Don’t miss the season two premiere of For The Record tonight at 8pm ET only on TheBlaze. Check out a free clip from the episode HERE.
TheBlaze’s investigative news magazine For The Record returns tonight with an expose into the 2009 shooting at Fort Hood. For The Record host Laurie Dhue and the rest of the team interviewed survivors and experts to learn more about attack that is still classified as “workplace violence” despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. On radio this morning, Laurie joined Glenn to discuss the groundbreaking episode.
“The whole thing is a ‘wow,’” Laurie said of working on the episode. “When we talked to the former federal prosecutor and talked about why this case is workplace violence and not terrorism, you come away with the fact that the President looked these people in the eye, and said, ‘We will take care of you.’ But then by not designating this thing an actual act of terrorism, by calling it an incident of workplace violence, the victims and the family members are not getting their due. The Obama Administration is letting these people down.”
Laurie explained the Department of Defense claims the incident has not been classified as terrorism because it would have made it more difficult to seek the death penalty against shooter Nidal Hasan. Now that Hisan has been convicted, however, it is unclear what the excuse is.
“The DOD claims if they awarded the Purple Heart to the victims, and if they classified this as an incident of terror, it would be quote, ‘unfair to the victims,’” Laurie explained. “They say if they awarded the Purple Hearts to the victims, they would have indirectly classified Hasan as a terrorist and that would have made it harder to get a death penalty conviction. That was their argument.”
“Well, they have that conviction now,” Glenn interjected. “So what's the excuse now?”
“Exactly,” Laurie agreed. “There shouldn't be an excuse by now.”
One of the motivations behind investigating Fort Hood is a desire to influence some sort of action/reaction from the Army and White House. The victims of the shooting have suffered emotionally and financially as a result of the steps taken in the immediate aftermath of the attack. Despite the years that have passed, Laurie explained it is not too late to right some of the wrongs.
“I want to point out that the Army has the chance to make this right. The Obama Administration still has the chance to make this right. And what we hope is that by presenting this show in the manner that we are, providing lots of facts and context and having a conversation about how Islam is happening, radical Islamists are in this country, we hope that someone in Washington will be watching and making note. We hope there's a response.”
Don’t miss the season two premiere of For The Record tonight at 8pm ET only on TheBlaze. Check out a free clip from the episode HERE.