FBI Suppression of Shooter Manifesto Shows Need to Uproot FBI, Deep State: Congressman

The man who made portions of the Nashville Christian school shooter’s manifesto public against the Biden administration’s wishes is facing time in jail.

Michael Patrick Leahy, editor-in-chief of The Tennessee Star, had to appear before Tennessee Chancery Court Judge l’Ashea Myles for a show cause hearing Monday to determine whether he would face repercussions for reporting on portions of the manifesto left behind by Nashville Covenant School shooter Audrey Hale. Hale, a 28-year-old woman who identified as a man named Aiden, killed six people — including three children — last March in the Christian school she once attended. Leahy sued to release the full writings, which has been held by the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department for more than a year.

While The Tennessee Star did not publish the full manifesto, it reported on excerpts of the 80-plus pages it received from an inside source — a move the judge felt may have put Leahy in contempt of court.

“We started The Tennessee Star so I could exercise my First Amendment rights. I think we have served the public well, and we are delighted to have the opportunity to continue exercising our First Amendment rights,” Leahy told the judge.

Leahy uncovered a memo from the Biden administration’s FBI asking Nashville Police Chief John Drake to withhold the manifesto for fear it would fuel “conspiracy theories” by “confusing or potentially inflaming the public.”

“We’ve had a number of mass public shootings, and this is the first time that I know of that I’ve been able to find where the FBI has stepped in and demanded that a diary or a manifesto from these mass murderers wasn’t released to the public,” John Lott, president of Crime Prevention Research Center, told “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” Tuesday.

“Obviously this person’s disturbed. Obviously, she was having severe mental health problems. She was clearly suicidal. But this [standard] could be applied to lots of manifestos or diaries that these killers have, and yet they haven’t made the same type of demands right from local police,” said Lott. “Transgender individuals are actually quite disproportionately overrepresented in terms of mass public shootings,” said Lott. He said statistics showed trans-identifying individuals committed mass murders at “more than seven times their share of the U.S. population.”

He noted that Hale originally considered a mall and other schools but did not choose them out of fear her potential victims could defend themselves. Hale “decided not to go after any of those because of armed security that was available at those.” Particularly, the Green Hills Mall allowed patrons to carry concealed handguns, said Lott, the author of “More Guns, Less Crime.”

Lott also expressed skepticism that addressing mental health issues alone would take care of America’s surging crime epidemic. “About 51% of the mass public shooters over the last 25 years were seeing mental health care professionals fairly close to the time where the attack was occurring,” he told Perkins.

“She was so-called transgender, which is a mental health issue in itself,” remarked Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), on “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” Wednesday. “It’s not normal for someone to want to mutilate their body.”

Burchett highlighted statistics that show the number of young people identifying as transgender or nonbinary has been “exploding since COVID,” due to the impacts of social pressure and suggestion. “I guarantee you she self-diagnosed herself off the computer.”

In the end, the congressman said, the FBI’s attempted suppression of the Nashville shooter’s manifesto is another sign of the strength of the Deep State — and the need for the next president to uproot it, root-and-branch. “The FBI is complacent in this because they are compromised by a far-left agenda. When Trump was in before, he cut the head off, but you’ve got more than that; you got a lot beneath it. And I think he understands that very well this time.”

“He’s got to go through these departments like Grant through Richmond,” insisted Burchett. “He has got to clean this up, or we will lose our country.”