Feds Link Virginia Woman to ISIS Recruitment
COSTELLO: One of the many frightening things about the terror group, ISIS, is its ability to successfully recruit newcomers, including those from the West. Well, today, a Virginia woman is charged with lying about her ties to the terror group and social media postings promoting ISIS. CNN's Deborah Feyerick is chasing down the details. She joins me live with more.</s>DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And, you know, this is a woman who allegedly talked her sister into jihad and following ISIS. She's 29-year-old Heather Coffman, accused of working as an ISIS recruiter, someone who could help people get to Syria and join the blood thirsty terrorist group. Well, according to an FBI criminal complaint, she tried to recruit two people, including an undercover FBI agent. In the first case, a man she claimed to be her husband, but whom she had never met, well, she allegedly set him up with brothers who could get him contacts and get him into Turkey. The man ultimately changed his mind, he stayed in Macedonia instead, and that really seemed to annoy her. But in all of this, the initial red flags were that Coffman was very active on Facebook. She created about a half dozen accounts. In each, it appears that she was becoming more and more radicalized. FBI agents were able to get a search warrant for the Facebook accounts and found a history of ISIS writings, listing her work as jihad for Allah's sake, posting images of black ISIS flags, as well as promoting Allah and the fight. Now, an undercover agent met with Coffman several times, expressing his interest in jihad and she said that she could find someone who was a legitimate facilitator to get him to Syria. At least one of the meetings was recorded with Coffman creating a code, and language allegedly in order to avoid detection. When confronted in her office by FBI agents, she denied the activity. She was charged with lying and also providing materials to support terrorists.</s>COSTELLO: So, they actually have a link between this woman and ISIS. She was actually communicating with them?</s>FEYERICK: She was -- she was communicating about them. She was communicating about them, but what really concerned them is they went into the Facebook account and they began to look at the things she was saying, and also, she began to fancy herself a recruiter. And she was making contacts with this man in Macedonia and she was sort of getting this -- you know, when the FBI agent, the undercover agent said, I want to go, she said, I think I can set you up with a legitimate facilitator. So, she was acting as a broker. Could she have done it? Unclear. But she advanced herself as such.</s>FEYERICK: And no comment from her lawyers.</s>COSTELLO: I was wondering, who is this woman?</s>FEYERICK: We are learning about her and we will have a lot more later on in the hour.</s>COSTELLO: I'm sure you will. Deborah Feyerick, thanks so much.</s>COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, one Senate vote. That's what's stopping a showdown between the president and Congress on the Keystone pipeline. I'll talk to Indiana Senator Dan Coats about today's vote and more, next.