Mueller orders review of bombing investigation 2004-02-27 -- OKC Bombing

Breaking News The Oklahoman ^ | Feb 27, 2004 | John Solomon, AP

[PhiKapMom]

Mueller orders review of bombing investigation

2004-02-27

By JOHN SOLOMON
.c The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI on Friday ordered a formal review of some aspects of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing investigation, reopening the question of whether Timothy McVeigh may have had more accomplices in the worst domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history, The Associated Press has learned.

Reacting to an AP story earlier this week, the FBI ordered agents to determine why some documents did not properly reach the bureau's Oklahoma City task force during the original investigation or get turned over to McVeigh's lawyers before he was executed in 2001, officials said.

The review of evidence and documents will also try to determine whether FBI agents in a separate investigation of white supremacist bank robbers may have failed to alert the Oklahoma City investigation of a possible link between the robbers and McVeigh, and allowed some of that evidence to be destroyed.

AP reported Wednesday that documents never introduced at McVeigh's trial showed FBI agents destroyed evidence and failed to share other information that raised the possibility that a gang of white supremacist bank robbers may have assisted McVeigh.

The evidence includes documents showing the Aryan Republican Army bank robbers possessed explosive blasting caps similar to those McVeigh stole and a driver's license with the name of a central player who was robbed in the Oklahoma City plot.

The documents don't prove additional accomplices were involved - blasting caps are plentiful and the gang was expert in document fraud. But the FBI agent who ran the investigation, Dan Defenbaugh, said his team never got the chance to investigate the evidence and he called for the probe to be reopened.

The April 19, 1995, bombing killed more than 160 people and McVeigh was put to death for it in 2001. His co-defendant, Terry Nichols, will stand trial in Oklahoma next week on state charges that could carry the death penalty.

Nichols' attorneys asked Thursday for the trial to be delayed in light of the AP story, but the judge refused.

FBI officials and Nichols' attorneys declined comment Friday night, citing a gag order in the case.

Government officials, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said the review will be handled by the FBI's inspection division, a unit of senior agents that routinely conducts reviews to ensure the bureau follows its own rules and conducts investigations properly.

The officials said the review was ordered ``out of an abundance of caution'' to ensure that any questions about additional conspirators be put to rest.

It is not the first time issues in the McVeigh case have had to be reopened. In 2001, the Justice Department was forced to conduct an internal investigation to determine why 4,000 pages of documents from the case were belatedly turned over to defense lawyers just days before McVeigh was supposed to be executed. The revelation prompted a one-month delay in the investigation.

Peter Langan, one member of the ARA robbery gang, told AP he plans to testify at Nichols' trial that federal prosecutors several years ago offered and then withdrew a plea deal for information he had about the Oklahoma City bombing.

Langan said he plans to testify that at least three fellow gang members were in Oklahoma around the time of the bombing and one later told him that they had become involved.

Agents who worked both the McVeigh bombing and the bank robbery spree - two of the FBI's highest priority cases of the 1990s - said they suspected a link between the two because of physical evidence as well as statements made by the robbers and a girlfriend.

The agents said they ruled out a connection when the bank robbers denied their involvement and provided an alibi showing they left Oklahoma three days before McVeigh's bomb detonated outside the Alfred P. Murrah federal building on April 19, 1995.

That alibi, however, was contradicted by information Langan offered prosecutors and by car sales records that showed the bank robbers were still in the Oklahoma area after they claimed to have left, FBI documents show.

McVeigh in 1994 stole from a quarry hundreds of construction blasting caps, some which he used to explode the Oklahoma City bomb. The FBI spent months unsuccessfully trying to locate many of the other stolen caps.

Agents collected witness testimony that McVeigh had placed some of the extra caps in two boxes wrapped in Christmas paper in the back of his car along with mercury switches and duffel bags.

One electric and five non-electric blasting caps were found in the Aryan Republican Army robbers' Ohio hideout in January 1996, along with mercury switches, a duffel bag and two items described as a ``Christmas package,'' FBI records show. The FBI allowed firefighters to destroy the caps at the scene, and they were never compared to the Oklahoma case.

FBI agents in the robbery case also determined that the bank robbers had an Arkansas driver's license in the name of Robert Miller, the alias name used by Arkansas gun dealer Roger Moore.

The government contended at McVeigh's trial that Moore was robbed at his Hot Springs, Ark., home in November 1994, and the proceeds were used to fund the Oklahoma City bombing.

One of the bank robbers, Mark Thomas, claimed in a newspaper in 1997 that one of his gang was involved in the Oklahoma bombing. And Thomas' ex-girlfriend told FBI agents her boyfriend stated shortly before he traveled to an Oklahoma white supremacist compound in spring 1995 that a federal building was about to be bombed.

02/27/04 19:33 EST

[SierraWasp]

Wow! What a FR home-page you have!!!

Thank you for your unique perspective on this totally screwed-up OKC situation. I wasn't there, but I watched it unfold live on TV and will never forget EVERYONE starting to run away as someone kept yelling that another bomb was about to "go off!" The terror on their "professional" faces was striking!!!

I had just rode the conservative pendulum swing into elective office and could just feel the air going out of the "Contract With American" and all things conservative with our creepy POTUS cleverly shifting the blame for this on to all things conservative!!!

I will always believe strongly that the opportunistic bastard just found it entirely too convenient to save his sorry differential from political oblivion after the people of this great nation repudiated both him and his Party in November 1994, overturning 30 plus years of Demonic-Rat rule by presumed "divine right" in the Congress!!!

Bless you for your service and may you finally get some satisfaction from some investigation into this traumatic "turning point" event in American history! We all need "some answers" besides _Jim's!!!

[WilliamofCarmichael]

_Jim provides documentation. Too many stand on the sidelines and shout "tin foil hats!" at us and know nothing more than what they heard from 30 seconds on ABCNNBCBS.

Now, I am prompted to post one more time because of "Ron." Ron is a caller to the Jerry Pearce show on AM860 Fresno, CA weekends 1600-1900. Ron like _Jim defends the original findings and both are adamant but reasonably respectful of others' opinions.

Ron denounces the "conspiracies." But here's the rub, talk about conspiracies!. He feeeeeeeels that McVeigh was moved to action by all the hate talk on radio. Ron pleaded with Jerry to stop talking about this and move on lest he stir others to commit crimes.

"Others" being us dim-witted, redneck-stupid drooling, listener-dogs who are conditioned to perform acts of violence. He was not just grasping for a reason to argue against reopening the investigation. He was serious. He's an anointed one. I know them type. :)

Like the New York reporter who said she couldn't believe that Nixon carried 49 states in 1972, because "I don't know anyone who voted for Nixon!" these guys don't know any of us yet they feeeeeeeeeeel they know all of us. Too bad for them. But, nevertheless maybe they are right about the original findings? I don't think so. I'm hungry, gotta go.

[AuntB]

Thank you for your intelligent, informed post. I hope you are still in law enforcement. And thanks for your service!

[judicial meanz]

I appreciate the kind remarks from both of you.

I have always felt there is more to the story than 2 yokels in a rented truck with fertilizer, racing fuel, and blasting caps. It would be refreshing to hear the whole story.

I've long since retired and dont really feel the urge to go back into active law enforcement. I am semi retired now, and enjoying the first real breath of personal freedom since I was a teenager.

If I did go back, I would have to look pretty far and wide to find the special types of people I worked with out there.

[PhilDragoo]

It was all done by two white males.
Time to move on; nothing to see here.

The mere fact of Andreas Carl Strassmeier reconnoitering targets with Timothy McVeigh means nothing.

The presence of Terry Nichols in the Philippines attending Ramzi Yousef's Jihad Night at Senior Bingo is irrelevant.

This Jayna Davis and her Iraqi John Doe Number Two is a typical bit of female madness--you know of course that women's hair emits radiation that drives men insane, don't you?

The 180 on the Middle Eastern connection which gained Clinton eleven points in the polls and got him reelected despite the 1994 conservative resurgence is coincidence only.

As for the theory of prior knowledge--hah! The missing BATF officers all had to drop their kids at school that day, and so they were late--there is nothing to it.

I-40 Motel--you can check out any time you like--but you can never leave.

[SierraWasp]

Excellent comments... both of you!!!

I cracked up seeing Baghdad Bob splainin EVERYTHING!!! He's always so precise and predictable. Almost makes a person wish they could "trust" him!(grin) You keep expecting him to say: "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."(barf)

[Broker]

He even shut down my Mexican connection theory as totally unworthy of debate.

Let me see. Why would our US Federal Government want to frame McVeigh and limit the scope of this to a small band of White extremists. What a sorry group. Yet it is Jim and company who limit our scope. If it were Islamofacists, our Govt. have a field day. Who do we not want to openly retaliate against? Mexico. At that time, the most corrupt drug economy in this hemisphere.

Chew on that!

[SierraWasp]

Sorry, I'ma smoker, not a chewer! (grin)

[Triple]

Remember this? "When the full stories of these two incidents (1993 WTC Center bombing and 1995 Oklahoma City bombing) are finally told, those who permitted the investigations to stop short will owe big explanations to these two brave women (Middle East expert Laurie Mylroie and journalist Jayna Davis). And the nation will owe them a debt of gratitude."
-- Former CIA Director James Woolsey, "The Iraq Connection", Wall Street Journal, September 5, 2002


It seems that Woolsey believes there is an Iraqi connection - does that make him a 'kook' too, _jimmy?

[Nita Nupress]

Bookmarking again. One of these days I'm gonna follow up on that.

[Ben Hecks]

Your persistence is commendable; this is a giant puzzle but eventually all the pieces will fit.