Philip Haney (66) som varslet om at Obama-administrasjonen slettet tusenvis av filer med etterretning om jihad er funnet død, skutt ved en vei utenfor Sacramento.

Philip Haney, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) whistleblower who was an outspoken critic of the administration of former President Barack Obama, was found dead Friday, about 40 miles east of Sacramento, Calif., local authorities said.

Sheriffen sier at han hadde et skudd gjennom hodet, og mener det var selvpåført. Men det er en rekke merkelige omstendigheter rund Haneys død.

Haney was recently in contact with DHS officials about a possible return to the agency, the Washington Examiner reported, adding that he was also engaged to be married.

Haney var på vei tilbake til Department of Homeland Security og skulle gifte seg.

Han vakte oppsikt da han sto frem og anklaget Obama-administrasjonen for med overlegg å slette et helt arkiv med etterretning om jihad.

Haney arbeidet for DHS i 15 år.

In June 2016, Haney testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he alleged that the Obama-era DHS had ordered him to delete hundreds of files about reputed associates of Islamic terrorist groups. Haney made the case that several attacks in the U.S. could have been prevented if some of the files had not been deleted, the Examiner reported.

Writing in The Hill in February 2016, Haney claimed Obama had thrown the U.S. intelligence community «under the bus» for failing to «connect the dots» after a Nigerian Muslim terror suspect was linked to a failed terror plot on Christmas Day in 2009.

«Most Americans were unaware of the enormous damage to morale at the Department of Homeland Security, where I worked, his condemnation caused,» Haney wrote, referring to Obama. «His words infuriated many of us because we knew his administration had been engaged in a bureaucratic effort to destroy the raw material — the actual intelligence we had collected for years, and erase those dots. The dots constitute the intelligence needed to keep Americans safe, and the Obama administration was ordering they be wiped away.»

Hans ord peker mot en politisk kamp innad i Obama-administrasjonen. Haney mente det svekket USAs sikkerhet. Haney skrev en bok om sine erfaringer:

«See Something, Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government’s Submission to Jihad.»

In November, Haney contacted the Examiner about plans to publish a sequel to the book, the newspaper reported.

Haney ville skrive en oppfølger og dette var så sent som i november.

Haney studerte islamistisk teologi forå forstå grunnlaget og bakgrunnen for jihad.

Haney, who retired in 2015, studied Arabic culture and language while working as a scientist in the Middle East before becoming a founding member of DHS in 2002 as a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agriculture officer.

Philip Haney, DHS whistleblower during Obama era, found dead, police say