The 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing: A Case Study in FBI Corruption and Failure
This piece was first published in Jan/Feb of 2022 on Medium.com and at the Libertarian Institute. Following that, the essay was published in garrison: the Journal of History and Deep Politics, issue 9 (March 2022) (cover story). It is reproduced here for reference purposes.
The FBI’s Oklahoma City Bombing investigation was one of the most massive law enforcement investigations in history, comprising millions of pages of evidence. Careful analysis of this paper trail shows that the official narrative--that McVeigh and Nichols alone carried out the attack--is insufficient, and it fails to explain unanswered questions illustrated by the records.
Meanwhile, official obfuscation and wrongdoing by the FBI has caused considerable distrust and skepticism among critics. In 2004, former FBI Deputy Assistant Director Danny Coulson told John Solomon of the Associated Press that there are not only some “unanswered questions here” but that also “a lot of things happened that were inappropriate.”
Indeed, after examining the record of this case, a pattern of dishonesty and corruption emerges. Initially, I did not go out of my way looking for things like that. But it was something I continually discovered naturally as I read more about what happened on the morning of April 19, 1995.
An Ignoble Lie
Upon reading On-Scene Commander, by Weldon Kennedy, I came upon what is perhaps the most blatant lie in the annals of law enforcement history. Kennedy was the first chief investigator in the Oklahoma City bombing case and could be found hosting press conferences to discuss developments in the early days after the attack. As on-scene commander, Kennedy was in a top position and aware of all the key details of the case. Perhaps this is why I was at once dumbfounded and furious when I read Kennedy’s memoir and came across the following statement:
“This was going to be a case largely built from forensic evidence since there were no eyewitnesses.” [1]
This assertion — and there is no other way to say this — is a shameless and blatant lie, literally the exact opposite of the truth. That should be a clue to the discerning reader that whatever the eyewitnesses saw, it must be damned important and it is perhaps illustrative of the FBI’s problems in this case that the man appointed to head this investigation would put into writing something so egregiously false.
For starters, it is a fact that there exist hundreds of well-circulated news reports from every major daily newspaper in the United States which contain credible eyewitness accounts, many published between 1995 and 1997 in the lead-up to the trial(s). [2] Proving himself a liar, one needs to look no further than Kennedy’s own April 20, 1995 press conference to find a detailed suspect description that came directly from the very eyewitnesses Kennedy would later claim incorporeal:
“The second man is also of medium build. He is further described as 5 feet 9 inches to 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighing approximately 175 to 180 pounds, with brown hair and a tattoo visible on his left arm, below his t-shirt sleeve. He is possibly a smoker.”[3] (emphasis added)
Three eyewitnesses from Elliott’s Body Shop provided the description of the man who, alongside McVeigh, picked up the bomb-truck on April 17th, 1995. This same suspect would be spotted with McVeigh at the crime scene on April 19th.
The FBI interviewed about two dozen eyewitnesses in Oklahoma City during the course of the investigation. These individuals observed Timothy McVeigh and the Ryder truck as it approached the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on the morning of the bombing. Following the attack, FBI agent Danny Coulson was in charge of the crime scene and occupied a position of authority similar to Weldon Kennedy, as an on-scene commander. In 2007, Coulson spoke to the BBC about the eyewitnesses that came forward: “We know there were 24 people that were interviewed by the FBI that said they saw Mr. McVeigh on April 19 with someone else.” [4]
The Man Who Wasn’t There
So, why did Weldon Kennedy falsely assert that there were no eyewitnesses? The answer to that question is readily apparent after reviewing the witness accounts and seeing what they all have in common. In each case, the witness saw McVeigh with another suspect. For example, catering truck driver Rodney Johnson spoke to the FBI on the night of the bombing and several times thereafter. Johnson described how he had to slam on his truck’s brakes to avoid hitting two men who were running across the street after exiting the bomb-laden Ryder truck.[5] Johnson got a good look at both John Doe #1 and John Doe #2, and his description of the suspects matches the one given by Weldon Kennedy during the April 20 press conference. Rodney Johnson’s catering truck co-worker, Billie Hood, also saw the fleeing pair and was interviewed by the FBI.[6] Following McVeigh’s arrest, Johnson was re-interviewed and confirmed Timothy McVeigh was indeed one of the two men he saw.
Another witness, Mike Moroz, was interviewed by the FBI several times in the days after the bombing. Moroz was a mechanic working at Johnny’s Tire, an automotive repair shop located a few blocks from the Murrah Building. On the morning of the bombing, Timothy McVeigh pulled the bomb-truck into Johnny’s Tire at about 8:30 AM to ask for directions.[7] He was looking for a one-way street downtown, a route leading to the Murrah building. Moroz recounted the interaction to the FBI, explaining that he had spoken to McVeigh face-to-face for several minutes. His co-workers — Allen Gorrell and Byron Marshall — were also interviewed and confirmed that McVeigh stopped at Johnny’s Tire that morning.[8] Notably, Moroz said that McVeigh definitely had a passenger in the Ryder truck with him. Moroz’s account was considered so solid at the time that the bureau brought him to the FBI command center in downtown OKC where he selected Timothy McVeigh out of a live line-up the weekend following McVeigh’s arrest.[9]
Like Johnson, Mike Moroz would have been damning to the defense team if he had testified at trial. Both witnesses would have been able to put Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City and finger as his destination the Murrah building. Unfortunately, their testimonies were forsaken in favor of forensic evidence because authorities preferred to pretend these witnesses didn’t exist. But it wasn’t always this way — in the immediate aftermath of the bombing the FBI was very much touting these witnesses’ identifications during official court proceedings overseen by Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Merrick Garland. The FBI attested to these witnesses’ observations during a preliminary hearing held on April 27, 1995. During his testimony, FBI agent Jon Hersley cited both the Johnson and Moroz encounters as foundational to prove that Timothy McVeigh was the key suspect.[10] At the time of the preliminary hearing, the FBI was also still actively seeking this second suspect. However, by the time of the McVeigh and Nichols trials — and Weldon Kennedy’s book — these witnesses (and John Doe #2) would disappear entirely from the narrative. And with the witnesses, so too went John Doe #2, he was rendered entirely nonexistent.
Why did the FBI want to obscure this other suspect, going so far as to lie? What does this tell us about who this person might be? The way the FBI treated the suspect, and the witnesses, indicated that John Doe #2 was in some way a burden or a liability to the FBI. FBI documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) give credence to this theory. Generated during the FBI’s interviews with Terry Nichols in 2005, the documents in question were created at a time when the FBI was debriefing Nichols in preparation for an interview to be conducted by then-Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA). Rohrabacher was chairing a subcommittee tasked with writing a report on terrorism, and interviewing Terry Nichols was a part of that effort. The interviews generated a great deal correspondence between Denver FBI agents and FBI HQ, to include the Counterterrorism Division and the Domestic Terrorism Operations Unit.
In a memo dated June 24, 2005, FBI Denver writes that “DTOU [Domestic Terrorism Operations Unit] expressed concern regarding John Doe #2’s name surfacing during the congressman’s interview.”[11]. Situated within the larger Counterterrorism division, DTOU was responsible for operational activities and criminal investigations involving intelligence-gathering and undercover work focused on domestic terrorism. If John Doe #2 doesn’t exist, why would it be that the FBI’s DTOU unit in particular was so concerned about the man’s identity, long after the case was closed? In a separate email, the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division (CTD) writes that they “share DTOU’s concern about the John Doe #2 information.”[12]
Why so much caution over a person that the FBI insists isn’t real? One scenario suggested by some critics is that the second suspect was a liability to the bureau because he was an informant or undercover provocateur. You can imagine the panic that would have ensued after the FBI’s OKBOMB investigators discovered that the second person they were seeking was, in fact, a provocateur or cooperating asset. This possibility would account for a strong motive by the FBI to cover-up and obscure John Doe #2 at all costs: to avoid embarrassment, and even wrongful death lawsuits from victims’ families. It is within this context that the FBI’s apparent concern about John Doe #2—and Weldon Kennedy’s statements concerning the witnesses—begins to make sense.
We Know Nothing
Weldon Kennedy isn’t the only FBI official connected to the OKBOMB case who has misled the public. Bob Ricks, Special Agent in charge of the Oklahoma City FBI field office at the time of the bombing, made some curious statements to the Daily Oklahoman newspaper in October 1995. Ricks had just retired from the FBI (unusually, in the middle of the investigation) and the same week he left the bureau he granted an interview where he made claims we now know to be entirely false. Ricks’ false claims served to misinform the public, to the benefit of the FBI. The report featuring the interview was headlined “Ricks Blames Curbs for Intelligence Gaps,” and has the former agent declaring that the FBI had no counterintelligence investigations involving domestic extremists at the time of the Oklahoma City bombing.[13] Ricks claimed that congressional oversight and controversy had hamstrung the FBI and rendered them incapable of gathering intelligence. It is hard to believe that an organization as stalwart, rigid, and powerful as the FBI would refuse to do their jobs based solely on criticisms rendered by a few pearl-clutching Senators, but that was his claim.
Ricks cited the FBI’s investigation of communist front groups in the 1970s, saying that “following the congressional hearings there, that pretty much took us out of the intelligence business (in the mid-1980s).” In describing the FBI’s alleged response to congressional criticism, Ricks claims that the FBI simply “buried our head in the sand.” But did they really? As with Weldon Kennedy’s lie, Ricks’ fib doesn’t stand up to scrutiny and is rebutted by the FBI’s own records. As documented, the FBI possessed a vast network of intelligence-gathering resources at their disposal in 1995 that targeted domestic threats. They had confidential informants (CIs) and undercover agents (UCAs) infiltrating radical groups.[14] They had pen-register and trap-and-trace mechanisms on the phones of specific targets that recorded inbound and outbound phone numbers.[15] They had cooperating witnesses in ongoing investigations. All of these tools allowed the FBI to infiltrate and monitor the right-wing, while available evidence indicates they actively used these methods in at least one sophisticated and complex operation that was reminiscent of the FBI’s counterintelligence operations carried out against Communists and civil rights leaders (COINTELPRO) in the 60s and 70s. For example, in the years leading up to the Oklahoma City bombing, the FBI instituted a “Major Case Domestic Security/Terrorism Group 1 Undercover Operation” called PATCON that targeted militias and other right-wing extremists.[16] The operation’s name, PATCON, was FBI shorthand for “Patriot Conspiracy.” The type of operation — a “Group 1 Major Case Undercover Operation” is no minor undertaking at the bureau. In fact, due to its scope a Group 1 Major Case U/C Operation requires regular performance reviews and funding authorizations with oversight, and the endeavor has to be signed-off on by the FBI’s Undercover Review Committee whose job is to scrutinize the operational performance of these types of sensitive operations.
At the time of Ricks’ comments, PATCON was a tightly held secret at the FBI. It would be over a decade before the operation was exposed, and its full scope is still hidden behind redactions and FOIA avoidance. What can be said, based on the documents that have been released, is that the operation had infiltrated at least three large right-wing groups located across the country using several undercover assets and informants. The FBI established their own phony “front groups” whose purpose was to network with the targets. One front, dubbed the “Veterans Aryan Movement” (or VAM), had agents posing as armored car robbers with connections to racist groups. [17]
The FBI’s undercover agents and informants, connected to the various PATCON front groups, reported detailed intelligence on their targets which included in their ranks people and radical organizations harboring ideologies identical to Timothy McVeigh’s. For example, PATCON agents infiltrated the Texas Reserve Militia (TRM) / Texas Light Infantry Brigade (TLI), a group based in Texas with members who associated with white supremacist propagandist Louis Beam. Beam’s most well known essay, “Leaderless Resistance,” lays out a methodology for creating a successful terrorist organization. During the same period, undercover PATCON assets targeted the American Pistol and Rifle Association, run by John L. Grady. Yet another figure targeted by PATCON was Tom Posey, who ran an outfit called Civilian Material Assistance (CMA), an American paramilitary group that had shadowy connections to Iran-Contra figures involved with arms smuggling and stolen military hardware. One example of the latter is an investigation into the black-market sale of Stinger missiles, something that CMA’s Tom Posey told undercover agents they could get for $40,000 a pop. In investigating these groups, one FBI memorandum thusly summarized PATCON as “essential to the successful identification of new domestic terrorism organizations.”
Through the branches of the PATCON operation, the FBI had a vast intelligence-gathering apparatus that was actively targeting multiple organizations and individuals, the exact opposite of what Ricks said in October 1995.[19] It is now clear, in retrospect, that Bob Ricks was completely wrong and the FBI not only had an active operation gathering intelligence on targets, but they had one tailor-made for tracking people exactly like Timothy McVeigh.
What was Bob Ricks’ intention when he went to the newspaper and dissuaded the public concerning the possible existence of something like PATCON? His last act of service to the bureau, rendered unto them the same week he retired, was to tell the press preemptively that something like PATCON could not exist. In effect, Ricks was claiming ‘Nothing to see here, we’re not doing anything that could conceivably be connected to McVeigh.’ Now knowing that this was a lie, we must ask what Ricks was protecting when he volunteered to falsely answer a question he hadn’t yet been asked. If this deliberate deception is any indicator — remember, no matter how clumsy, most obfuscations serve a purpose — there is reason to suspect a connection between PATCON and the Oklahoma City bombing. That theory is confirmed by one of the operation’s undercover assets. The week of the bombing, John Matthews was sitting at home with his father watching television coverage. Matthews had worked for the FBI as an undercover PATCON agent and had his story told in Newsweek, in a 2011 cover story headlined “I Was an Undercover White Supremacist.” The original article contained a passage about Timothy McVeigh. Newsweek’s editors cut this passage and several other sensitive details from the story that Newsweek eventually ran for reasons that are still unclear. The original, unedited article states that when Matthews saw McVeigh’s face on television, he recognized him.[20] Years before the bombing, when John Matthews had infiltrated the Texas Reserve Militia, he attended one of their many weekend paramilitary training exercises. Matthews says that it was there, at a ranch in San Saba, Texas, that he met a tall, skinny ex-soldier with a buzzcut named Tim.[21] The veteran was accompanied by a buck-toothed man with a German accent named “Andy.”[22]
Regarding McVeigh, Matthews said, “He [Tim] was a nobody. Just another ex-soldier, but I remember his face. He was at one of the meetings, where a bunch of [stolen] ammunition was brought in from Fort Hood.”[23] Matthews informed his FBI handler, Don Jarrett, that he had seen McVeigh at the ranch training with the Texas Reserve Militia. Jarrett told him, “Don’t worry, we got it covered.”[24]
Yet McVeigh’s crossed path with PATCON was never detailed in documents from the OKBOMB investigation, nor at trial, and over a decade after the bombing it was scrubbed from the Newsweek report. Was this indeed “covered,” as Jarrett had said, or was it covered-up? Was Bob Ricks’ statement about the nonexistence of something like PATCON related to the fact that PATCON crossed paths with McVeigh? And how closely related is Bob Ricks’ dishonest statement and Weldon Kennedy’s assertion concerning the nonexistence of witnesses? Were the lies connected in some way, with one designed to cover-up a McVeigh accomplice who was a liability to the FBI, and the other designed to cover-up an FBI operation that came into direct contact with McVeigh ? It’s worth considering when you look at the overall pattern of misdeeds displayed by the FBI in this case.
Fabricating Evidence
Weldon Kennedy’s assertion that the FBI would have to build its case on forensic evidence due to the non-existence of witnesses amounted, in effect, to two different misdeeds. The first, of course, was saying there were no witnesses. The second is what Kennedy left out of his statement; not only would the FBI rely on forensic evidence, but it would use fabricated forensic evidence to bolster its case when doing so was both unnecessary and unethical.
FBI forensic scientist Dr. Frederic Whitehurst first raised concerns about unscientific practices occurring at the FBI crime lab, after which an extensive investigation discovered fabricated evidence used in the Oklahoma City bombing case.[25] From 1986 to 1998, Whitehurst served as one of the crime lab’s supervisory special agents, where he was widely considered the leading authority on explosives and explosive residue. Possessing a Ph. D. in chemistry from Duke University and a J. D. from Georgetown University, Dr. Whitehurst was the highest qualified analyst in the crime lab at the time, with qualifications often surpassing his superiors. For example, the Chemistry & Toxicology Unit’s chief, Roger Martz, did not have a degree.[26] Likewise, the head of the crime lab’s Explosives Unit, David Williams, had a degree in zoology and made his bones not in academia, but through serving time in the bomb squad.[27] The crux of Dr. Whitehurst’s complaints was that his crime lab peers and supervisors were dedicated less to science than they were securing successful prosecutions — even if that meant violating the standards of any respectable scientist.
Dr. Whitehurst began observing and documenting practices at the crime lab that constituted notable examples of misconduct. As a whistleblower, he was treated severely. He was first fired by the FBI, who ultimately settled in court, paying him $1.2 million and an undisclosed sum for damages. In addition, the Justice Department’s Inspector General investigated the crime lab and produced a damning report. The IG examined several high-profile FBI cases — including the Oklahoma City bombing — and concluded that the crime lab’s investigation contained “serious flaws,” used “unscientific” practices, and had made “unjustified” conclusions which “lacked scientific foundation.” [28]
The FBI assigned to the Oklahoma City bombing case the same crime lab investigators who worked on the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing. Explosives Unit chief David Williams headed up the lab’s investigation, and he chose Steven Burmeister as his lead forensic examiner. The IG stated that Burmeister had fraudulently altered his reports at the direction of his supervisor, Williams. In one report, concerning Timothy McVeigh’s pocketknife, Burmeister initially wrote that “the presence of PETN [explosives] could not be confirmed.” He later altered the report to say “traces of PETN were located on specimen.”[29] Thus, a qualified uncertainty was turned into a forensic certainty, resulting in a report containing false information that was used as evidence at trial. Just as Dr. Whitehurst had documented, the FBI fabricated evidence for prosecutors — not an anomaly in their behavior, but a pattern. The IG report confirmed that among the cases it examined, the errors “were all tilted in such a way as to incriminate the defendants.”[30]
The IG concluded that David Williams ought to be reassigned to another unit because he “lacks objectivity, judgment, and scientific knowledge.” This was one of several reassignments and changes recommended in the IG report, all necessary to reform the crime lab’s practices. As a result of Dr. Whitehurst’s whistleblowing and the subsequent investigation, the FBI was forced to adopt forty different reforms to ensure forensic reliability.
The IG report impeached not only the credibility of the FBI crime lab but the entire bureau: even with the imposition of reforms, with that credibility now gone, how are we expected to trust the FBI’s work in other areas of the investigation? How far did the corruption extend?
It is appalling that such a thing could happen in the highest-level investigation ever carried out by the United States’ premier law enforcement agency. Questions of integrity aside, fabricating evidence also displays an immense arrogance. The FBI was willing to risk a successful prosecution of Timothy McVeigh when fabricating evidence wasn’t necessary to win a conviction; the extent of the available evidence, even without eyewitnesses, would have been enough to easily secure a conviction. So why even do it?
The answer appears to be either ‘because we can,’ or worse, ‘because that’s how we do things.’ The evidence supporting the latter conclusion is plentiful since criminal activity by the feds goes beyond Oklahoma City. One needs only to look at other high-profile FBI cases. For example, in the espionage case against defense contractor Christopher Boyce and his childhood friend Daulton Lee, the FBI claimed it had recovered Lee’s fingerprints from the secure “black vault” at TRW Inc.[31] The black vault was where Boyce obtained sensitive documents which Lee then hand-delivered to the KGB in Mexico City. One problem: Daulton Lee had never in his life been on TRW Inc. property, much less made his way to the highly secure black vault.[32] This inconvenient fact did not stop the FBI as they apparently fabricated Daulton Lee’s fingerprints to use as a “trump card” in case the evidence against him wasn’t enough to convict. (and it most certainly was enough to convict, to include confessions of espionage). As with McVeigh, there was enough legitimate evidence against both Boyce and Lee to make any fabrication unnecessary, to say nothing of egregious. But then, it seems, ‘that’s how we do things’ at the FBI.
Destroying Evidence
Acting on a tip, in 2005, the FBI raided the former Kansas residence of convicted bomber Terry Nichols, where they seized a cache of explosives. Nichols told the FBI in interviews that they would find the fingerprints of an unindicted co-conspirator in the bombing among the carefully wrapped and preserved explosives. Unfortunately, we’ll never know whether this was true. The FBI — grudgingly acting on Nichols’ tip — destroyed most of the evidence.
Only after enduring pressure from congressional staffers and at least one congressman did the FBI act, taking over two years to produce a report on the results of the raid. The report, dated February 21, 2008, noted that a fingerprint — named redacted — was lifted from a book found among the explosive cache. The inventory — seventy kinestik binary explosives, detonators, fuses, and flares — was destroyed, along with any fingerprint evidence.[33]
In his 2005 interviews with the bureau, Terry Nichols said that Roger Moore and other bombing conspirators' fingerprints would be found among items in the explosives cache. Despite this indication, the FBI crime lab made no identification in their reports. However, in a December 2012 interview on The Scott Horton Show, investigator Roger Charles suggested that the FBI did recover key evidence from the stashed explosives. Charles explained that a highly placed FBI official told Deputy Bureau Chief of the Associated Press John Solomon that four sets of fingerprints were discovered: Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols, Roger Moore, and Richard Lee Guthrie. [34] Additional details uncovered by Charles when he was researching his book, Oklahoma City: What the Investigation Missed and Why It Still Matters, revealed that the FBI also recovered a hair sample belonging to Guthrie among the cache.
Guthrie, who died in prison in 1996, was a leading figure in the Aryan Republican Army (ARA), a neo-Nazi bank robbery gang, and has long been suspected of possible involvement in the Oklahoma City bombing plot. Likewise, in reports produced by McCurtain Gazette reporter J. D. Cash and Indiana criminology professor Mark Hamm, they suggest that McVeigh might have been involved in one or more ARA bank robberies. One of the stick-ups was carried out on September 21, 1994 in Overland Park, Kansas. According to Cash, “witnesses provided a sketch of him [one of the robbers], you look at it, and there’s no question it’s McVeigh.[35] Mark Hamm agreed, telling Cash, “I believe that sketch of the other subject is Timothy McVeigh and not [Peter] Langan. It’s almost a perfect likeness of McVeigh.”[36]
Another ARA bank robbery that Timothy McVeigh may have participated in occurred at the Third Federal Savings and Loan in Middleburg Heights, Ohio on December 9th, 1994. On December 5th, members of the ARA checked into a motel near Kent, Ohio. FBI investigators, suspecting that McVeigh was linked to the robbery, analyzed video footage from the crime in an attempt at identification. Reportedly, the FBI crime lab’s comparison of McVeigh and the bank surveillance video was inconclusive. Unfortunately, we can no longer examine the video because it was destroyed by the FBI in 1999, despite evidentiary rules to the contrary concerning evidence tied to cases in which the defendants qualify for appeals.
The FBI also destroyed blasting caps wrapped in Christmas paper recovered from the gang’s safehouse in Ohio. According to the ARA’s co-founder, Peter Langan, those blasting caps were obtained from Timothy McVeigh.[37] Can we trust the FBI’s word that Langan is lying and that neither the caps nor the surveillance video was connected to McVeigh? The FBI’s bureaucratic culture is to collect and preserve every last scrap of paper or conceivable bit of evidence. If something is destroyed, it is to serve a purpose.
The FBI also managed to destroy crucial audio dispatch tape recordings and transcripts that had been obtained during the investigation. In a November 1995 interview, Assistant Chief of the Oklahoma City Fire Department Jon Hansen said that the fire department had received a call from the FBI on the Friday before the bombing. The FBI warned them that there might be an imminent terrorist attack, and to maintain heightened security levels. When asked if the fire department had kept a recording of the call, Hansen said that “all the transmission tapes have been erased. We made a boo-boo.”[38] A boo-boo? Really?
During his trial, McVeigh’s defense team requested that the FBI provide all transcripts and transmissions related to Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, and two weeks prior. The FBI glibly responded to this request by informing them that these tapes and transcripts were “accidentally destroyed.”[39] Was this another “boo-boo?” Or was this destruction of key evidence intentional? The reader can make an informed decision.
McVeigh’s defense team also made a request for transcripts of the Oklahoma City Police Department dispatch tapes, which would have included the APB that police issued on April 19 for a brown truck connected to the bombing. The FBI responded that these, too, had been “accidentally destroyed.”[40] Once again, we find a convenient “accident” that invariably strengthens the FBI’s narrative of the bombing by eliminating any kind of leads or evidence that cannot be sufficiently explained.
Any lawyer will tell you that your case is only as good as the evidence it’s based on. The evidence in a criminal case must be carefully preserved with a documented chain of custody; nothing should be destroyed or otherwise mishandled. It appears, however, to have been commonplace in the Oklahoma City investigation. The handful of examples highlighted here show a pattern of behavior that, when combined with the conclusions of the IG report on the FBI crime lab, indicate that the destruction and fabrication of evidence was part of an overall effort to conceal specific facts in order to slant the case in favor of the prosecution.
We must ask: what is being concealed by this pattern, and what common denominators exist in each instance where evidence was mishandled, destroyed, or fabricated?
ATF: Where Were They?
On the morning of April 19, 1995, several ordinary Oklahomans had disturbing encounters with ATF agents the Murrah Building blast site during the subsequent rescue operations. These individuals include rescue volunteers and emergency first responders who were triaging the wounded while working with ambulance and rescue personnel. Several of these people testified before a grand jury impaneled to investigate the bombing, telling them what ATF agents had told them that morning.
Prior to testifying, these witness accounts were published in the McCurtain Gazette newspaper by award-winning journalist J. D. Cash. Three of their statements were broadcast on Oklahoma City television station KFOR-TV on September 12, 1995. The first two witnesses interviewed by KFOR’s Brad Edwards were Bruce Shaw and his supervisor, Tony Brasier. Shaw’s wife had worked at the Murrah Building, and upon hearing about the bombing, Shaw and Brasier immediately left work to assist in rescue efforts. Arriving at the blast site, Shaw spotted an ATF agent among those gathered, and he approached to inquire about rescue efforts. Shaw explained that his wife worked in the federal credit union located in the building. The couple knew many of the ATF personnel who worked at the Murrah Building, and Shaw informed the unfamiliar agent, “I’ve got to find some of the local ATF agents to help me find her…They know me.”
Bruce Shaw recounted that the ATF agent he spoke to attempted to reach someone on a two-way radio but couldn’t get a response. “He said they were in debriefing, that none of the agents had been in there. They’d been tipped by their pagers not to come in to work that day. Plain as day out of his mouth. Those were the words he said.”[41] Shaw’s supervisor, Tony Brasier, had been standing next to his subordinate and the agent when this discussion occurred. Brasier affirmed on-camera to KFOR that the agent had indeed said that the ATF had been “tipped off by the pagers not to come in to work that day.”
A third witness, Katherine Mallette, was interviewed by the television station on the September 12 broadcast. Mallette was an emergency medical technician with the Emergency Medical Service Authority (EMSA) and participated in rescue efforts on the morning of April 19. She stated that as she was prepping an ambulance to transport victims to area hospitals, two ATF agents walked by, and she overheard their discussion. One agent said to the other, “Is this why we got the page not to come in today?” [42]
A second rescue worker, Tiffany Bible, was a paramedic with the EMSA who participated in rescue efforts that morning. Bible’s first impression was that there was some sort of natural gas explosion, and when she approached an ATF agent on-site, she asked how a gas explosion could have caused so much damage. The agent told her that it was not a gas explosion, but a truck-bomb. This exchange occurred only five minutes after the blast. Knowing that the ATF was housed in the Murrah Building, Bible expressed her concern for the agent’s co-workers. He responded that “No, we weren’t in there today.”[43]
Why was the ATF not at work on the morning of April 19, 1995? The rescue workers’ accounts — aired on television and reported in newspapers — caused the ATF to panic and issue statements later proven to be lies. The ATF agents’ admissions that they were not in the building, combined with the agency’s later explicit denials, may contribute to understanding a fundamental truth about the bombing. The ATF’s lies and contradictions can, like the FBI’s, be interpreted in a wider context.
ATF Panic, Lies
To counter what the ATF said were “widespread rumors” that agents had evacuated the Murrah Building before the blast, the agency acted in a typical bureaucratic fashion: they issued a press release.[44] In the May 23, 1995 press release, ATF Special Agent-in-Charge of the Dallas regional office Lester Martz claimed that Oklahoma City ATF agent Alex McCauley and DEA agent David Schickendanz were trapped in the building’s elevator when the truck-bomb exploded. According to Martz, McCauley and Schickendanz were both victims and heroes, carrying out a fantastical escape to help others who laid dying around them.[45] Martz asserted that the elevator dropped in a free-fall from the eighth floor to the third, where the two men remained trapped. In this account, McCauley and Schickendanz escaped from the elevator’s smoking rubble only after forcing the doors open. This story is, by all measures, entirely fictional.
In the aftermath of the bombing, General Services Administration (GSA) and Midwestern Elevator Company inspectors investigated the blast site and the building’s elevators. The Midwestern technicians “found that five of the six elevators were stopped between floors with their doors blown inward, which caused the safety mechanisms to freeze them in place.”[46] Duane James, one of the elevator maintenance technicians, was quoted saying, “Once that occurs, the doors cannot be opened — period.” James said that the elevators have safety switches that prevent excessive speed and that he determined none of the safety switches had been tripped.[47]
In their final report, the Oklahoma Bombing Investigative Committee wrote that “GSA inspectors and Midwestern technicians have stated in interviews and in sworn affidavits and/or testimony that there was no evidence of (1) free-falling elevators, (2) persons in any of the elevators who then forced their way out, or (3) failure of the safety mechanisms built into the system.”[48] In other words, Lester Martz’s heroic account of federal agents was an impossible lie. Technician Duane James put it this way: “If you fell six floors and it was a free fall, it’d be like jumping out a six-story building. I’d ask them how long they were in the hospital and how lucky they were to survive.”[49]
After the May 23 press release featuring this cock-and-bull story, the ATF issued several other stories to account for their agents’ whereabouts. The narrative kept changing; this indicates both incompetence and dishonesty, a hasty and ill-formed plan to conceal the truth. For example, on the day of the bombing, the ATF’s public affairs spokesperson in Washington D.C. claimed that the agency had 20 agents on duty. When it became apparent this was false, ATF agent Luke Franey volunteered to bombing victim Glenn Wilburn that the agents were “out on assignment,” while “some didn’t come in because they were out of town.”[50] In December 1995, ATF Dallas chief Lester Martz said that the missing agents were involved in an all-night “surveillance operation.”[51] With all of these varying stories to account for the lack of ATF agents in the Murrah Building that day, it is difficult to know where the lies end and the truth begins.
The ATF also issued contradictory statements about their level of situational awareness on April 19, 1995. When asked whether the agency was aware of the date’s significance — it was the two-year anniversary of the Waco massacre — agent Luke Franey flatly denied that the ATF was the least bit concerned. He told Glenn Wilburn that “No, there was no alert or any concern on our part about the significance of that day.”[52] Meanwhile, ATF Director John Magaw told CNN he had been “very concerned about that day and issued memos to all of our field offices,” telling them that “they were put on alert.”[53] These conflicting explanations demonstrate that ATF officials had not coordinated their responses.
The ATF’s many denials and lies about their whereabouts on April 19 share a common theme: to hide the fact that they knew something and were not at work that day. The contradictions indicate that something about their absence is important enough to conceal no matter how outrageous the cover story. What was it? Is it related to the FBI’s deceptions?
The Road to Oklahoma City
The ATF is not the only federal agency whose high-level officials concocted fictional stories about the event of April 19, 1995. There is a similar case that could possibly be related to the ATF agents’ whereabouts during the bombing.
The Special Agent-in-Charge of the Dallas FBI office, and later in charge of the crime scene in Oklahoma, was Danny Coulson. Coulson was a veteran of the FBI with a long history in dealing with terrorism. Over a decade before the bombing, he was attached to the FBI Hostage Rescue Team (which he founded) when they took down Robert J. Matthews of The Order. Coulson managed and successfully negotiated the siege on the Covenant, Sword, and Arm of the Lord radical group on April 19, 1985. He was present at Ruby Ridge. His whole career, Coulson had presided over events whose history was inextricably linked to the ideology of Timothy McVeigh — he was, in fact, the perfect person to lead the Oklahoma City bombing investigation. However, for reasons not yet clear, he was not selected for that job.
In Coulson’s memoir, No Heroes, he recounted the morning of April 19, 1995. He was at home in Texas when he received a page from John O’Neil at the FBI headquarters’ anti-terrorism center.[54] O’Neil broke the news to him: the Alfred P. Murrah Building had been bombed. Coulson writes that O’Neil asked him to catch the next flight to Oklahoma City. What played out next is worthy of a Hollywood film. Coulson claims that there were no flights out of Texas due to inclement weather, so he fetched his badge and gun and hit the road. Coulson sped off to Oklahoma City, driving through a furious rainstorm, his wiper-blades swiveling on the windshield as lightning strikes peppered Texas’ pastures and fields in his rear-view mirror. The FBI’s top anti-terrorism agent was on his way.
Coulson’s biographical account cannot be verified since John O’Neil died in the 9/11 attacks. However, cracks have emerged over the years that raise serious questions about Coulson’s recollection of events. Firstly, in an interview with C-SPAN’s BookTV in 1999 to promote his memoir, Coulson said that he was home eating breakfast when he “heard on the television” about the bombing in Oklahoma City.[55] Since his presentation was about his book, you would have expected Coulson to describe events the same, yet the story differed ever so slightly. In both the book and the presentation, Coulson says that he drove through a furious rain storm from Fort Worth to Oklahoma City, leaving around 11:00 A.M. and arriving at 1:30 P.M. However, in 2001, journalist J. D. Cash obtained Danny Coulson’s hotel receipt and some of his travel records for April 19, 1995. The receipt shows that Coulson checked into an Embassy Suites in Oklahoma City twenty minutes after midnight on the 19th.[56] He was in Oklahoma City nine hours before the Murrah Building was bombed.
During J. D. Cash’s research into Coulson’s movements that week, he attempted to obtain both Coulson’s and FBI official Larry Potts’ travel records from the FBI. The effort was fruitless; the bureau claims the complete travel records were “missing” — in the same manner that inconvenient evidence seems to disappear. However, Cash wrote that Coulson’s trip to Oklahoma City fits within a framework of “evidence revealing weeks of planning by an elite corps of drug and counterterrorism experts who were closely monitoring members of various far-right groups.”[57] What were these “weeks of planning” related to?
Cash concluded that Coulson was working on a project that included other counterterrorism agents “monitoring” right-wing groups. We can infer that whatever Coulson was involved with, it was sensitive enough that he decided to create an alternative explanation about how he arrived at Oklahoma City. Coulson could have written in his book that he happened to arrive in the city the night before and left it at that. Why did he choose to lie? The likeliest reason for a cover-up would be because his reason for being in Oklahoma City was directly linked to the bombing. If that were accurate, Coulson’s motivation begins to make sense.
To make the situation even more confounding, Coulson billed his April 19 travel costs to the FBI’s MC-111 on May 16, 1995. MC-111, short for Major Case 111, is also known as VAAPCON.[58] Like PATCON, VAAPCON was an FBI clandestine operation. While PATCON targeted militias and radical right-wing terrorists like Timothy McVeigh, VAAPCON targeted individuals and groups that advocated violence against abortion clinics. A report published by The Washington Post in 1996 described VAAPCON as consisting of nothing more than a slender stack of papers, with few leads, no arrests, and nothing that would conceivably put an agent of Coulson’s standing far away from his field office. At best, VAAPCON might garner a conference call, but certainly not a flight to Oklahoma City. Headlined “Abortion Clinic Violence Probe Was Over Before It Started,” the Post essentially declares VAAPCON dead in the water.[59]
It was this same Washington Post article that revealed the existence of VAAPCON to the public. Meaning, Coulson would have no reason to conceal such an operation in his memoir, published three years after the article. If Coulson was in Oklahoma City due to his participation in VAAPCON, he could have written that without garnering a second glance. But he didn’t do that. While Coulson might have billed his time to VAAPCON — a dead operation — on May 16, we can interpret this as an effort to conceal his actual activities at the time.
What if the April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing was a failure of intelligence, a sting operation gone terribly wrong that literally blew up in the FBI’s face? If this scenario is correct, it can be assumed that such a thing could never be acknowledged through travel records, much less after-action reports. The sting operation would have to remain a secret. It’s with that mind that we think back to Bob Ricks’ denial to the press in October 1995 about the existence of any intelligence operations being performed by the bureau. This theory would also explain Coulson and Potts' missing travel records, along with Coulson erroneously billing his time to the then-defunct VAAPCON. It would give reason for Coulson to be Oklahoma City nine hours prior to the bomb’s detonation, and to lie about it in his memoir. In this scenario, if the FBI had an informant or asset within the operation — John Doe #2 — that would explain the agency’s continual, adamant denial about the existence of a second suspect. It would also corroborate the FBI Domestic Terrorism Operations Unit’s “worry” and “concern” about John Doe #2’s identity being divulged to congressional investigators in 2005.
While this theory exists in the realm of speculation and conjecture, what can be said with certainty is that this scenario is the only one that makes sense, given the totality of the evidence. What’s more, if this were the case, it would not be the first time an FBI intelligence-gathering operation was tied into the plot through informants.
Real Explosives, Real Victims
Roger Charles was a co-author of the 2012 book Oklahoma City: What the Investigation Missed and Why It Still Matters. In the book and a 2007 BBC production, Charles lays out the evidence indicating that FBI had advance warning of an attack and informants close the criminal conspiracy behind the bombing.[60] If he is correct, it wouldn’t be the first time. Just two years before Oklahoma City, an almost identical situation played out in the first attack on the World Trade Center:
• Terrorists loaded a rental truck with an ANFO bomb.
• A building full of civilians was the target.
• The FBI had an informant inside the operation.
• The FBI failed to stop the bombing, with their focus being in favor of continued intelligence gathering.
The FBI has denied it had any advance warning of the bombing, or that it was involved in a sting operation in Oklahoma City. Bureau flunky Jon Hersley unconvincingly proclaimed that “We don’t play games with people’s lives like that.”[61] The denials, however, don’t line up with the facts.
The FBI informant involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Emad Salem, recorded his conversations with his FBI handlers. The recordings show that the FBI was more interested in intelligence-gathering — of the sort Bob Ricks claims the FBI wasn’t doing — than stopping the plot in its tracks.[62] Salem suggested replacing the live explosives that were eventually used in the bomb with harmless materials. Instead of taking his route, Salem’s handlers wanted him to wear a microphone and continue to gather vital intelligence. Salem balked at wearing a wire — while also asking the FBI to pay him more money. The feds lost Salem as an informant, while the World Trade Center bomb plot continued and matured after Ramzi Yousef came on-board with his bomb-making expertise. The end result was six people dead and 1,000 injured when the bombers attacked the towers.
The FBI’s failure to know when and where the World Trade Center attack would take place was a direct result of their inability to handle Emad Salem properly. In this example, we have the FBI close enough to a bomb plot that they had a chance to capture the conspirators early on but bungling it by not handling their informant with more finesse.
In his denial that any similar operation occurred in Oklahoma City, Agent Hersley said, “If we had any information beforehand from any informants about a potential bombing of a federal building, I can assure you that we would have taken immediate action.” That wasn’t the case, however, in 1993. The opposite is true, in fact. Given the past record of the FBI, can we trust Hersley? Was he lying, alongside Weldon Kennedy, Bob Ricks, and Danny Coulson to protect secrets?
Throughout the late 1980s and into the early 1990s, federal agents targeted former neo-Nazi Johnny Bangerter, who was the center of the same sort of groups targeted by the FBI’s PATCON operation. Bangerter was present at the siege of Ruby Ridge, and he knew many high-profile PATCON targets on a personal basis. In retrospect, he said that the most striking thing about being approached by informants and undercover agents was that they always used “real explosives. Real machine guns. It was always real stuff. Very dangerous.”[63] Bangerter made clear that not only did these federal agents play with people’s lives, but they did so using a kind of playbook: always with a Ryder truck, always with real explosives, and always with provocateurs advocating for violence in the most overt manner.
When the FBI says that “we don’t play games with people’s lives like that,” or insists that the bombing could not possibly have been “a sting gone wrong,” we’re meant to take their word for it. But the question is, can we? When the facts are examined, we find ourselves in a situation where the FBI has no credibility. They lie, they fabricate and destroy evidence. They are akin to the boy who cried wolf: it is reasonable to be skeptical of their denials based on their past behavior. Having witnessed the same sort of conduct and being fed the same kind of lies, we can reach conclusions of what the truth might be.
It is a truth that resembles a failed sting operation, an informant the FBI says doesn’t exist, but that twenty-four people saw, and a mountain of other evidence. Whereas Jon Hersley’s “truth” that the FBI wouldn’t do this is equivalent to the “truth” that there are no eyewitnesses. Or the “truth” that the FBI had no intelligence-gathering operations. Or the “truth” that the ATF showed up for work on April 19, 1995. Or the “truth” that ATF agents karate-chopped their way out of wrecked elevators to save lives. Or the “truth” that Danny Coulson drove through a rainstorm to reach Oklahoma City after the bomb blast.
It’s all the truth because the FBI says so.
And we can trust the FBI, can’t we?
Endnotes
1. Kennedy, Weldon L. On-Scene Commander: From Street Agent to Deputy Director of the FBI. Potomac Books, 2007, pp. 224. (Kindle Edition)
2. Thomas, Jo. “Sightings of John Doe №2: In Blast Case, Mystery №1.” The New York Times, 3 Dec. 1995.
3. Statement by FBI Special Agent in Charge Weldon L. Kennedy. Press Release: U.S. Department of Justice, FBI. 20 Apr. 1995.
4. “Call to Reopen Oklahoma Bomb Case.” BBC Two, 2 Mar. 2007 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/6275147.stm>
5. FBI 302 report. SA John Hippard. Interview w/ Rodney Johnson. 21 Apr 1995, File #174A-OC-56120 D-3253
6. FBI 302 report. SA John Hippard. Interview w/ Billie J. Hood. 27 Apr. 1995. FILE #174A-OC-56120 D-3428
7. Oklahoma County Grand Jury #CJ-95–7278, testimony of Mike Moroz, September 15th, 1997; FBI 302 report. SA John Elvig. Interview w/ Mike Moroz. 21 April 1995, file #174A-OC-56120 D-68; “Man Who Says McVeigh Wasn’t Alone Testifies Before Grand Jury.” Rocky Mountain News, 16 Sept. 1997; Clay, Nolan. “Nichols’ jurors hear of McVeigh sightings.” The Daily Oklahoman, 14 May, 2004.
8. FBI 302 report. SA John Elvig. Interview w/ Allen Gorrell, 24 April 1995, File #174A-OC-56120 SubD-70 and FBI 302 report. SA John Elvig and OSBI SA Terry Wade. Interview w/ Byron Marshall, 24 April 1995, File #174A-OC-56120 SubD-760
9. Trammell, Robby and Nolan Clay. “FBI Downplays Man’s Account Of Truck Driver.” The Oklahoman, 16 Aug. 1995. Print. See also: Oklahoma County Grand Jury #CJ-95–7278, testimony of Mike Moroz, September 15th, 1997.
10. U.S. vs. Timothy McVeigh, № M-95–98-H (Western District of Oklahoma.) Preliminary Hearing, 27 Apr. 1995. Testimony of Jon Hersley. p76 [Johnson] & p93 [Moroz].
11. Memo from FBI Denver Squad 12 to Director FBI, re Terry Lynn Nichols. June 24th, 2005. pp 11
12. FBI email from [REDACTED] FBI Denver to [REDACTED] FBI CTD re: Congressman Rohrabacher’s interview of Terry Nichols. 27 May 2005.
13. Randy Ellis, and Diana Baldwin. “Ricks Blames Curbs for Intelligence Gaps.” The Oklahoman, 1 Oct. 1995.
14. R.M. Schneiderman. “I Was an Undercover White Supremacist.” Newsweek, Nov. 2011, p. 38.
15. The State of Oklahoma vs. Terry Nichols, № F-2004–68 (District Court of Pittsburg County), Terry Nichols Motion to Dismiss Based on State’s Failure to Comply w. Brady vs. Maryland, April 12 2004.
16. Schneiderman 38–48.
17. Ibid.
18. Berger, J.M. “PATCON Revealed: An Exclusive Look Inside The FBI’s Secret War With the Militia Movement” Intelwire. Oct. 8, 2007; Berger, J.M. “Patriot Games: How the FBI spent a decade hunting white supremacists and missed Timothy McVeigh” Foreign Policy. April 18, 2012
19. Ibid.
20. R.M. Schneiderman. “I Was an Undercover White Supremacist.” Newsweek, Nov. 2011, Unedited Original Draft, obtained from the writer via researcher Roger Charles.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid. Note: the black-haired man with a German accent named “Andy” is widely believed to have been German national Andreas Strassmeir. Strassmeir was indeed socializing with the Texas Reserve Militia/Texas Light Infantry around the time Matthews says he saw him at the San Saba ranch with McVeigh. He was later kicked out of the group after some members strongly felt that he was an undercover informant or provocateur. Strassmeir’s story is a long one, for details concerning his time with the TLI/TRM see also the following sources: J.D. Cash. “FBI Says Strassmeir Was Government Operative.” McCurtain Gazette, 14 Jul. 1996; J.D. Cash and Roger Charles. “FBI Document Links Former Green Beret To McVeigh, Bombing.” McCurtain Gazette, 31 Aug. 2005.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Kelly, John and Phillip Wearne. Tainting Evidence: Behind the Scandals at the FBI Crime Lab. Free Press, 1998.
Notes: The Wearne book documents the Whitehurst story in great detail.
26. Peter Israel, Stephen Jones. Others Unknown: Timothy Mcveigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing Conspiracy. PublicAffairs, 1998, 2001. Kindle Edition. pp 278–280.
Notes: The Jones book summarizes the Whitehurst/FBI crime lab scandal very well. Details concerning Whitehurst’s peers lack of degrees and qualifications were noted in this book.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid, 281.
Notes: The Inspector General’s report on FBI crime lab is quoted verbatim in the Jones book. See the full report here:
USDOJ/OIG Special Report: The FBI Laboratory: An Investigation into Laboratory Practices and Alleged Misconduct in Explosives-Related and Other Cases (April 1997) <https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/special/9704a/index.htm>
29. Ibid, 330.
30. Ibid, 281–282.
31. Boyce, Christopher. American Sons: The Untold Story of the Falcon and the Snowman (40th Anniversary Edition). Glass Spider Publishing, 2018. Kindle Edition. pp 98–99.
32. Ibid, 100.
33. FBI Lab Took Nearly Three Years to Analyze Terry Nichols Bomb Cache. Intelwire. 3 Feb. 2011. <http://news.intelwire.com/2011/02/fbi-lab-took-nearly-three-years-to.html>
34. Interview with Roger G. Charles. The Scott Horton Show, 4 Dec. 2012.
35. Interview with J.D. Cash. The Scott Horton Show, 22 Jul. 2005.
36. J.D. Cash and Roger Chales. “Sketch could link McVeigh with Aryan Nations’ plot.” McCurtain Daily Gazette, 6 Dec. 2003
37. J.D. Cash. “National Media Barred from Interviewing Inmates About OKC Bombing.” McCurtain Gazette, 1 May 2003; Affidavit Peter Langan, 9 Apr. 2007.
38. J.D. Cash and Jeff Holladay. “Bombing Trial Judges Absence on Day of Blast ‘an Amazing Coincidence.” McCurtain Gazette, 1 Dec. 1995.
39. Painting, Wendy S. Aberration in the Heartland of the Real: The Secret Lives of Timothy McVeigh (Kindle Location 1150). Trine Day. Kindle Edition.
40. Ibid.
41. J.D. Cash and Jeff Holladay. “Did ATF Expect Bomb Blast Earlier, Let Down Its Guard?” McCurtain Daily Gazette. 16 May 1996; Oklahoma Bombing Investigation Committee. The Final Report on the Bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The Oklahoma Bombing Investigation Committee, 2001. pp 270–272
42. The Final Report on the Bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The Oklahoma Bombing Investigation Committee, 2001. pp 270–272
43. Ibid, p 342.
44. J.D. Cash and Jeff Holladay. “ATF’s Explanation Disputed.” McCurtain Sunday Gazette, 30 Jul. 1995.
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid.
47. The Oklahoma Bombing Investigation Committee, pp 272.
48. Ibid.
49. Ibid.
50. J.D. Cash and Jeff Holladay. “More Evidence Suggests Prior Knowledge of OKC Bombing.” McCurtain Sunday Gazette. 12 May 1996.
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid.
53. Ibid.
54. Coulson, Danny. No Heroes: Inside the FBI’s Secret Counter-Terror Force. Simon and Schuster, 1999.
55. C-Span BookTV appearance, Danny Coulson, Inside the FBI’s Secret Counter-Terror Force (1999). <
56. J.D. Cash. “Receipt Shows Head of FBI Anti-Terrorism Task Force in OKC Hours Before Blast.” McCurtain Daily Gazette, 21 Jan. 2002; “FBI Document Raises Questions About Prior Knowledge in OKC bombing.” News Radio 1000 AM KTOK in OKC, 17 Jan 2002;
57. Ibid.
58. Ibid.
59. Charles W. Hall and Robert O’Harrow Jr. “Abortion Clinic Violence Probe Was Over At The Start.” Washington Post, 26 Jan. 1996.
60. Andrew Gumbel and Roger Charles. Oklahoma City: What the Investigation Missed and Why It Still Matters. HarperCollins, 2012; The Conspiracy Files: Oklahoma City, BBC. 4 Mar. 2007.
61. The Conspiracy Files: Oklahoma City, BBC. 4 Mar. 2007.
Amazing research. Very interesting and credible, but I found not a word about WHY the FBI erected so many lies and fabrications. Surely that's an even more interesting question.