WATCH: White House Says Trump ‘Was Right’ On JCC Hoaxes
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said on Monday during his daily press briefing that President Trump “was right” when he said that some of the anti-Semitic incidents in the United States may be “the reverse” of what they look like.
Spicer said that the media should not “rush to judgement” when it comes to hate crimes, and brought up the Israeli-American teen who is being investigated by the Israeli police in connection to the wave of bomb threats against Jewish community centers.
.@PressSec: Pres. Trump was “right” on “rush to judgment” on certain cases of hate crimes. pic.twitter.com/5nxJcLSIRP
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) March 27, 2017
The teen arrested this week on suspicion of making a host of bomb threats on Jewish institutions worldwide has been making such cyberattacks for two years, but only recently was his capture given high priority, according to police sources who spoke with Haaretz.
The sources attributed the turnabout to pressure from United States President Donald Trump. A few weeks ago, after Trump announced that the FBI would do everything in its power to catch the perpetrator, the agency sent 12 investigators from its cybercrime unit to Israel to assist the Israeli investigation.
The 19-year-old was arrested in the Israeli city of Ashkelon on Thursday by cybercrimes unit of the Israel Police, seizing computers and other items investigators say helped the suspect evade detection.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO