been there?” Scheiffer asked again.
“The FBI without a doubt is a crucial part of our counter-terrorism efforts, without a doubt,” Johnson said.
Well, that doesn’t answer the question.
Yes, the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was present at the WH summit. In his remarks, Holder suggested that the U.S. and its partners in the fight against terrorism study social media and gangs to combat "violent extremism." The director of the FBI surely would have provided better suggestions than those.
Watch the interview below.
H/T Mediaite