Report: DOJ Dismissed Intel Report that Found Refugees Weren't a Significant Threat

The Justice Department dismissed an intelligence report from the National Counterterrorism Center about refugee admissions because Attorney General Jeff Sessions didn't “agree with the conclusions,” NBC News reports. The assessment—which concluded that “refugees did not present a significant threat to the U.S.”—was presented in a September 2017 meeting, but the Center's representative was reportedly cut off by Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand. “We read that. The Attorney General doesn't agree with the conclusions of that report,” she allegedly said. A current DHS official defended Brand's dismissal to the network, noting that the agency was taking an “all-of-the-above approach” to admissions rather than considering “historical data about terrorism trends.” Months after the report was presented to Brand, Trump appointees wrote a report that stated “three out of every four” people convicted of international terrorism charges in federal courts were “foreign-born,” which seemed to “contradict the view of the country's spy agencies.”