Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke (D) stated that he agrees with House Speaker Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) on pausing the Iraqi and Syrian refugee programs and “there is no true and accurate way…of identifying exactly who we’re letting into the country” on Wednesday’s “Hannity” on the Fox News Channel.

Clarke was asked, “Are we, sheriff, gambling with the lives of the American people if we take them in?”

He responded, “Sure, we are. Look, one of the pillars of a terror organization are document forgers, and we’re finding that out in France, and we’ve seen that here as well, passports that appear to be real, but they’re actually forged documents. So, you’re actually asking these intelligence sources, and actually these screeners to try to thread a needle, and to try to thread that needle in the dark, and you’re using black thread. So, it’s darn near impossible to do, and it takes a long time. I agree with Paul Ryan right now, the Speaker of the House, we need to pause on this thing. We need to take a step back, because there is no true and accurate way…of identifying exactly who we’re letting into the country.”

Earlier Clarke said, “the system is blinking red, there’s no doubt about that. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when, there will be another terror attack in the United States. As a policymaker, here’s what I want to know from my intelligence sources, who specifically are the threats, what are their capabilities, and are they planning an attack, is an attack imminent? Now, what I’ve questioned, and I’ll continue to question is if we’re set up structurally for effective intelligence to stay what the MI-5 in the UK calls left of boom. Left of boom is pre-attack, pre-event. Oftentimes we find ourselves, especially with the FBI, I think they’re miscast, and that’s not a knock on them. They’re not a true intelligence agency. They’re an investigative agency. But they stay too often to the right of boom. They’re looking for probable cause to make an arrest. The system was blinking red on Nidal Hasan, when he shot 16 or 17 of his fellow, at the time anyway, servicemembers. The system was blinking red on the Tsarnaev brothers.”

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