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 In a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Homeland Security
Committee Chairman Ron Johnson asked her agency to furnish the
requested evidence, along with answers to more than a dozen
questions he posed about the investigation, by Dec. 24.
A Justice Department spokesman declined comment, except to say, "We
have received the letter and will review it."
The 10-page letter gives no explicit rationale for the request other
than to cite the committee's congressional oversight authority in
matters of national security.
But the nature of Johnson's queries and scope of the evidence he
asked to review indicated his committee was looking for possible
intelligence lapses in tracking Islamic extremist activity that
might have worked to the killers' benefit.
"What did you miss and how can we tighten that up," a source close
to the senator told Reuters in characterizing the thrust of
Johnson's inquiry.
 Among the materials Johnson requested are any communications
unearthed by investigators pointing to the couple's plans for the
massacre, how they concealed their intentions from law enforcement
and any other attacks they might have contemplated.
He also asked for information the department had obtained that would
suggest any sponsorship of the couple by "a foreign terrorist
organization."
U.S. officials have said their investigation has yet to turn up any
evidence that Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, or his wife, Tashfeen Malik,
29, were directed by foreign militants when they stormed a holiday
gathering of his co-workers on Dec. 2 and opened fire with assault
rifles.
Fourteen people died and 22 others were injured in the rampage,
which the Federal Bureau of Investigation said it is treating as an
act of terrorism inspired by Islamic extremism, the most lethal such
attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.
Farook, the U.S.-born son of Pakistani immigrants, and Malik, a
Pakistani native he married last year in Saudi Arabia, were killed
in a shootout with police hours after their assault in San
Bernardino, 60 miles (100 km) east of Los Angeles.
The Senate inquiry came about as new Gallup poll released on Friday
showed Americans losing faith in their government's ability to
protect them from militant attacks, while a suspicious fire at a
Southern California mosque raised new concerns about an anti-Islamic
backlash.
The fire, which erupted in the lobby of the Islamic Society of
Coachella Valley, 75 miles (120 km) east of San Bernardino, caused
smoke damage but no injuries, though the Riverside County Sheriff's
Department called the blaze a possible arson.
MISSED SIGNALS?
Last week's deadly mass shooting has sparked intense debate about
how Farook and Malik managed to avoid detection by law enforcement
as they planned their attack while amassing a large arsenal of
weapons, ammunition and explosives.
FBI officials have said the couple were not under investigation at
the time of their attack.
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But federal agents have since learned that the couple had been
steeped in radical Islamic ideology for some time, and were
discussing jihad and martyrdom online with each other as far back as
2013, a year before they met in person, FBI Director James Comey
told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
While the couple is known to have declared they were acting on
behalf of the Islamic State, there was no evidence that the militant
group controlling vast swaths of Iraq and Syria were even aware of
them prior to their attack, Comey said.
Investigators believe Malik had tried contacting a number of
militant groups overseas in the months before the massacre but was
ignored, according to U.S. officials.
Neither Johnson nor other lawmakers briefed on the case on Thursday
publicly expressed a lack of confidence in the investigation. But
some questioned whether in hindsight some warning signs might have
been overlooked and whether current surveillance of potential
extremists is sufficiently robust.
That sentiment came through in questions posed by Johnson's letter.
In one, he asked whether Farook, Malik or Enrique Marquez - a former
Farook neighbor who bought the rifles used in the mass shooting -
had ever "been under any investigation or surveillance by U.S. law
enforcement or counter-terrorism officials? Please explain."
He also asked which U.S. agencies knew of Malik's alleged
connections to a radical cleric at a mosque in Islamabad, Pakistan,
and requested information about U.S. security checks conducted on
the couple when Malik applied for a visa to enter the United States
as Farook's fiancée.
Some lawmakers have said Malik used a fake address on her
application that went undetected.
"What, if any, further indicators of threats to national security
were missed by the queries of Mr. Farook and Ms. Malik?" the letter
asks.
(Reporting by Mark Hosenball in Washington and Steve Gorman in Los
Angeles; Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles,
Alexandria Sage in San Bernardino; Frank McGurty in New York, Lesley
Wroughton in Paris, Megan Cassella in Washington and Edward
McAllister in Riverside, California; Writing by Steve Gorman;
Editing by Toni Reinhold and Lisa Shumaker)
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