FBI's Handling of Russia's 2011 Boston Bomber Tip Draws Scrutiny

By Terry Atlas and Roxana Tiron (c) 2013, Bloomberg News.WASHINGTON — The FBI, initially lauded for its quick identification of the suspected Boston Marathon bombers, now is facing scrutiny from lawmakers about its handling a 2011 Russian tip that might have averted the attack.

The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, asked the FBI and other security agencies for all documents on Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the elder of the two brothers now linked to the bombing. He died after being run over by an SUV driven by his brother as he sought to escape a police manhunt in Watertown, a Boston suburb.

While the Russian inquiry and subsequent actions might have provided warning signs, "Tsarnaev remained at liberty in this country to conduct the Boston attack, and it took days to publicly identify him as a suspect," according to the letter released Monday and signed by McCaul and Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican who is chairman of the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence.

"Somewhere along the line, it's fair to say why didn't the FBI follow up on" the earlier information, King said Monday in an interview of MSNBC's "The Daily Rundown."

In 2011, the FBI investigated Tsarnaev after receiving a request from a Russian intelligence service that said he was a "follower of radical Islam" whose plans to travel to Russia raised fears he intended to join "unspecified underground groups," the FBI said on its website.

The FBI, which interviewed Tsarnaev, said it found no evidence of terrorist activity at that time.