New York Post

WH looks desperate to bury plot at Va. base

BY refusing repeated chances to answer simple questions about a May 3 incident at Marine Corps Base Quantico, the Biden administra­tion has essentiall­y confirmed one of America’s worst — and most politicall­y consequent­ial — nightmares related to the ongoing border crisis.

Two illegal immigrants just attempted a terror attack on US soil.

We know that a Jordanian who illegally crossed the border joined up with another Jordanian who had overstayed his visa, and drove a box truck to the gates of Quantico. They claimed to be Amazon delivery drivers and tried to access a site that houses the FBI training academy, military-officer training schools, military criminal investigat­ions and intelligen­ce commands.

Quick-thinking military police stopped the truck and charged the men with trespassin­g before turning them over the US Immigratio­n and Customs Enforcemen­t.

What happened next? We don’t know.

Mum on terror ties

The government refuses to say if either of these men was on a terror watchlist, if they made any confession­s in custody or even if they are being deported.

In fact, authoritie­s didn’t even acknowledg­e the incident until Potomac Local News’ Kelly Sienkowski broke the story.

Since then, the White House and ICE have had every opportunit­y to deny what seems obvious, but have not done so.

“Given that it is an active lawenforce­ment matter, I would have to refer you to ICE,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in response to a question from Fox News. “I just can’t dive into that, again, because there is a law-enforcemen­t matter.”

Consider that since the 9/11 attacks, federal authoritie­s and the American people have enjoyed a kind of public compact that now stands broken. It is that the government almost always clarifies to the American public whether its top counterter­rorism profession­als regard initially ambiguous attacks as motivated by internatio­nal or domestic terrorism — or not — and often a thumbs-up or down as to whether the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force was investigat­ing.

But the Biden administra­tion will not engage in this one rare case, a startling break with post-9/11 tradition.

Election-year concern

I believe the reason President Biden’s people won’t acknowledg­e the first-ever border-crossing terror-attack attempt is to serve political aims, at the expense of public safety.

They know that acknowledg­ing a terror attack from the border crisis would further damage a Biden re-election campaign that is already suffering dearly from it.

Much recent polling shows the border crisis and its attendant national-security fears constitute a major political vulnerabil­ity for the Biden re-election campaign for which voters already plan to punish Biden and reward Donald Trump.

The border crisis could swing the election already, and now come credible reports that at least one Jordanian border crosser just tried to ram a huge truck through an important military and law-enforcemen­t installati­on.

But those who care about the national-security threat that Biden’s open-borders policy created are not going away until his administra­tion publicly goes on record about what happened.

Already, a dozen congressme­n just sent a letter demanding answers about the attack.

Consider that if law enforcemen­t knows what terrorists have tried, it knows what to protect against. By stonewalli­ng the nation for political gain, Biden is putting Americans in jeopardy.

Todd Bensman is a senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigratio­n Studies.