THERE’S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE…

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/04/theres-something-happening-here-4.php

Scott has been writing about the strange case of the two men “of Washington, D.C.” who are under arrest, having purported to be high-level Department of Homeland Security agents. The men are Arian Taherzadeh and Haider Ali, which might give the politically incorrect some ideas. News reports indicate that they “compromised” four Secret Service agents, although my understanding is that this simply means that those agents accepted gifts from them. Somehow, Taherzadeh and Ali had plenty of money to throw around.

The case took a small step forward today with the filing of a motion to hold the men in federal custody as flight risks. The motion begins:

For years, Defendants Arian Taherzadeh and Haider Ali portrayed themselves as federal law enforcement agents involved in covert operations on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). They are not law enforcement agents, and they are not involved in sanctioned covert activities. Neither Defendant is even employed by the United States government. But their impersonation scheme was sufficiently realistic to convince other government employees, including law enforcement agents, of their false identities. They pretended to recruit other individuals to law enforcement and their fake operation—including shooting a person with an air gun—and leveraged their phony law enforcement status to ingratiate themselves to other law enforcement agents in sensitive positions. They compromised United States Secret Service (USSS) personnel involved in protective details and with access to the White House complex by lavishing gifts upon them, including rent-free living. And they procured, stored, and used all the tools of law enforcement and covert tradecraft: weaponry, including firearms, scopes, and brass knuckles; surveillance equipment, including a drone, antennae, hard drives, and hard drive copying equipment; tools to manufacture identities, including a machine to create Personal Identification Verification (PIV) cards and passport photographs; and tactical gear, including vests, gas masks, breach equipment, police lights, and various law enforcement insignia.

Why did they do this, and on whose behalf? At this point, we have no idea. But here are a few things we do know. First, the men were well financed by someone. They had multiple units in a luxury D.C. apartment building: “(1) Penthouse 5; (2) Apartment 708; (3) Apartment 608; (4) Apartment 509; and (5) Apartment 1361.” And they had money to “compromise” the Secret Service.

Second, they were heavily armed:

Saturday, April 9, 2022