The FBI has declared that their officials could not have done anything more to prevent the Boston Marathon bombings in April, rejecting criticism that it could have monitored one of the suspects more closely before the attack occurred.
According to officials, internal reviews revealed that the FBI handled a request from a Russian intelligence agency in 2011 to investigate if one of the accused bombers had been radicalized, reports the New York Times. During his time in the United States, the Russian agency suspected that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had been indoctrinated.
"Once you're brought to attention by a foreign government, I think you should have a red flag put then, to be taken off later," Sen. Lindsey Graham said on CNN's "State of the Union" in April, reports the Huffington Post. Graham stated that the FBI "dropped the ball."
After FBI agents investigated Tsarnaev, they concluded that there was no evidence he had been radicalized. The agents were then prohibited from digging more into the 26-year-old suspected terrorist due to federal law and other restrictions imposed by the Justice Department, according to the data recieved from the multiple internal reviews examining the investigation. The review notes that agents are restricted from wiretapping on an investigation of that type.
The Agency also came under fire for not following up on Tsarnaev after he returned from visiting Russia in 2012. However, as the NYT states, it's unclear whether the FBI even knew Tsarnaev went to Russia.
Since the Boston Marathon attacks, Homeland Security and the FBI have both implemented measures to ensure they will receive notification when a former investigation subject travels overseas. An official speaking on the condition of anonymity told the Times that even if "these adjustments [had] been in existence before the attacks, the outcome would likely not have been any different."
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