Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Attorney General Loretta Lynch refused Wednesday to say who made the decision to remove references to the Islamic State and its leader from the publicly released version of a transcript of a 911 call involving the Orlando nightclub shooter





Soon after release of the edited transcript on Monday, federal officials were slammed by Republican lawmakers including House Speaker Paul Ryan, who suggested that the deleted references to ISIL and its leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi reflected the Obama administration's reluctance to acknowledge the threat posed by radical Islam.

The White House has denied any involvement in the initial decision or the reversal. Officials have said the FBI had the lead role in distribution of the initial transcript, which was linked to an interagency press conference in Orlando Monday morning.