Posted on 04/16/2004 2:29:43 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
As a last question to former FBI head Louis Freeh, 9-11 Commissioner John Lehman asked whether Freeh was familiar with the information Jayna Davis has gathered for her new book, "The Third Terrorist." Davis, a former Oklahoma City newswoman, makes a powerful case that Terry Nichols had conspired with convicted World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef in the Philippines and that Timothy McVeigh had received direct aid in the construction and delivery of the bomb from, among others, likely Iraqi agent, Hussain Al-Hussaini, the alleged John Doe #2. This was an excellent question. Lehman, however, addressed it to the wrong person. He should have turned to his fellow commissioner, Jamie Gorelick, the deputy attorney general under Bill Clinton from 1994 to 1997. The Landmark Legal Foundation has now formally requested that Gorelick step down because she is "hopelessly conflicted." But truth would be served if instead of stepping down Gorelick were forced to open up. Evidence strongly suggests it was Gorelick – not the ineffectual Freeh – who not only misdirected the FBI's investigation into Oklahoma City, but also the FBI investigation into TWA Flight 800. The parallels between the two cases are shocking. And in each case, the Clinton administration constrained the FBI for the same reason: to advance the re-election chances of its standard bearer. This story rightfully begins on Election Day, Nov. 8, 1994. In a time of peace and economic growth, Democrats lost an incredible 52 seats in the House and eight in the Senate. "The election itself is being described as a total repudiation of Bill Clinton and the Democrats," Labor Secretary Robert Reich observed at the time, a "fundamental realignment." After days of anger and self-pity, Bill Clinton began to focus again on the one organizing principle that had directed his life to date. "All that mattered was his survival," Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos would write of his former boss. "Everyone else had to fall in line: his staff, his cabinet, the country, even his wife." Stephanopoulos speaks here of another circumstance, but the principle was eternal. In the next two years, the Clintons would sacrifice the nation's very security to secure another four years in office. As I report in "Ron Brown's Body," Islamic terrorism was just the half of it, but it was the urgent half. Five days before the election, in an unrelated event, Ramzi Yousef had applied for a visa to the Philippines. On the next day, Terry Nichols received a visa for the Philippines and left for Cebu City two weeks later. On the way to the airport, he unnerved his ex-wife, Lana Padilla, when he handed her a sealed package and told her, "If I'm not back in 60 days, open it and follow the instructions." Curious, Padilla opened the package only to find a will, Nichol's life insurance policy, and instructions that led her to $20,000 in cash. Two weeks after Nichols' arrival, Ramzi Yousef boarded a Philippines Airline flight in Manila and planted a small bomb. The bomb killed the Japanese tourist who took his seat after Yousef had disembarked in Cebu City. A month later, January 1995, Yousef had to flee his Manila apartment after setting it on fire while building bombs. When his roommate, a Pakistani pilot, returned to the apartment to retrieve Yousef's laptop, he was arrested. Yousef immediately fled to Pakistan where he would be seized weeks later. Terry Nichols hastily returned to the United States. When Padilla asked Nichols why he had come back so soon, he told her cryptically, "Somebody could get killed down there." Perhaps more than coincidentally, the logbook in Yousef's Manila apartment bore the signature of an occasional visitor named "Nick." In "Against All Enemies," Richard Clarke casually addresses the simultaneous visits of these two terrorists to the Philippines in general, and Cebu City in particular. "We do know that Nichols' bombs did not work before his Philippine stay," writes Clarke, "and were deadly when he returned." Nichols continued to call the Philippines frequently and surreptitiously after his return. On April 19, 1995, I was co-hosting a point-counter point radio show on Kansas City's leading AM station, KMBZ. The show aired just before Rush Limbaugh, who once worked at the station. The Oklahoma bomb detonated just as we were going on the air. My partner and I followed developments closely. Early police reports and intelligence briefings led us all to believe that the bomb was the work of Islamic terrorists. When, however, the police identified McVeigh as a suspect a day later, my partner was absolutely gleeful. A wily and well-connected Democrat strategist, he went on the air and issued an All Points Bulletin for McVeigh's "co-conspirators – Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich." He claimed their hate speech and talk of revolution had inflamed the allegedly right-wing McVeigh. My partner was simply following the Democratic National Committee's talking points. Democrats, the president included, were spreading this same message all across America. Clinton, more subtle than his supporters, assigned responsibility for the bombing to the "purveyors of hate and division." His supporters filled in the blanks. A master of strategic grief counseling, Clinton descended on Oklahoma City with an approval rating in the low 40s and left town with a rating well above 50. Late in the 1996 campaign, he would confide to reporters that his road back to the White House began in Oklahoma City. The president, however, was more interested in the points he could score off Oklahoma City than in the truth. In her stunning book, Jayna Davis documents beyond all doubt what that truth was: McVeigh and Nichols had help from Islamic terrorists – not only in the Philippines, but also in Oklahoma City. In her role as a reporter for KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City, Davis interviewed more than 20 reliable eyewitnesses who identified the crew of Iraqi nationals who had helped McVeigh assemble and deliver the bomb, among them, John Doe #2, Hussain Al-Hussaini. Much as with TWA 800, however, the FBI lost all interest in the eyewitnesses as soon as the White House had established its talking points. The details of this abandonment appall the reader. "Could the al-Qaida explosives expert have been introduced to the angry American who proclaimed his hatred for America?" writes Richard Clarke of Nichols' visit to the Philippines. "We do not know, despite some FBI investigation." "Some FBI investigation"? Why was there not a massive FBI investigation? On Yousef's laptop seized from that burning Manila apartment were plans for Operation Bojinka. The following excerpt from a classified Republic of the Philippines intelligence report speaks to the nature of those plans: The document [from Yousef's computer] specifically cited the charter service of a commercial type aircraft loaded with powerful bombs to be dive-crashed by SAEED AKMAN. This is apparently intended to demonstrate to the whole world that a Muslim martyr is ready and determined to die for the glorification of Islam. Richard Clarke was well aware of these plans. In response to a question by Democrat Richard Ben-Veniste at a 9-11 hearing, Clarke admitted that the "knowledge about al-Qaida having thought of using aircraft as weapons" was relatively old – "five years, six years old." He asked that intelligence analysts "be forgiven for not thinking about it given the fact that they hadn't seen a lot in the five or six years intervening about it." He admittedly did not share these plans with the Bush administration. The reason Islamic terrorist links were ignored has more to do with politics than with security. Once arrested, McVeigh and Nichols served as poster boys for the natural progression of the "Republican revolution." If, however, they proved to be mere "lily whites" – i.e., stooges recruited by Islamic terrorists to take the fall – they would lose their political value. Moreover, liberal scolds could no longer hector those who had publicly presumed that Islamic terrorists were behind the bombing. This included not only the political right but also non-partisan terrorist experts like Steven Emerson, who had already been upbraided for "bigotry and misrepresentations" and "creating mass hysteria against American Arabs." Indeed, to the detriment of our national security, the orchestrated Democratic reaction to Oklahoma City shamed reporters and investigators from pursuing Islamic terrorism aggressively. This, Davis documents all too painfully from her personal experience. This pattern of denial climaxed in the days following July 17, 1996, the day that TWA Flight 800 exploded off the coast of Long Island. In this case, too, the FBI ignored – among other evidence – hundreds of eyewitnesses, the damning FAA radar tape and the scores of positive hits for explosive residue on the plane. And although Ramzi Yousef was on trial that very day in New York for his role in Operation Bojinka, there was no connection made between those plans and the destruction of the plane. Just the opposite. Richard Clarke, in fact, takes credit for suppressing the real evidence and discovering the preposterous "mechanical failure" thesis that the administration eventually made stick. Although it is easy to blame the FBI for the shameful investigative breakdowns both in Oklahoma City and on Long Island, its agents did not subvert the investigations of their own accord. Their orders came from Washington. The responsibility for enforcing these orders fell to Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, who served as the Soviet equivalent of the "political officer" within the Justice Department. On Aug. 22, 1996 – five weeks after the crash of TWA 800 – Gorelick summoned the FBI's Jim Kallstrom to Washington to be served up a dose of survival reality. Kallstrom had been a good soldier. He had kept all talk of eyewitnesses and satellites and radar and missiles out the news. But the evidence had led him far away from mechanical failure, and there was no easy way to turn back. To be sure, no account of the meeting provides any more than routine detail, but behaviors began to change immediately afterward, especially after the New York Times broke a headline story the next day, top right: "Prime Evidence Found That Device Exploded in Cabin of Flight 800." This article stole the thunder from Clinton's election-driven approval of welfare reform in that same day's paper and threatened to undermine the peace and prosperity message of next week's Democratic convention. On that same Aug. 23, the Federal Aviation Administration began to inquire whether any explosives-training exercises had ever taken place on the plane that would become TWA 800. From that day forward, the FBI would do no more serious eyewitness interviews. On that same day, Kallstrom was now saying for the first time, "It was possible that the PETN could have been brought on the plane by a passenger and was not part of a bomb." Jim Kallstrom was not the only one who had learned the hard way that there could be no terrorism in the summer of 1996. At the "feel good" Atlanta Olympics, the beleaguered security guard Richard Jewell, the poor soul who first spotted the Centennial Park bomb, was learning a harder lesson still. Although Davis does not document Gorelick's role in Oklahoma City, media accounts routinely describe her as the director of the Oklahoma City task force, the so-called "field commander." As Davis has told me, someone in Washington called the FBI in Oklahoma City and issued a two-word directive on its investigation into Islamic terrorism: "Kill it." If that person is not Jamie Gorelick, perhaps she could tell the 9-11 Commission who it is. By suppressing the truth in Oklahoma City, Long Island and Atlanta – and then burying it – the Clinton administration left America wide open on Sept. 11. Apologies are in order, but they will not be enough.
Time: Sun Sep 14 12:10:57 1997
by usr04.primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id LAA28609;
Sun, 14 Sep 1997 11:32:53 -0700 (MST)
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 11:32:40 -0700
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: OKC -- Grand Jury Tampering (fwd)
<snip>
>
>THE OBSTRUCTION OF THE OKLAHOMA BOMBING GRAND JURY INVESTIGATION
> The Mysterious Jamie Gorelick Phone Call
>
>By David Hoffman
>
>
>The petition by Oklahoma State Rep. Charles Key to impanel a
>grand jury to hear evidence of government involvement in the
>Oklahoma City bombing was originally quashed by District Judge
>Daniel Owens on the premise that it would be "reinventing the
>wheel." The Oklahoma Supreme Court disagreed earlier this year,
>and overturned both Owens' ruling and District Attorney Robert
>Macy's subsequent appeal.
>
>When I first interviewed Bob Macy about the Oklahoma City bombing
>in 1995, he was collecting information on the case by reading
>Morris Dees' Gathering Storm, and The Turner Diaries. This was a
>year and-a-half after the bombing--a bombing that occurred right
>outside his window. He didn't know about John Doe 2. He had no
>idea about the Middle Eastern connection. He had done absolutely
>no investigation.
>
>"I have not seen these things you are talking about right now,"
>Macy told me. "When I see the evidence... I haven't been
>presented with the evidence." Macy subsequently claimed he wanted
>me to work with his so- called "task force" that was
>"investigating" the bombing, then never called me back. It wasn't
>until the county grand jury was finally impaneled in June of this
>year that Macy's Chief Assistant DA, Pat Morgan, sent an
>investigator to meet with me. After turning over [almost] all the
>information I had gathered on the bombing, I never heard another
>word.
>
>Interestingly, just two months before the hearing, Macy claimed
>to this author that he intended to prosecute McVeigh and Nichols
>in a state trial on 161 counts of First Degree Murder. "I don't
>like taking a second seat to the [federal] prosecution," Macy
>stated. "The bombing killed 10 of my friends."
>
>In a May 24, 1995 letter to Senator Orrin Hatch, one of the
>original drafters of the Anti-Terrorism Bill, Macy wrote:
>
> First, immediately following the trial or trials in Federal
> Court, I shall, working in conjunction with the United Sates
> Department of Justice and the federal law-enforcement
> agencies investigating the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah
> Building, prosecute the cowards responsible for murdering
> innocent people in the area surrounding the Federal
> Building.... The State of Oklahoma has an overwhelming,
> compelling interest to seek and obtain the maximum penalty
> allowable by law for the senseless and cowardly killings. Not
> only is it in the interest of the State, it is my sworn duty
> to seek those sanctions, and I intend to fully carry out my
> responsibilities.... Every day of delay represents a victory
> for these cowardly cold- blooded killers and another day of
> defeat and suffering for the victims and all other Americans
> who cry out for justice.
>
>Macy personally impressed upon me his interest in getting at the
>truth: "I'm prepared to do what ever it takes to get to the
>truth," Macy exclaimed. "My sole intent is in learning the
>truth!"
>
>Yet when asked if he intended to conduct an investigation
>independent of the Feds', he said, "Well... I don't want to be a
>party to anything that will interfere with the Feds' prosecution.
>I don't want to open up a new can of worms."
>
>THE GORELICK PHONE CALL
>
>After Macy lost the appeals hearing, he met with bombing victim
>Glenn Wilburn and Representative Key, explaining that he wished
>to cooperate with their investigation. Three days later, the two
>men discovered that Macy had decided to contest the Appeals
>Court's decision. When a furious Key confronted Macy, all that
>the "courageous, truth-seeking" DA told him was, "They won't let
>me." When Key demanded to know who "they" were, Macy just lowered
>his eyes to the floor and repeated, "They won't let me." [1]
>
>Key later learned from a source at ABC News that Macy had
>received a conference call from Janet Reno's deputy Jamie
>Gorelick, and the government's lead prosecutor, Joseph Hartzler,
>along with Governor Keating, Oklahoma City Fire Chief Gary Marrs,
>and Judge Daniel Owens. Interestingly, during a debate on FOX TV
>with Representative Key, Keating stated, "Nobody could get away
>with a cover-up; it would not be tolerated by civilized Oklahoma
>City.... Nobody's afraid of the truth." [2]
>
>KFOR's Jayna Davis shed some light on the "truth-seeking" efforts
>of Bob Macy and the good ole' boy network of politicos from which
>he descends. Two years earlier, after an 8-year-old boy was
>raped, both Davis and the Public Defender demanded to know why
>Macy hadn't done anything. When Macy thought the camera was off,
>he whipped around and sternly admonished the reporter: "Lady, I
>don't know who you are or where you came from, but this isn't how
>we do business in Oklahoma!" [3]
>
>This is the same Bob Macy who argued that it would be "a waste of
>the taxpayers' time and money to convene an Oklahoma County Grand
>Jury when one was already in session or when a Federal Grand Jury
>had already heard all available evidence."
>
>The Oklahoma Supreme Court did not agree with Macy. They
>unanimously upheld Key's right to impanel the grand jury, which
>is hearing evidence as of this writing.
>
>REP. KEY SUBPOENAED OVER INTERNET LETTER
>
>On May 7, 1997, Oklahoma State Attorney General Drew Edmondson
>subpoenaed Rep. Charles Key before a multi-county grand jury,
>alleging that he violated procedures in raising money for the
>bombing investigation. The Daily Oklahoman proudly proclaimed how
>it had played a critical role in bringing about the investigation
>of Key:
>
> The attorney general's action is a result of an inquiry by
> The Oklahoman about Key's seven-page solicitation letter on
> the Internet. The letter asks for money to "secure copies of
> the voluminous (federal) government documents and to pay
> independent investigators" and other expenses for the county
> grand jury investigation.... [4]
>
>According to Key's attorney, Mark Sanford, Key violated no rules
>at all. Another attorney who represented Key at the grand jury
>inquest, Representative Bill Graves, stated: "The law is pretty
>clear that you are not required to register before you hit the
>ten thousand dollar threshold, and Charles [Key] had not hit that
>limit so was not required to register. Edmondson knows that.
>They're just trying to slow Charles down or stop him through
>harassment." [5]
>
>"This is all about stopping us and making us shut up, said Key.
>"If I would just quit the grand jury deal, this would all go
>away." [6]
>
>Says V. Z Lawson, a HUD worker who survived the bombing, "You
>don't have to be that bright or look that hard to see the fraud
>and hypocrisy in these charges. For over a year and a half,
>they've been doing everything imaginable and employing the most
>absurd arguments to prevent Charles from impaneling a grand jury
>to investigate one of the worst crimes in our country's history.
>Now, after he's overcome all of their legal challenges in the
>courts and is close to getting a county grand jury investigation
>going, they drag him before a multi-county grand jury for what
>amounts to jaywalking, while the bombing and other genuine,
>serious crimes go uninvestigated." [7]
>
>PSYOPS ARE INTRODUCED
>
>Lawson also brought to the attention of bombing investigators a
>February 5th, fax transmission to federal employees on the
>official letterhead of Attorney General Drew Edmondson. The
>letter sought signatures from survivors to go with letters that
>were to be sent to various news organizations. The cover sheet
>said it came from Richard M. Wintory, Chief Deputy Attorney
>General of the Criminal Division. The letter, entitled, "A Plea
>to the Media from Oklahoma City: Don't O.J. Us!!!" purports to be
>a spontaneous response from victims asking the media not to
>"manipulate" and "exploit" them "for no purpose other than to
>enhance their ratings on the air and in publications."
>
>This obvious propaganda counteroffensive was in response to ABC
>20/20's January, 1996 show about prior knowledge. It referred to
>the "so-called report" by ABC as "tabloid journalism" filled with
>"unsubstantiated and baseless claims that have been repeatedly
>debunked."
>
>"We are appalled at the lack of interest in the truth and the
>underhanded method utilized by 20/20" stated the letter, which
>claimed that ABC had wrongfully implied that certain victims
>agreed with the "paranoid delusion" of the "ridiculous theory of
>government conspiracy in this crime." It added that "reporters
>are sometime tempted to forget the truth." Ultimately, it stated,
>"It is PEOPLE that matter in this life, neither money nor
>possession nor a Pulitzer Prize."
>
>This classic PSYOP piece launched by Edmondson (which he angrily
>denied in a letter to the author) was signed, "Many Survivors and
>Family Members, Oklahoma City Bombing."
>
>HUD employees V. Z. Lawson and Jane Graham were two survivors who
>angrily denounced the letter for the sham that it was. "Since the
>communication was loaded with lies and half truths, I certainly
>could not sign it," said Lawton, "and I felt like a state
>attorney general could better spend his time supporting an effort
>to find the truth rather than this transparent effort at helping
>to hide it."
>
>"I am angry," stated Graham in a typed response to the letter,
>"that the attorney general's office would play on the emotions of
>this office at HUD under the guise of keeping us posted on how
>they are proceeding and planning the case, causing further
>emotional turmoil in this office between employees." [8]
>
>Edmondson's blatant attempt at coercing the victims to pander to
>the official government line is similar to a letter from a group
>of victims suggesting passage of the Anti-Terrorism Bill. The
>recipients were urged to call Edmondson if they were interested
>in participating. Of course, while Edmondson accuses ABC 20/20 of
>"manipulating" and "exploiting" the bombing victims, it is
>obvious that Edmondson himself hasn't done anything to manipulate
>or exploit anyone.
>
>
>[An edited excerpt of David Hoffman's forthcoming book "The
>Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror." For more
>information, see
>http://www.webcom.com/haight/headshop/Hoffman.book.ad.html ]
>
>
>Notes:
>
>1. Rep. Charles Key, interviews with author.
>
>2. Rita Cosby, FOX News, 4/4/97.
>
>3. Interview with Jayna Davis. Macy's Assistant DAs who handled
>that case were John Farely and Jane Brown.
>
>4. Daily Oklahoman, 8/14/97.
>
>5. Mark Sanford, interview with author; William Jasper, "OKC
>Investigator Under Attack, " New American, 6/23/97.
>
>6. Brian Ford, "Fund-Raising Probed: Jury Looks into Efforts of
>Rep. Charles Key," Tulsa World, 5/6/97.
>
>7. Jasper, Op Cit.
>
>8. Ibid.
>
> Published in the Sep. 15, 1997 issue of The Washington Weekly
> Copyright 1997 The Washington Weekly (http://www.federal.com)
> Reposting permitted with this message intact
>
And the most cogent fact is that she would lie.
Sent an email, just now, to Congressman Sensenbrenner who is raising the question of Gorelick's conflict of interest:
Congressman Sensenbrenner:
I applaud your efforts to call attention to Ms.Gorelick's conflict of interest in serving on the 9/11 Commission. It also might be important that she not just recuse herself, but be compelled to testify.
Should she come under direct questioning, please explore her participation as what appears to be an "overseer" in both the TWA 800 crash AND the OKC bombing.
From a World Net Daily editorial:
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38068
"Evidence strongly suggests it was Gorelick – not the ineffectual Freeh – who not only misdirected the FBI's investigation into Oklahoma City, but also the FBI investigation into TWA Flight 800. The parallels between the two cases are shocking. And in each case, the Clinton administration constrained the FBI for the same reason: to advance the re-election chances of its standard bearer. "
With rumors rampant in both incidents regarding Iraqi or foreign involvement - this appears too coincidental and protective of the Clinton administration as they prepared for reelection.
Thank you.
What is wrong with this picture?
Yes, Clinton and Gore did abandon airport security planning for sake of campaign cash. But worse, they concealed the real cause of the crash, in no small part to justify that abandonment.
In fact, on the same day in September of 1996 that Al Gore sent the airline's lobbyist a letter signaling his intent to roll over, the National Transportation Safety Board reversed its spin and all but ruled out a bomb or missile strike [on TWA 800].
In our book, "First Strike," James Sanders and I make this arguably prophetic comment:
John Kerry seemed to have his sights on Al Gore's Achilles' heel. After the events of Sept. 11, the story of how Al Gore helped subvert the investigation into TWA 800 and undermine airport security may yet prove to be a career-killer. Kerry's "slips" may have put Gore out of the race even before he got in.
Two weeks after advanced copies of "First Strike" started circulating around Washington, Gore withdrew from the presidential race. His withdrawal shocked Washington. It did not shock Sanders and me. We expected it. Kerry plays hardball, too.
It seem to me that two separate teams would have to work on such an investigation, with neither team having the ability to paint the whole picture. P<> Regards,
The teaser was that Ms. Davis records a meeting with Tim McVeigh and one of the 19 September 11 hijackers in Oklahoma City surrounding the time of the bombing.
Gwjack
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