Tamerlan Tsarnaev was on not only the FBI’s terrorist watch list, but also the CIA’s—and both agencies were acting on tips from Russian authorities, U.S. officials said Wednesday. Six months after the FBI cleared Tamerlan in 2011, Russian authorities reached out to the CIA to request that it investigate him as well. The CIA’s conclusion looked much like the FBI’s: no suspicious information and no ties to extremists. As a precaution, the CIA asked the National Counterterrorism Center to add Tsarnaev’s name to the database, which contains about 700,000 names. The FBI added him to its list as well, alerting the State Department and Homeland Security to the threat. Despite the dual investigations, U.S. officials say they uncovered no signs of terrorist activity.
