Boehner vows to probe intelligence sharing ahead of Boston attack

Speaker John BoehnerJohn Andrew BoehnerFrom learning on his feet to policy director Is Congress retrievable? Boehner reveals portrait done by George W. Bush MORE (R-Ohio) on Wednesday added his voice to lawmakers raising concerns about the possible lack of information sharing among U.S. law enforcement agencies before the Boston Marathon bombings.

“I have concerns about what agencies knew what and the fact that it wasn’t shared,” BoehnerJohn Andrew BoehnerFrom learning on his feet to policy director Is Congress retrievable? Boehner reveals portrait done by George W. Bush MORE told reporters, “But I think our committees in the coming days and weeks are going to get to the bottom of this, so we’ll have real facts at our disposal to determine whether, in fact, it is true, and if it was true, why the information wasn’t shared.

On Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told a Senate committee that her department was aware that one of the alleged bombers, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, had left the country months after the FBI interviewed him about his possible connections to terrorist groups. Because an airline misspelled his name, the FBI was not aware of his trip.

“You know, if the information’s good enough for one agency of the government, why shouldn’t it be good enough for other agencies of the government?” Boehner asked. “We’re going to get to the bottom of this.”

The Speaker was also asked about criticism levied by two senior Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee about a pattern of missed signals by the FBI in attempted terrorist attacks in recent years.

“It clearly raises some serious questions,” Boehner said.

“I don’t want to get into the business of indicting agencies or agency heads until we have all the facts, and there may be facts that support each of these five cases,” he added, “but I, like my colleagues and I think the American people, want to understand exactly what happened and what didn’t happen and hold those responsible if in fact there were opportunities to stop these people and they didn’t do it.”