(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Along with myriad revelations about the war in Ukraine, the source of the leaked Pentagon documents also reportedly said that the FBI had foreknowledge of the May 2022 Buffalo mass shooting—a claim that may have some truth behind it.
The Washington Post first reported the allegation about the Buffalo shooting Wednesday, in a story about how the leaked Pentagon documents were uploaded to a Discord chatroom by an anonymous account called “OG.”
“OG told his online companions that the government hid horrible truths from the public. He claimed, according to the members, that the government knew in advance that a white supremacist intended to go on a shooting rampage at a Buffalo supermarket in May 2022,” the Post reported.
“OG said federal law enforcement officials let the killings proceed so they could argue for increased funding.”
The Post quoted an anonymous teenager who was in the Discord chatroom, who reportedly believed the information about the Buffalo shooting and “considers [it] an example of OG’s penetrating insights about the depth of government corruption.”
The Post, for its part, downplayed the allegation about the Buffalo shooting, which left 10 black people dead, as a “baseless notion.”
However, the Buffalo News reported in the wake of the shooting that the gunman, Payton Gendron, had been in touch with a “retired federal agent.”
According to The Buffalo News, the retired federal agent may have been one of at least six individuals who regularly communicated with Gendron in an online chat room where racist hatred was discussed.
These six individuals may have had about 30 minutes advance notice of the shooting spree, reports suggest.
“Agents from the FBI are in the process of tracking down and interviewing the six people, including the retired agent, and attempting to determine if any of them should be charged as accomplices,” the Buffalo News reported last May, citing two sources with close knowledge of the probe.
“Federal authorities are investigating if the retired agent provided information to Gendron before he went on his shooting spree,” the newspaper added. “In addition … federal authorities are looking into the former agent’s relationship to the shooter.”
It’s not clear how the Pentagon leaker—who the FBI claims is 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guard intelligence officer Jack Teixeira—would have knowledge of the FBI’s investigation into the Buffalo shooting. Perhaps he had seen the Buffalo News article, but the Post article does not say exactly what the Pentagon leaker said about the shooting, or when he said it.
Nevertheless, the information provided by the Pentagon leaker has thus far been accurate, and there are reports supporting his claims about the Buffalo shooting.
The FBI has declined to comment on the status of its investigation into Gendron’s connections to the retired agent.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
