The suspects in the foiled plot to attack Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna earlier this month sought to kill “tens of thousands” of fans before the CIA discovered intelligence that disrupted the planning and led to arrests, the agency's deputy director said.
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00:00I think this is another sort of notable event and frankly a CTE success.
00:08So as folks probably remember, earlier this month there was press about an arrest, a series
00:16of arrests in Austria and Vienna of four individuals who were plotting to attack a Taylor Swift
00:24concert.
00:25And they were found with explosives.
00:28They were found with bomb-making material.
00:32They had access to the venue.
00:35And they were plotting, I think the concert was the next day, the day after they were
00:40arrested.
00:41They were plotting to kill a huge number, tens of thousands of people at this concert,
00:48including I'm sure many Americans, and were quite advanced in this.
00:53The Austrians were able to make those arrests because the agency and our partners in the
00:59intelligence community provided them information about what this ISIS-connected group was planning
01:07to do.
01:09And as a result, hundreds of lives undoubtedly were saved if the croak of City Hall was a
01:19good comparator there.
01:21Those sorts of successes don't get a lot of attention broadly.
01:26I can tell you within my agency, I'm sure in others, there were people who thought that
01:31was a really good day.
01:35Not just the Swifties in my workforce, but seriously, the CT community is continuing
01:42to work very hard against these challenges and we do occasionally make progress.
01:49I feel like the thwarted attack against Taylor Swift got a little bit of attention.
01:57When you go after national icons, you know.
02:00Well, as well it should.