Marco Rubio told Fox News on Monday night that the plot beside RAF Fairford "clearly involves the hands of a foreign actor." He named no country and gave no evidence. British police, who arrested the five men and then let them go, call a foreign state one line of inquiry, not a finding.
"I have to be careful, there are some things I cannot say on the air," Rubio told Sean Hannity, then: "It's one that clearly involves the hands of a foreign actor. I won't get into great detail about that yet." He reached for Iran in the next breath — "elements in the world, and in the case of Iran, for example, who have openly threatened to attack American interests" — and promised "repercussions." On the release: "I know a lot of people are disturbed by the news that some of these people have been released on bail."
London says possibly. Laurence Taylor, who runs Britain's counter-terror police, said Monday his officers are "keeping an open mind" and looking at whether the men were "proxies, or individuals either knowingly or unknowingly, working on behalf of a foreign state." That is a line of inquiry. Rubio turned it into a finding.
Trump had gone further than Rubio a day earlier and had already hit the same wall. He said Sunday that Washington had watched the men "for a long time" and "got them." Whitehall told the BBC the operation was not intelligence-led; a farmer's 999 call at 1:36 on Sunday morning started it. By Monday the president had shrunk to "I'm surprised that they're releasing them. I wouldn't have done that."
