Meet The FBI Translator Who Married An ISIS Terrorist. Yes, Really.

I know that sounds like some skeevy tabloid headline. But sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

According to this, FBI translator named Daniela Greene went to Syria in 2014 (along with her top-secret security clearance) to investigate an ISIS operative for the FBI.

Turns out she did more than investigate him. She actually ended up marrying him (and yes, the jokes write themselves). She also warned the guy that he was an FBI target –

The rogue employee, Daniela Greene, lied to the FBI about where she was going and warned her new husband he was under investigation, according to federal court records.
Greene’s saga, which has never been publicized, exposes an embarrassing breach of national security at the FBI—an agency that has made its mission rooting out ISIS sympathizers across the country.
It also raises questions about whether Greene received favorable treatment from Justice Department prosecutors who charged her with a relatively minor offense, then asked a judge to give her a reduced sentence in exchange for her cooperation, the details of which remain shrouded in court-ordered secrecy.

And Greene’s new husband? No big deal – just a guy who had a lot of influence relating to recruitment for ISIS –

He was Denis Cuspert, a German rapper turned ISIS pitchman, whose growing influence as an online recruiter for violent jihadists had put him on the radar of counter-terrorism authorities on two continents.

In Germany, Cuspert went by the rap name Deso Dogg. In Syria, he was known as Abu Talha al-Almani. He praised Osama bin Laden in a song, threatened former President Barack Obama with a throat-cutting gesture and appeared in propaganda videos, including one in which he was holding a freshly severed human head.

There’s a match made in hell.

The “good news” (if any can be had) is that Greene eventually realized what a terrible mistake she’d made and tried to get back to the United States, even though she knew she’d have to answer for her defection –

Shortly after, Greene sent emails from inside Syria to an unidentified person in the US showing she was having second thoughts and suggesting she knew she was breaking the law.
“I was weak and didn’t know how to handle anything anymore,” she wrote on July 8. “I really made a mess of things this time.”

In another email the following day she wrote: “I am gone and I can’t come back. I wouldn’t even know how to make it through, if I tried to come back. I am in a very harsh environment and I don’t know how long I will last here, but it doesn’t matter, it’s all a little too late…”
On July 22, 2014, she again wrote to the unidentified recipient: “Not sure if they told you that I will probably go to prison for a long time if I come back, but that is life. I wish I could turn back time some days.”

She came back, stood trial, and served two years in prison. And she was released last August.

I’m just not sure how you go from being part of the FBI and part of a task force that hunts down ISIS operative, to marrying one of them. I couldn’t even begin to explain the thought process that goes into something like that.

All I can say is that I’m glad Greene came to her senses and cooperated with authorities. Even if the guy she married is still on the loose.