It’s probably a safe bet that Daveed Gartenstein-Ross didn’t see much value in reading our June 30th report but he was asked to do so – and respond in writing – by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) at a House Joint Subcommittee hearing on July 10th. Much has transpired since that time but let’s go back to that hearing first (Gartenstein-Ross is on the far-left in video):

Though we don’t know if the article Gartenstein-Ross published on July 29th entitled, “Rumor Busting” is what he considered a written response to Rohrabacher, we did respond to it with a 16-page report (and forwarded to Rohrabacher’s staff).

Gartenstein-Ross took to twitter and responded to our nearly 7000-word “rejoinder” with two words:

Gartenstein-Ross: Shoebat’s report is “mind numbing”

Before issuing his rebuttal to our report, which was more an attempt to discredit us than to rebut our research, Gartenstein-Ross took to twitter, in an effort to do the same thing. Back on July 24th, he bought into the slanderous notion that Walid is not being truthful about his past. Gartenstein-Ross suggested via twitter that Walid had been “retconned”, which essentially means that he changed his story from being a PLO member to being a Muslim Brotherhood member:

Gartenstein-Ross: Question’s Shoebat bonafides.

“(Shoebat’s) character”?

This is incredibly ironic because Gartenstein-Ross attempted to impugn our work by asserting that we didn’t look at enough “data points”. Yet, he seems quick to help push a narrative that Walid isn’t who he says he is without doing any of the necessary research. All he had to do was reach out to us directly before playing the ever-tired ‘fraud’ card.

He didn’t do that.

Walid’s story has never deviated. When he was growing up in Beit-Sahour, Israel, he was a member of the PLO who had been recruited in prison by Mahmoud al-Mughrabi (al-Mughrabi was later killed in Operation Wooden Leg). When Walid moved to the U.S., he joined the Muslim Brotherhood in Chicago under the tutelage of Jamal Said.

When he was in Chicago in the early 1990’s, (Shoebat) had a mentor named Jamal Said, a man he identified as being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood – a group Shoebat spent time with as an activist while in Chicago. – Unsung Davids, p. 303

Jamal Said: Walid’s Muslim Brotherhood trainer in Chicago

That Gartenstein-Ross didn’t check this before entertaining the notion means that he is willing to go forward publicly with a slanderous premise of an American citizen while not having nearly enough “data points”.

Providing further irony is that one day later, Gartenstein-Ross tweeted that he wasn’t going after Walid personally:

Gartenstein-Ross: Nothing personal, Walid.

In another example, which included one of our posts that Gartenstein-Ross used in his July 29th rebuttal, the expert seemed to defend Democrats while mocking our post which makes the case that Democrats are the Party of Satan, an assertion we stand by because… well, we have plenty of “data points” (we at least have more than Gartenstein-Ross did when he attempted to discredit Walid’s background):

Gartenstein-Ross: Defends Democrats while mocking Shoebat

As for Gartenstein-Ross finding that our “rejoinder” is “mind numbing”… We find that facts trump Mr. Gartenstein-Ross’s state of mind when reviewing them.

We also suggest that he do his due diligence before publicly questioning someone’s account of their own personal history. Making Gartenstein-Ross’s charge even more egregious is that “Retroactive Continuity” (retcon) refers to altering facts in a work that is already fictional. Taken literally, Gartenstein-Ross is actually questioning Walid’s time with the PLO as well.

Mr. Gartenstein-Ross, when you’re wrong about such things, it’s called slander and you really should consider more “data points” before accusing someone of being “retconned”.

From left to right: Gartenstein-Ross, Aaron Zelin, and Daniel Byman