By David Lawder
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. officials will on
Monday release partial transcripts of three phone conversations the man
who killed 49 people in a Florida gay nightclub last week had with
police as the massacre unfolded, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said on
Sunday.
Lynch, speaking on CNN's "State of the Union" talk show,
said the Orlando shooting incident was "an act of terror and an act of
hate", but she declined to say what charges may be filed nor who may be
charged in the case.
The
transcripts of the conversations between deceased gunman Omar Mateen
and law enforcement negotiators will "talk about what he told law
enforcement on the ground as the events were unfolding," Lynch said.
"As
we have said earlier, he talked about his pledges of allegiance to a
terrorist group. He talked about his motivations for why he was claiming
at that time he was committing his horrific act," the Attorney General
said.
Lynch said, however, that the transcripts would be edited
to "avoid revictimizing those who went through this horror, but it will
contain the substance of his conversations."
She told ABC's "This Week" program the transcripts would not include his pledge of allegiance to Islamic State.
Lynch
also said she would travel to Orlando on Tuesday to confer with
investigators and meet survivors of the worst domestic shooting incident
in American history.
She declined to say whether a federal grand
jury was likely to charge Mateen's second wife, Noor Salman. U.S.
officials have said Salman knew of her husband's plans to carry out the
attack.
"Because this investigation is open and ongoing, we're
not commenting on anyone else's role in it right now, except to say that
we are talking to everyone who knew him, and that of course includes
his family, to determine what they knew, what they saw in the days and
weeks leading up to this," Lynch said.
