Posted on 01/18/2002 10:47:58 PM PST by JohnHuang2
The FBI's top counterterrorism agent checked into an Oklahoma City hotel nearly nine hours before a truck bomb nearly leveled the Alfred P. Murrah Building, according to a receipt obtained by WorldNetDaily, despite claims that he was in Texas the morning of the attack.
The Embassy Suites Hotel receipt of Danny Coulson, then-director of the FBI's Terrorist Task Force and founding commander of the bureau's Hostage Rescue Team was dated April 19, 1995, with a check-in time of "00:20" – military time for 12:20 a.m. (Editor's note: His last name is spelled "Coulsen" on the receipt, but it indicates he is with the "FBI," located at "50 Penn Place, Suite 1600; OKC, OK.")
The truck bomb exploded at 9:03 a.m., devastating half the building and killing 168 men, women and children.
According to the receipt, Coulson checked out of his hotel – room 406 – April 27 at 11:16 a.m.
The existence of the receipt and subsequent questions it raises surrounding the FBI's official denial of prior knowledge of the OKC bombing was first reported by J.D. Cash of the McCurtain (Oklahoma) Daily Gazette – a small-town paper that has been out in front of scores of OKC-related stories.
"Since the bombing, officials at the Department of Justice have repeatedly assured victims that the FBI had no prior knowledge of any plot to bomb the Murrah federal building," the paper said Wednesday. However, "evidence of Coulson's clandestine trip fits squarely with a substantial body of details found in hundreds of pages of other official documents obtained [via Freedom of Information Act requests] by" the paper – "evidence revealing weeks of planning by an elite corps of drug and counterterrorism experts who were closely monitoring members of various far-right groups they considered religious extremists and threats to the safety and security of the nation."
WorldNetDaily reported June 1 that Ricardo "Rick" J. W. Ojeda, a former FBI special agent involved in the original Oklahoma City bombing investigation, was given details of a relationship between convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh and members of a white supremacist group that may have helped McVeigh carry out the attack.
McVeigh was put to death 10 days later. His accomplice, Terry Nichols, is facing state charges in Oklahoma for his role in the bombing after having been convicted in 1997 on federal charges.
In his 1999 book, "No Heroes: Inside the FBI's Secret Counter-Terror Force," authored with Time magazine's Elaine Shannon, Coulson said he was in Dallas the morning of the Murrah attack. He said he and his wife were house-hunting and staying with friends:
We were finishing up breakfast with some old friends in Fort Worth when we heard the first news bulletin, something about a big explosion up in Oklahoma. ... My pager went off, displaying a number I knew by heart. "It's the SIOC," I said. The Strategic Information and Operations Center at the Hoover Building in Washington. John O'Neil, the headquarters official in charge of domestic terrorism investigations, answered. His voice was flat. "I guess you heard a bomb went off in Oklahoma City. 9:02 a.m." "Yes, it's all over the news." "A lot of people have been killed and injured. We don't know what we have. Ricks needs help. Can you catch the next flight?" "We're right in the middle of thunderstorms," I said. "Nobody in Texas is getting on a plane. I'll drive. ..."But according to the Gazette's investigation – aided by the discovery of the hotel receipt – Coulson was apparently already in OKC, "tied to an FBI investigation that ... was part of a highly sensitive operation that few outside the criminal division of the FBI knew existed until long after it was disbanded."
That operation, allegedly begun by then-Attorney General Janet Reno in August 1994, was dubbed VAAPCON, assigned the number MC-111 (Major Case 111) and was aimed at investigating "the so-called religious right in America and possible ties to violent acts," the paper said.
Cash said he was unclear what VAAPCON meant, but he believes it has something to do with a Reno initiative to investigate violence against abortion providers.
The paper also noted that Coulson referred to MC-111 as his initial reason for going to Oklahoma City, using the case number in a May 16, 1995, report filed he filed with the bureau.
Others have also tied McVeigh and Nichols to white supremacist groups. WND reported June 27 that Indiana State University criminologist Mark Hamm, in a book published last fall, named former Aryan Republican Army member Mark Thomas, originally of Pennsylvania, and other members of his group as alleged coconspirators.
Based on court records and other evidence, WND also reported similar connections May 30.
Others, however, have said they believe McVeigh and Nichols were tied to Middle Eastern terrorists.
Jayna Davis, a former investigative reporter for the NBC affiliate in Oklahoma City told Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly May 14 that she had gathered massive evidence pointing to a conspiracy between McVeigh, Terry Nichols and Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization.
Davis said last year that she took her evidence – including hundreds of court records, 24 sworn witness affidavits and reports from law enforcement, intelligence and terror experts – to the FBI, which refused to accept the material or the leads.
Some details may never be revealed. For example, travel records and vouchers for Coulson and fellow FBI agent Larry Potts, also assigned to investigate the OKC bombing, were listed as "missing," according to documents examined by WND. One for Coulson, in the amount of $1,313.80, was dated the day of the explosion – "4-19-95."
"After this many years, the National Archives regularly disposes of these kind of records," FBI spokeswoman Barbara Miller told the Gazette.
Coulson could not be contacted for comment.
If you'd like to sound off on this issue, please take part in the WorldNetDaily poll.
Click here for WorldNetDaily's complete coverage of the OKC bombing.
Terry Nichols won't be too happy to hear this about the records, Barbara Miller. His life kind of depends on it, doncha know?
JH2, thanks for the flag. The links in the article aren't working:-( I'll go to the source.
Hmmm.....hasn't our hero, John Ashcroft, moved to make getting this sort of FOIA stuff a lot more difficult?
regards - red
Here we have just one more nail in the coffin of the official story the feds are peddling. Even as the official package of lies falls apart, the federal government expands it's powers and terms it anti terrorism related. Folks, it's my assessment that we're in a world of hurt.
Unless you're prepared to drive everywhere you go, even across our nation, your movements are being monitored.
I believe that Bill Clinton was only an indication of things to come. I do not think it will be much longer before certain types of people simply cease to exist. Those people will be the ones who are actually doing investigations into what really is going on in this nation. I'm talking about the pros or semipros. Those who developed the information for this article would be prime candidates. Those refereed to in the article could also be considered to be in that grouping. And when we begin to notice those people dropping out of sight, we better think about our own safety.
Hey, call me paranoid. I don't mind. Even a paranoid will be right on occasion.
Come on _Jim, what's the holdup?
I know on your last post about this the hotel was saying that there time stamp was sometimes off giving the wrong day from 00:00 to 00:59
But the bill shows 8 days billed with checked out before noon on 4/27 and if you zoom the first room charge looks like it was posted to the bill at 02:03 on the 4/19
Because he is an FBI agent, not a secret undercover operative and so the bill would be sent to the FBI.
Didn't you see in the article and on the receipt that Coulson conveniently misspelled his own last name as 'Coulsen'? It's SOP; therefore makes the receipt even more credible.
First, the hotel billed the FBI as if Coulson really did stay at the motel starting on April 19 rather than April 20.
Second, regardless of whether or not you want to believe the hotel's and Coulson's explanation or not that Coulson did not arrive at the hotel until April 20, what remains is also the likelihood that the reservation was made on April 19 at a time before the bombing. This would still indicate foreknowledge or forewarning even if Coulson arrived on April 20.
I have always believed that Assistnat FBI Director Larry Potts (of Ruby Ridge infamy) was in OKC before the bombing operating out of the OKC FBI office. And now his travel expense records are conveniently missing and not available to FOIA requests. Potts works as VP for Terry Lenzner at IGI with Strobe Talbots wife .
Lenzner was Bill and Hillary CLinton's hatchet man who goes back with Hillary to the Watergate committee staff and Sam Dash. Lenzner's firm and his investigators tried to interfere with KFORTV and Jayna Davis investigation of the Iraqi involvement in the OKC bombing in 1995.
A Pakistani and Muslim extremist organizer in Tulsa, Mujeeb Cheema works at a company owned by Lenzner in Tulsa. Cheema had direct ties to the employer of the Iraqi implicated in the OKC bombing according to an informant for the OKC PD. Cheema made several trips to Pakistan and Afghanistan prior to the OKC bombing to make investments for Lenzner's company into the gas pipeline being built through the region involving deals with the Taleban.
One of the heads of Paksitan's ISI intelligence services with close ties to Iraq and Sadam Hussein is a man whose last name is Cheema (a relative of Mujeeb?)
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