Episode Details
Back to EpisodesThe Wire - August 21, 2026
Description
//The Wire//2300Z August 21, 2026//
//ROUTINE//
//BLUF: FBI ARRESTS MENTALLY ILL INDIVIDUAL IN NEW YORK, WHO THEY PROMPTED TO CONDUCT A TERROR ATTACK. CONCERNS GROWING REGARDING SOCIAL IMPACT OF LINDSAY CLANCY TRIAL AND POTENTIAL COPYCATS.//
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-HomeFront-
Massachusetts: The Lindsay Clancy trial continues in Plymouth, which has resulted in localized protests in support of Clancy. For context, this murder trial is the result of Clancy murdering her three children in the family home in 2023, after her husband left her alone for a few minutes to run errands. Clancy has confessed to the murder, and is currently attempting to plead an insanity defense. Throughout the trial, the crowd of protesters supporting Clancy have grown in size outside Plymouth Superior Court, with hundreds of people lining the streets to show their support for her.
Analyst Comment: Ordinarily the Clancy trial would be classified as social commentary that while a horrific murder trial, would normally be confined to the tabloids. However in this case, it's resulting in wider impact that is worth being aware of due to the future threats that are presented. Many supporters of Clancy have taken to social media to abuse their children for TikTok videos, to show their support for Clancy. These abuse videos (along with the millions of people supporting them) have increased to the point that this is now presenting real risks for copycat murders over the next few weeks.
New York: Last night the DoJ announced the arrest of an alleged terrorist, who was allegedly planning to conduct an attack at the New York Capitol building. The FBI provided Jessica Bowie with $200 to buy acetone, nails, and electrical tape at Home Depot which she gave to undercover agents to create an explosive device. Once the IED (which was a fake) was provided back to Bowie for the attack, she was arrested.
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Analyst Comments: The arrest in New York was not a legitimate terrorism threat, this is a very clear case of the FBI plotting a terror attack themselves and getting some idiot to go along with it. Normally there's a bit of grey area in terms of how significant an arrest actually is, but in this case this is a Biden-era-style FBI investigation, which is embarrassing to have been such an overwhelmingly significant federal case. They put multiple active surveillance teams on this individual, with dozens of agents getting involved to orchestrate every single step of the alleged attack plans. Per their own documentation, they planned the attack themselves and targeted Bowie for an entrapment operation. At no point in the indictment did the DoJ ever allege that she was in communication with actual ISIS members; she was only talking to FBI agents who encouraged her to try some haphazard attack. Per the indictment, the FBI approached her first, after she posted pro-ISIS comments/posts online, and the undercover agent had to coach her on how to make the pledge to ISIS.
As for Bowie herself, she does not appear to be a part of a legitimate terrorist organization, but a rather strange version of ISIS that she alone is allegiant to. Based on the indictment, she is very clearly mentally ill, and she did not know hardly anything about the variety of Islam that ISIS is known for (nor did the FBI agents investigating her, apparently). She did not even know how to spell "jihad" correctly, and most of her communications contained Arabic words that she probably heard on the internet. To be sure, she very clearly went along with the entire plot, and did desire to cause harm. However, the DoJ is pretending like they just stopped another major terror attack, and they most certainly did not.
The worst part of the entire case is that the FBI almost got her roommate killed. While this entire saga was underway, Bowie was living with her roommate, and per the indictment Bowie verbally considered stabbing her ro