Waiting on a routine flight from Sacramento back to Santa Barbara, Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., discovered he was a terrorist. Or at least that’s what the FBI thought.
McClintock was clearly more of a frequent flyer than radical extremist. But a classic case of mistaken identity, not ties to terrorism, landed him on the FBI’s no-fly list.
A well-known state senator at the time, McClintock was left stranded at the Sacramento International Airport about 10 years ago. He couldn’t fly home under his own name.
Pointing to gaffes like the one that grounded McClintock a decade ago, Republicans now warn of serious constitutional consequences that could occur if Democrats ban suspects on the no-fly list from purchasing guns.
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That secrecy left McClintock flightless. But when he tried to find out more, the conservative recalls, “that’s when the experience got really weird.”
He describes his exchange with officials as something surreal out of a Kafka novel:
McClintock: “Why am I on the list?”
Official: “We can’t tell you.”
McClintock: “Well what criteria did you use?”
Official: “That is classified.”
McClintock: “How can I get off that list?”
Official: “You can’t.”
Eventually he managed to remove his name from the list but only after the California Senate spent months working with federal officials to clear his name.
The government had confused him, McClintock later learned, with a known terrorist in the Irish Republican Army.
McClintock has never visited Ireland, though. And, the California conservative adds with a laugh, he is “not now and never have been” associated with any insurgent Irish independence movement.
But he’s not the only lawmaker who has been marked as a potential terrorist.
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- Discussion
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Th FBI flagged @RepMcClintock as a terrorist. Here’s why he opposes a new gun ban. https://t.co/LbfGOD18Yq via @PhilipWegmann @DailySignal
— Rob Bluey (@RobertBluey) July 5, 2016
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