September 14, 2014

Brother of Beheaded American Journalist James Foley: State Department Threatened Us

Katie Pavlich

9/12/2014 8:40:00 AM - Katie Pavlich

In an exclusive interview with Fox News' Megyn Kelly last night on the Kelly File the brother of beheaded American journalist James "Jim" Foley, Michael Foley, expressed disappointment over how the Obama administration is handling the threat of terror army ISIS and in the administration's handling of his brother's capture leading up to his death. James Foley was beheaded three weeks ago by an ISIS terrorist and a YouTube video of the gruesome murder was posted online. President Obama was on vacation at the time and eight minutes after making a statement about the murder, returned to the golf course, a move a majority of Americans found to be in bad taste.
In reacting to President Obama's speech earlier this week, Foley said he wanted to see a more involved strategy put on the table to stabilize the region. Further in reaction to a question posed by Kelly about whether the Obama administration did everything it could to bring James Foley home, especially after the Bowe Bergdahl swap and comments by Obama saying Americans leave no man behind, Michael Foley said his family is "appalled" by the situation. Foley also talked about how he was threatened directly by the State Department and said that when the family tried to get information from the U.S. government or from other allies, they were stonewalled.

Kelly: I'm wondering if you feel he [Obama] and the administration did all they could to get Jim back. 

Foley: No, no. We're appalled by the situation and you know, it went past not doing everything they could, they were actually in impedance and got in our way and that's what really bothers me to the core. We were, I was specifically threatened by the Department of State about raising funds toward ransom demands for my brother. We were smart enough to look past it but it slowed us down. We lost a lot of time trying to regroup. 

"The video just struck me to the core that, just the evil this group has, I just can't wrap my mind around that. Jim was such a good person. I wish I could even come close to his approach to life. He really, really cared about the disadvantaged his entire career from teaching in inner city Phoenix to working with mother's getting their GED's in Chicago and all of his work in the Middle East to bring light to all of the atrocities there," Foley said. "It was just a circumstance, an ending that I could have never imagined."