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Lying from the top of Mormonism....(Mormon Prophet Gordon Hinckley 1985)

Lying for the Lord

Shortly after the first bomb went off, Hofmann called Hugh Pinnock to inform him of Christensen’s death and to assure Pinnock that he was still willing to go through with the McLellin deal and was arranging to pay off the bank loan. After the second bomb went off, Mark calmly met with LDS Apostle Dallin Oaks in his church office and informed him that the bombings must relate to failed business dealings of Christensen and Sheets and had no connection to Mark’s documents. Later Pinnock and Oaks met with Gordon B. Hinckley to discuss how to proceed with the McLellin transaction.[35] The day after the explosion that injured Mark Hofmann, Elder Pinnock was interviewed about the crimes:

Police Detective Don Bell interviewed him at 1:12 in the afternoon on October 17, the day after the bomb exploded in Hofmann’s car.

“Elder Pinnock, this is the deal,” Bell began, notebook in hand. “This is a homicide investigation. Do you know Mr. Hofmann?”

Pinnock paused and reflected a moment. “No, I don’t believe I do.”[36]

When local news station KSL-TV, owned by the LDS Church, accurately reported that the LDS Church was involved in arranging document deals and illegal loans, the church leaders demanded a retraction. Reporter Jack Ford complained to his boss:

“The Church is upset because we [KSL-TV] said they helped arrange a loan. Well, they did! They say it was an individual, not the Church, but that’s baloney. It may have been an individual who placed the call, but he was a Church official, sitting in his Church office, on Church time, using a Church phone, and he did it for the . . . benefit of the Church. Nobody else wanted that McLellin Collection except the Church. And the Nova Scotia mission president doesn’t collect documents. He was just a big-bucks guy who said ‘If you need help, I’ll help you out.’ If the Church says they weren’t helping arrange any buyers for anything, how do you explain the fact that the Church volunteered to get an armored car to go down to Texas and pick the Collection up?”[37]

When LDS Apostle Gordon B. Hinckley was interviewed by County Prosecuting Attorneys Bob Stott and David Biggs about his multiple dealings with Mark Hofmann, he tried to hide his association with Mark:

Stott and Biggs shifted uneasily in their chairs. With all the time in between to recollect those meetings, he still couldn’t remember a thing.

“Was he ever in your office?” Stott asked.

“Probably,” said Hinckley.

“Probably!” thought Biggs. Now, he was even forgetting what he had admitted in the press conference. . . .

Surely he remembered the morning, only days before the bombings, when Hofmann came to tell him the Kinderhook plates “might be available for the right price”? He did remember the Kinderhook plates?

“I don’t know a whole lot about them,” Hinckley said dryly.

Biggs thought, This is Hinckley. He’s telling us he doesn’t know a whole lot about the Kinderhook plates. My God, even I have learned a little about them in this investigation. He has to know what they’re about. . . .

Stott and Biggs pressed. Surely he knew that Steve Christensen had been called by Church officials at all hours of the night to go out and find Hofmann and get him to repay the First Interstate loan?

Hinckley shrugged his shoulders. . . . Hinckley could recall nothing. . . .

After another hour of evasions, memory lapses, and sermonettes, Biggs lost his patience. “President Hinckley. This has been in the news—people have died—isn’t there any way we can get some information about your meetings with Hofmann?”[38]

The interview then focused on the upcoming preliminary hearing.

When Bob Stott finally worked up the courage to talk about Hinckley’s testimony at the upcoming preliminary hearing, [LDS attorney] Wilford Kirton jumped in.

“President Hinckley doesn’t wish to testify at the hearing. We think it would be in everyone’s best interests to not have him testify.”

Someone suggested that he would have to testify at trial.

“You don’t understand,” said Kirton imperiously. “President Hinckley does not wish to testify at the hearing, at the trial, at anything.”[39]

Hinckley then explained to Stott:

“This isn’t that significant, as it relates to Church matters,” he said softly. “It’s the Church that matters. You have to consider the Church first. I don’t wish to testify.” . . .

“I think it would be in the best interests of the Church,” he added in the same mellow voice, “if you simply dismissed the charge.”

Dismiss the charge? Biggs was aghast. It took them a moment to realize that he meant only that Stott should dismiss the charge on the Stowell letter, which would let Hinckley off the hook as far as testifying at the preliminary hearing. . . .

But Bob Stott wasn’t ready to do that. “We are not going to drop the charge,” he said after he regained his composure. But he did have a compromise suggestion. “If we can get the defense to stipulate as to your testimony, we won’t have to call you.”[40]

When comparing the notes of the investigators of Hofmann’s crimes, there is no doubt that Gordon B. Hinckley was lying to them.

[35] Naifeh and Smith, Mormon Murders, pp. 286-289.

[36] Ibid., pp. 300-301.

[37] Ibid., p. 475.

[38] Ibid., pp. 434-435.

[39] Ibid., p. 436.

[40] Ibid., p. 437.

http://www.utlm.org/newsletters/no115.htm#lying

Salt Lake City Messenger No. 115 October 2010