Posted on 02/23/2007 7:59:52 AM PST by cashion
In a new statement from prison about the Oklahoma City bombing, Terry Nichols is claiming his co-conspirator Timothy McVeigh once "let slip” that a top FBI official was behind the bomb plans.
Nichols, 51, claims an angry McVeigh identified Larry Potts as the high-ranking FBI official "who was apparently directing McVeigh in the bomb plot.”
Nichols claims McVeigh was upset because the official had changed the target.
"It's just nonsense and ridiculous,” said Potts, a former deputy director, the No. 2 position at the FBI.
"I can't tell you how horrible it has made me feel all day to have my name associated with that,” Potts told The Oklahoman on Wednesday. "I keep thinking about survivors and the families of those who lost people in that tragedy, that they have to be exposed to this kind of stuff from a guy like Nichols who was the cause of it. It's just kind of heartbreaking all the way around.”
‘Without any factual basis' The FBI called Nichols' claim "completely without any factual basis.” "We remain certain that all individuals responsible for the bombing have been successfully investigated, charged and prosecuted,” the FBI said.
Nichols gave no explanation in the statement why an FBI official would want a federal building bombed.
Nichols also claims McVeigh "was planning another bombing later.”
Nichols made the statement Feb. 9 for a federal lawsuit brought by Utah attorney Jesse Trentadue, who is investigating the April 19, 1995, bombing on his own. Trentadue is asking a federal judge for permission to get a videotaped statement from Nichols.
Trentadue contends his younger brother, a convicted bank robber, was murdered at the Oklahoma City Federal Transfer Center in August 1995 during an interrogation. He contends authorities mistook his brother for a bombing suspect. He is suing the FBI for records to support his theory. Federal and local officials concluded the brother, Kenneth Trentadue, committed suicide in his cell.
Nichols, a convicted murderer, is serving life sentences at the maximum-security federal penitentiary in Colorado for his role in the bombing. McVeigh was executed in 2001.
‘I poured the nitromethane' Nichols denied publicly for years that he participated in the bombing, but in 2005 admitted his involvement to the FBI, his family and a U.S. congressman. He also has written letters discussing his role. In the new statement, Nichols again admitted he helped McVeigh build the fertilizer-based bomb in a rented truck at a lake in Kansas. "I poured the nitromethane into the barrels,” he wrote. He also insisted again that he did not know McVeigh's target.
"From the outset, I want to acknowledge my poor judgment and culpability in having assisted Timothy McVeigh,” Nichols wrote in the 17-page statement.
He also repeated his claim that Arkansas gun collector Roger Moore helped in the plot. He again admitted he robbed Moore but he claimed he found out later the crime was staged.
Nichols wrote, "McVeigh ... said that he and Moore came up with the plan to stage a robbery so that if any investigation of the bombing tracked back to Moore, Moore could claim he was the victim of a home robbery rather than a supplier of funds and explosives used to carry out the attack.”
Moore on Wednesday again denied he was involved in the bombing.
"What else has he got to do?” Moore said of Nichols' statement. "I don't worry about it anymore.”
What happened to tag? In the new statement, Nichols revealed that he tossed the license tag from McVeigh's getaway car into a Kansas river two days after the bombing. "The license plate was on the Mercury when I followed McVeigh to Oklahoma City prior to the bombing,” Nichols wrote.
"To this day, I have never understood why McVeigh removed that license plate, which eventually led to his arrest, brought that plate back to Kansas and deliberately left it in that storage shed among his personal possessions.”
This land needs its death rows purged!!!
That many people won't dismiss this story out of hand as sheer, raving lunacy says a lot about the diminished trust the Federal Government has earned from the public over the last three decades.
bullcrap.....read the related comments .It is WAY more serious that 1st blush. Way more heavy. I'm up to speed and some who investigated WEREVISITED and told CEASE or DIE..............
!
Personally I think it was a sting gone bad.
So why have these guys been keeping this a secret all these years? Why did McVeigh not tell?
Dude, you need your meds checked.
Why did McVeigh not tell?
Did'nt have time...? Quickest execution in modern history..
gereral pap from the likes of a you............do some research instead of pap reactions.......or click my name and see this info was said by me to get the lite of day a WEEK before it appeared.................oh and another pap assumption of your's...........NO MEDS HERE
Of course, until the full truth is uncovered, there is the slim chance that a sting operation went out of FBI control due to Iraqi agents out maneuvering the feebs.
Your profile explains it all.
did you know two executives saw middle east types drilling holes in columns in the Murry bldg and went to authorities and now both are dead.one a single car wreck (weird details) and one w/ a bullet to the back of the head( cause suicide) ????????????
Did he whisper this into Connie Chung's ear?
I want to know about that woman who left behind her severed leg.
A bleeding, one-legged person should not have been that hard to find after the explosion.
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