Orlando gunman reportedly checked Facebook to see if his attack was going viral

On Wednesday, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, released a letter with what he said were posts from one of five Facebook accounts believed to be linked to Omar Mateen, the gunman who shot dead 49 people and wounded another 53 at an Orlando gay nightclub early Sunday morning. Mateen launched his attack at Pulse dance club at 2 a.m. and was shot dead by police at about 5 a.m.

"America and Russia stop bombing the Islamic state..I pledge my alliance to [ISIS leader] abu bakr al Baghdadi ..may Allah accept me," Mateen wrote Sunday morning, according to Johnson. "The real muslims will never accept the filthy ways of the west," he reportedly wrote later, and in his final post, "in the next few days you will see attacks from the Islamic state in the usa." An unidentified person "familiar with the situation" told The Associated Press that those messages were posted to Facebook right before Mateen's attack, but Mateen also searched Facebook for "Pulse Orlando" and "shooting" during the attack, strongly suggesting, as AP says, Mateen was searching "social media to measure the viral shockwaves his attack on a gay nightclub had generated."

Johnson's letter is addressed to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, ostensibly asking Zuckerberg for help filling out Mateen's social media history. The FBI, which considers the attack both a hate crime and act of terrorism, says Mateen also made unspecified phone calls during the standoff, and according to The Washington Post, at least one of those calls was to an acquaintance in Florida. Law enforcement has Mateen's phone and experts are about to access its data, The Post added. For another random glimpse at Mateen, AP uncovered a clip from a documentary on the BP oil spill in which Mateen, a security guard, talks to an undercover film crew about the greed and cynicism of the oil industry. Peter Weber

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