FBI and DOJ Connivance Permeates, Interconnects Terror Attacks

The conclusions and findings in this long summary are based on interviews with private attorneys, law enforcement, Pentagon and Congressional officials, journalists and witnesses as well as analysis of news articles from major media over the last seven years. I am summarizing very important new material as well as old material previously reported in replies and articles I have written and posted on FreeRepublic.com since June 2000. Important supporting evidence for the conclusions in this editorial has been provided to attorneys, Congressional officials and to the DOJ since 2000

So as to more efficiently focus on and emphasize my findings and conclusions at this critical time of the terror threat to America, it was deemed more important to present my findings and conclusions on this forum in a lengthy summary form rather than in a much longer and fully documented article, report or book. It is hoped that all the supporting details and documentation can one day be published.

This summary was primarily written to provide my friends and likeminded concerned citizens with a historical perspective (and record) of government connivance in the terror attacks against America during the past eight years. I hope concerned citizens will be able to use and distribute this summary to educate and inform the public that the connivance policies of Federal government and law enforcement officials have harmed and not adequately helped protect the lives of American citizens from terrorists.

The beginning pages of the summary present overall conclusions and findings. The remaining and extensive part of the summary discusses numerous examples that support and explain the basis for the conclusions and findings presented at the beginning.

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FBI connivance permeated and interconnected the 1993 World Trade Center (WTC) attack, the Oklahoma City (OKC) bombing and the 9/11 attacks. The FBI had foreknowledge of these attacks but refused to stop the attacks beforehand even though the FBI participated in their planning with the use of FBI informants and provocateurs. Some of the same participants are known to the FBI to have been involved in all three of these terror attacks. By deliberately not moving against these participants even to this day and by deliberately failing to try and stop the attacks in advance and warn and adequately protect innocent victims, the FBI gave active and passive consent to the criminal acts of terrorists known to the FBI and to the criminal acts of FBI informants and FBI provocateurs.

The FBI’s and DOJ’s continued cover up, obstruction of justice, falsification of evidence, intimidation of key witnesses, pretended ignorance of the John Doe participants, informants and provocateurs and refusal to take action against known perpetrators is further evidence of the FBI and DOJ connivance and complicity. The FBI and DOJ actions are particularly egregious because the FBI and DOJ is supposed to protect the public from terror attacks, not expose the public to greater risk of attack and not intimidate witnesses or withhold critical evidence that may also be incriminating to the FBI and DOJ.

After the 9/11 attacks, former President GHW Bush make public statements urging the public to be more accepting of US agents committing crimes (in violation of laws and the Constitution) inside the US in order for the agents to earn the trust of the terror groups they were trying to infiltrate and collect intelligence about. This philosophy has already been used badly in the past by the FBI in Boston organized crime cases and in the 9/11 attacks, the OKC bombing and the 1993 WTC attack. In these instances, the FBI allowed murders and crimes to be committed to protect FBI operations. And these operations often did not succeed in stopping the groups involved but did succeed in keeping the public from knowing of the FBI connivance and failures.

Attorney General (AG) Ashcroft and FBI director Mueller have blocked the Congress, courts and the public from knowing about these FBI failed operations by refusing to honor subpoenas, ordering FBI agents not to testify and by refusing to turning over ALL incriminating evidence such as ALL withheld FBI 302 interview reports and ALL surveillance tapes relating to major attacks in the US. And President GW Bush personally ordered that the Senate Intelligence Committee hearings on the FBI failures be seriously curtailed and that the House Government Reform Committee’s 13 subpoenas (to have been responded to on 9/11/02!) against AG Ashcroft on these matters not be honored. FBI agent Kelly was put in charge of controlling and manipulating the flow of information to the Intelligence Committee hearings even though Senator Grassley bitterly complained that FBI agent Kelly was the man who Senator Danforth had publicly charged with obstructing Danforth’s investigation of the FBI cover up of Waco.

Yet Ashcroft and Mueller and CIA director George Tenet have also publicly urged, like former President HW Bush, that Federal agents be allowed to commit illegal acts inside the US in order to provide what they term better human intelligence. These illegal acts would violate local, state and Federal laws as well as rights of citizens under the Constitution. Tenet and Mueller are holdovers from the Clinton administration that appear to be continuing to try to justify their using agents in both the Clinton and Bush administrations to commit crimes inside the US for intelligence purposes.

But there is other evidence of this wayward and lawless mentality of trying to justify criminal actions of Federal agents being continued from the Clinton administration to the Bush administrations. FBI agent Rogoskey filed a Federal lawsuit against FBI Direct Louis Freeh and AG Janet Reno in 2000 after Rogoskey was blocked from telling Congress about laws being broken inside the US by the FBI during national security operations.

The same conniving, reckless and poisonous philosophy and policy of allowing agents to break the law inside the US for national security operations as advocated by GHW Bush, Ashcroft, Reno, Mueller and Freeh was used by an FBI undercover agent to deliberately encourage the OKC bombing. This is according to what Congressman Ernest Istook of Oklahoma told an OKC bombing victim in a taped conversation. Istook told the victim that the FBI had used an undercover agent to help build the bomb in an effort to establish the agent’s credibility with other groups the FBI hoped to later arrest and discredit. Istook told the victim that the victim had no right to question the operation since it was a national security operation.

The tape of the Istook conversation was transcribed by the former Pentagon terror advisor Jesse Clear and played by Clear to Istook’s staff. The tape has been authenticated by experts associated with the Secret Service and court approved experts from a prestigious university in California. Istook had his staff threaten the New American reporter William Jasper over reporting of the taped conversation and transcript.

But Istook also told two deputy sheriffs on the night of the bombing that the FBI knew in advance of the OKC bombing. After the sheriffs held a news conference in 1997 about what Istook told them, the sheriffs were threatened by FBI agent James Carlisle who falsified his interviews with the sheriffs. A review of Carlisle’s interviews shows that Carlisle was trying to protect Istook and keep the public from knowing of the FBI’s complicity and connivance in the OKC bombing.

Istook was in a position to make claims to the victim of a national security operation and to know of the FBI foreknowledge and forewarnings because he served on the National Security subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee at the time of the OKC bombing. Istook was very close to the FBI and once told me in August of 1995 that there was nothing that I or the late Glen Wilburn (lost both of his grandsons in the bombing) could tell him about the OKC bombing that ”he (Istook) and the FBI did not already know.” But as will be further demonstrated in this summary, Istook would have also been in a position to know because of specific, detailed and official warnings to select House members and law enforcement prior to the bombing.

As in the Rogoskey case, the tendency has been for the FBI and DOJ to use Congressmen like Istook to improperly invoke, hide behind and use national security as a pretext and an excuse for committing and then covering up criminal operations inside the US in violation of laws and the Constitution. A similar line of reasoning and propaganda invoking false claims of national security was used by the FBI and Danforth to justify the illegal use of the US military in the Waco siege by the FBI. And when that was not accepted, then the FBI and DOJ made false claims of child, gun and drug abuse to justify their improper use of the military at Waco.

And the FBI agent James Carlisle was involved with the FBI public information officer, Mr. Collingwood to smear, intimidate and falsely attempt to discredit my efforts that uncovered FBI wrongdoing. Carlisle came to my house to threaten and intimidate me just as he did to the deputy sheriffs over their account of what Congressman Istook told them. Collingwood wrote a letter to my Senator James Inhofe stating that the FBI had sent Carlisle to my house to admonish me not to “further” repeat committing a felony of impersonating the FBI. Collingwood’s letter falsely indicated that I had impersonated the FBI. I have never impersonated the FBI and the FBI knows that. I have shown a copy of the Collingwood letter to an attorney experienced with FBI matters. The attorney’s opinion is that the FBI clearly was deliberately trying to smear me with Inhofe to discredit my information about FBI criminal conduct.

The FBI was particularly concerned about Inhofe believing my allegations since Inhofe is on the Senate Intelligence committee and is from Oklahoma. But the FBI concern over Inhofe does not end there. Herb Johnson, Inhofe’s chief of staff, wrote a letter in September 1998 describing that the DOJ had ordered the FBI about 72 hours after the OKC bombing to cover up and keep the Middle Eastern involvement from the public, press and others in government. Johnson had been told this by Johnson’s close friend who served at the FBI command post in OKC. Johnson gave his letter to attorney Dan Nelson of OKC who is married to a relative of Inhofe. I discussed the Johnson letter personally with Nelson in 1998 and personally with Inhofe in 1999. Kenneth Timmerman who writes for Insight magazine and is close to Inhofe and his staff told me earlier this year that the FBI had tried to intimidate Senator Inhofe over the OKC bombing case.

James Carlisle’s efforts for the FBI cover up also included hundreds of questionable and likely falsified FBI interview302 reports he did for the OKC bombing that were questioned in the Nichols trial and hearings by Judge Matsch himself. The FBI deliberately misspelled names so reports could not be found, wrote several 302 interview reports about the same information (including defense attorney Stephen Jones) to confuse or discredit witnesses and sources and their information, and withheld (did not lose them as they falsely claimed in several instances) reports from the courts.

But the FBI’s attempts to keep the public from knowing of FBI connivance and corruption in the OKC bombing did not just end with Istook , the sheriffs, Inhofe and myself. It extended to FBI threats 72 –74 hours after the bombing against Army recruiters who saw McVeigh with John Does in the Murrah building. Recall that 72 hours is the same period that Herb Johnson’s letter says that the DOJ ordered the FBI to cover up the Middle Eastern involvement. The FBI’s illegal attempts also included FBI threats and intimidation against multiple witnesses trying to get them to change their stories (to protect the FBI from being accused of crimes), to keep them from being known to the press and from being brought before the trials. I have written on FreeRepublic.com about some of these crucial witnesses such as Debbie Burdick, Leah Moore, Danny Wilkerson and other witnesses of Middle Eastern participants (informants?) who FBI agent Floyd Zimms brow beat and falsified his 302 interview reports about according to what the witnesses and other investigators claim.

The FBI has been since at least 1993 and is still today following a connivance policy of allowing known terrorists to enter the US and roam with impunity (no deportation or arrest) for years in the US while the terrorists set up terror cells, recruit more terrorists, set up training camps and commit terrorist acts. When one of these terrorists should happen to get publicly exposed or commit publicized terror acts, such as in the case of FBI informant Ali Mohammed, the FBI claims that the FBI just lost track of the terrorists. And the FBI defends moving against these terrorist (as the FBI has done many times in the OKC bombing case) by claiming to do so would harm the FBI undercover agents who have infiltrated the terror cells and deprive the FBI of important human intelligence. What good has the FBI intelligence been when the FBI has been unwilling to pull their undercover agents out periodically and move against the terrorists before they commit more terror acts and recruit more terrorists?

A notable example of the FBI connivance policy with known terrorists is the case of the Egyptian and security officer for Egypt Air, US Army Sergeant Ali Mohammed. Ali Mohammed served as an instructor for US Special Forces, then for the CIA and then as an informant for the FBI out of Sacramento from 1992 to 1998. While Ali was working to “help” the FBI he moved Bin Laden from Sudan to Pakistan, wrote Bin Laden’s terrorist training manual, set up terror cells and training camps in the US, squired Bin Laden’s top lieutenant and head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Al Zawahiri, around Califiornia twice, taught AlQaeda operatives to thwart airline security like in the 9/11 attacks, and helped another Bin Laden lieutenant, Khalid Mohammed, mastermind and carry out the 1993 WTC attack and the OKC bombing. It has been recently revealed that the recent attack at the LAX ticket counter for el Al airlines was known to and encouraged by Ali Mohammed and Al Zawahiri. How many more AlQaeda sleepers Ali Mohammed trained that are in side the US and who could strike again is not known.

When Ali Mohammed was arrested in 1998, he was carrying documents showing how to plant and hide explosives in public buildings like what is suspected was done in the OKC bombing. Ali Mohammed was convicted in 1999 for his role in the 1993 WTC and Tanzanian and Kenyan bombings. But Ali Mohammed signed a special plea bargain agreement with Janet Reno and has yet to be sentenced. Anrea Mitchell reported for MSNBC that the Egypt Air flight was deliberately crashed was as a result of the imprisonment of Ali Mohammed who had once worked for Egypt Air security. As in the case with the FBI informant Salem for the 1993 WTC bombing, the FBI knew for over six months in advance the details of the attack on the Tanzanian and Kenyan embassies from reading computer hard drives of terrorists who worked with Ali Mohammed.

Unfortunately, the 1993 WTC and Tanzanian and Kenyan bombings are superlative examples of extreme FBI connivance for failure to stop theses attacks when the FBI knew to do so and had the means to at least try to stop the attacks. Yet last year Congress was told that the FBI and CIA lost track of and was double crossed by Ali Mohammed for all these years during all these attacks while he was an FBI informant and was allowed to roam inside the US setting up more cells. The FBI still defends bring in known terrorists and allowing them to roam in the US for years. The FBI connivance with Ali Mohammed is another proof that the continuing FBI policy is a spectacular failure which should be terminated and that these terrorists should be arrested and deported as soon as possible. And this same type of FBI connivance also was practiced by the FBI in the OKC bombing and 9/11 attacks as will be described later in this editorial.

I have been complaining strongly to legal counsels for the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence Committees and the Pentagon terror advisor Jesse Clear for over four years (years before the 9/11/2001 attacks) about the FBI connivance policy of allowing terrorists like Ali Mohammed into the US, to roam with impunity and to commit terror acts. To prove that this is an ongoing problem which has not been corrected and can lead to more terror attacks, I cite the fact that I received a call in May 2001 assuring me that Congress was now reviewing this failed FBI policy. The call came from Chad Groover, a legal counsel for Senator Grassley, on the Senate Judiciary Committee. I told Groover that Congressional review of the failed FBI policy was not enough and that change of the policy was required to save lives and our country.

I am not overly optimistic that Congress will adequately change or debate the failed FBI connivance policies since Congress has known about and has been ratifying the FBI policies for years. In May 1995 FBI Director Louis Freeh testified before Congress about the FBI policy of deliberately helping known Middle Eastern terrorists come into the US on student visas (by taking advantage of weaknesses in INS laws) for years to populate Abu Nidal cells (closely aligned with Iraq) in LA, Dallas and in Virginia. The FBI has been monitoring but not moving against Hamas terror cells in Oklahoma, Chicago and Dallas (Holy Land Foundation) who aided the OKC bombing and the 9/11 attacks for over ten years without arrests even to this day.

Bob Woodward of the Washington Post reported in October 2001 that senior FBI officials told Woodward that the FBI was continuing to deliberately allow five known AlQaeda cells to operate inside the US including near DC and in Dallas. The FBI used Dallas police officers to track known AlQaeda terrorists inside the US and overseas since at least 1995. The Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in Dallas, Danny Defenbaugh, got into trouble with the Dallas police chief in 1998 for not telling the chief about the FBI operation and for not compensating Dallas taxpayers. El Hage, Bin Laden’s secretary for AlQaeda, was allowed to live in and operate out of Dallas for years while he was being monitored by the FBI.

If Congress were to publicly debate and possibly change the failed FBI connivance policies, it might cause the public to learn of the policies and cause the public to believe that the Congress has not only been wrong to support the FBI connivance policies but also is guilty of improper connivance itself by, in effect, aiding and covering up (keeping the details of the Congressional role from the public) terror operations and attacks like 9/11 and the OKC bombing. In spite of Congressional failures to properly oversee the FBI and DOJ, the public should still hold Congress accountable and should still not allow FBI and DOJ officials and agents to get away with falsely claiming the Nuremberg defense of carrying out orders inside the US under the pretense of name of national security when the orders were in fact unlawful and in violation of the Constitution.

The 1993 bombing of the WTC and subsequent attacks on the WTC such as the 9/11 attacks was carried out by Ramzi Yousef after the bombing and attacks were discussed, planned in part and ratified at a Hamas sponsored conference in Oklahoma City in December 1991. One of the masterminds of the 1993 WTC bombing, the OKC bombing and the 9/11 attacks has been identified by the FBI and DOJ as Bin Laden lieutenant Khalid Mohammed, the nephew of Ramzi Yousef. The advisor and consultant for the 1993 WTC attack was the FBI informant and Egyptian Ali Mohammed who was described earlier in this editorial as also being a Bin Laden lieutenant and author of AlQaeda’s terrorist training manual.

The FBI knew of the 1993 WTC attack by Yousef a year in advance from the FBI informant and Egyptian Salem. Two of Salem’s FBI agent handlers admitted publicly that FBI supervisors refused to stop the 1993 WTC attack or render the truck bomb inert. The FBI may also have learned of the bombing in advance from the FBI informant Ali Mohammed who was Egyptian just as Salem.

Yousef had the support of other participants who would later be involved in the OKC bombing and who helped Yousef obtain explosive materials and rent a truck. to deliver the bomb for the 1993 WTC attack. Recall that the 1993 WTC bombing was originally planned in OKC by a local Hamas group protected by the FBI. The Sidiqqy brothers, Asad and Anis, from Brooklyn New York, have been identified as suspects in the 1993 WTC and 1995 OKC bombings. Even the black American citizen and Muslim convert, Melvin Latimore, had his credit card used to pay for expenses of the 1993 WTC attack. Court documents show that Lattimore was also identified as a participant in the OKC bombing by an FBI informant one day after the OKC bombing.

Since Lattimore is a black man, Lattimore’s involvement with McVeigh would show that the FBI portrayal of McVeigh as a racist was deliberately false. This explains in part why six FBI agents tried to have the Travelers Aid witnesses change their stories for over nine months, took few notes, never adequately reported the witnesses in FBI 302 interview reports or had sketches done with sketch artists. The other reason for the FBI agents corrupt performance with the Travelers Aid witnesses is because the FBI did not want the public or courts to know that FBI informants and provocateurs were involved with McVeigh namely James Rosencrans and Peter Ward.

Lattimore was also seen with other FBI informants James Rosencrans and Peter Ward driving McVeigh’s car on the day before the OKC bombing when they visited the Travelers Aid in OKC. The FBI, DOJ, Freeh, Reno, Mueller and AG Ashcroft have covered up this fact and obstructed justice for years. Lattimore was also the roommate of the 9/11 hijacker pilot trainee, Zacharias Moussaoui, while he lived in Norman Oklahoma and attended the Airman flight school. The FBI also told the owners of the Norman flight school in 1999 that the FBI knew then of other pilots who had visited the Norman flight school that the FBI also knew were training for airplane attacks on public buildings including Mohammed Atta as well as Bin Laden’s own personal pilot.

Lattimore was even seen prominently involved at an OKC motel in 1995 at the same time as meetings took place between McVeigh and other Middle Eastern participants and FBI informants such as the Iraqi Al Hussaini and employees of Hamas terrorist operative Samir Khalil to plan and construct the truck bomb for the OKC bombing. But this same motel also was used in OKC in August 2001 by Atta and Moussaoui to discuss the 9/11 attacks. The FBI has refused to take action as a result of the witness accounts at this motel and it is very plausible that the meetings were being monitored at various times by the FBI either by electronic means and/or by FBI informants in the meetings.

So like Khalid Mohammed, Lattimore was involved in all three terror attacks (OKC, 1993 WTC and 9/11) and known to the FBI either as an informant or from FBI informants or likely both. The FBI has chosen to put Lattimore out of reach with a conviction of carrying a firearm while being a felon to keep the press and public from knowing of the FBI connivance in these attacks with Lattimore, Khalid Mohammed and the FBI informants. In fact it is likely that Lattimore was an FBI informant and certainly was known to an FBI informant who reported him to the FBI as being involved in the attacks. FBI failure to take action against Lattimore for the attacks for so many years and to put him out of reach on a minor charge is further evidence of FBI connivance, that Lattimore was an FBI informant and that the FBI was complicit for failing to take action against Lattimore for the OKC and the 1993 WTC attacks when the FBI had enough time and knew to do so.

But FBI foreknowledge from February 1995 of the Khalid Mohammed plot to fly airplanes in to US skyscrapers was not just supplemented by what the FBI learned in 1999 from the Norman, Oklahoma Airman flight school. The FBI also learned of the plans for the 9/11 attacks three years before 2001 by hijacker pilot Hanny Hanjour (who also traveled through Oklahoma-given a speeding ticket) from Phoenix FBI informant Adjae Collins . Collins told his story to ABC Pentagon reporter John McWethey a few months ago. Collins was one of the sources of information for the memo that FBI agent Kenneth Williams sent to the FBI in DC last summer warning the FBI of Bin Laden sponsored attacks in the US on US skyscrapers and government buildings. Kenneth Williams also sent his memo to the CIA and spoke to the CIA directly after the FBI in DC failed to act on his information.

A CIA memo containing the William’s info reached President GW Bush’s desk in a National Security Council briefing August 6, 2001. The White House originally tried to claim the memo only talked about attacks overseas, but quickly clammed up when Adjae Collins interview was broadcast. It seems that connivance with Middle Eastern terrorists and failure to act on forewarnings and foreknowledge does not just reside with the DOJ and FBI, it emanates from the White House who gives the DOJ and FBI their marching orders. No President should be immune from removal from office and prosecution for issuing to the FBI, DOJ and CIA unlawful orders that violate the Constitution or that could also be considered acts of treason.

Khalid Mohammed and his nephew Ramzi Yousef moved to the Philippines in 1994 where they shared an apartment to plot terror attacks against American targets for Bin Laden, ALQaeda and Abu Sayeff. These men’s efforts were aided and funded in the Philippines by AlQaeda and Abu Sayeff initiator Wali Khan and by Abu Omar, a name used by several of Bin Laden’s lieutenants including the Egyptian and FBI informant Ali Mohammed. Yousef kept their terror plans on his computer hard drive in their apartment. The plans included chemical formulas and details of remote controlled bomb devices very similar to those suspected as being planted in the OKC Murrah Federal building using techniques developed by Ali Mohammed. And later reported as being found in a Taliban notebook in Afghanistan in 2001.

But Yousef’s and Khalid Mohammed’s computerized plots contained much more which were later to be carried out such as flying airplanes loaded with explosives into the White House, Congress, the Pentagon and tall skyscrapers like the WTC as was done during the 9/11 attacks.

By January 1995 Yousef had met with Terry Nichols in the Philippines to plot the OKC bombing along With another American John Lebney, a Philippine government undercover agent Edqwin Angeles and Murad, a member of Abu Sayeff and AlQaeda. Khalid Mohammed very likely masterminded the meetings of his nephew Yousef with Nichols to plot the OKC bombing for Bin Laden especially since Khalid also masterminded the 1993 WTC and 9/11 attacks and worked closely with top Bin Laden lieutenants Al- Zawahiri and Ali Mohammed.

On the same day as a fire in Yousef’s apartment in January 1995, Yousef fled to Pakistan where he was later arrested, Nichols returned to the US, and Khalid Mohammed may have gone to OKC to oversee preparations for the OKC bombing in April 1995. By February 1995 the FBI had arrested and thoroughly interrogated Murad to learn in detail about the Yousef and Khalid Mohammed plots and the meetings to plan the OKC bombing and plan crashes into skyscrapers inside the US. The FBI also later arrested Wali Khan and learned similar details the FBI had learned from Murad. The FBI would have learned of the Nichols meetings plotting the OKC bombing from the Philippine undercover agent for Abu Sayeff, Edwin Angeles.

Also by the end of February 1995 the FBI had seized, analyzed and learned of the explosives and same plots (as revealed by Murad and Edwin Angeles) from Yousef’s computer hard drive. The FBI also may have learned of the plots from the FBI informant Ali Mohammed known as Abu Omar, the name of the man who funded Khalid Mohammed and Ramzi Yousef. Furthermore these details reached the upper levels of FBI decision makers in DC after going through the FBI legal attaché and station chief in the Philippines in February 1995.

McVeigh’s attorney Stephen Jones and former Pentagon terror advisor Jesse Clear both were blocked by the US prosecutor Larry Mackey and by the FBI legal attaché in 1996 from learning the details of what the FBI already learned and knew for certain by February 1995 about the OKC bombing and 9/11 style plots with Khalid Mohammed and Yousef from Murad, from Wali Khan , from Edwin Angeles, from Yousef’s computer and perhaps from the FBI informant Ali Mohammed.

The tenth circuit court of appeals in Denver further rejected Jones attempts to expose to the court and in the trials what the FBI had learned and knew in advance about the OKC bombing plot. The tenth circuit court rejected Jones’ Writ of Mandamus filed on March 25, 1996 on the false grounds and false pretense of the need to protect national security. The court may have rationalized that the court was protecting the country and hence national security from internal dissent toward certain members of the FBI and government should the public have been allowed to learn of FBI criminal connivance in the OKC bombing during open court proceedings.

By March 3, 1995 enough of the details of the Philippine plot for OKC by Yousef, Nichols and Khalid Mohammed had reached DC for an official warning notice to be issued to select members of the House and intelligence and law enforcement agencies by the Director of the House Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, Youseff Bodansky. Bodansky’s official warning also went to his boss, the chairman of the House task force, Republican Congressman James Saxton from New Jersey.

Bodansky’s and Saxton’s official warning included the Murrah building in OKC as a likely target of a Middle Eastern sponsored attack around April 1995 using “lily whites”, a reference to men with no criminal records, perhaps Caucasian and not fully aware of all the details. The memo also mentioned the use of Hamas terrorist training camps in the US. Some of these Hamas camps were in the Chicago area and in Oklahoma where Hamas demolition experts resided according to a letter published in a May 1995 OKC newspaper from the former Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Dave McCurdy. The Bodansky and Saxton warning memo was deliberately kept from the OKC bombing trials, from the public, from the Oklahoma County grand jury investigating the bombing in order to protect he FBI and the members of the House Task force from public outrage of FBI and Congressional connivance and foreknowledge of the OKC bombing. Bodansky himself called and told a reporter not to make the memo available to the public (and to the courts) because it was “too hot (politically?) to handle”.

The entire Federal family in OKC was warned in March 1995 of a pending Middle Eastern sponsored attack on a Federal building in OKC around April 1995 as revealed by US prosecutor Beth Wilkinson in a pretrial hearing with Judge Matsch and Jones in Denver in early 1996. The head of the US Marshals, Edwardo Gonzales, in charge of protecting the Federal family of judges and Federal buildings put out a memo in March 1995 giving a similar warning of a pending attack on a Federal building in the US as reported by the Newark Star Ledger in March 1995. The US Marshals memo and the warning to the Federal family testified to by Beth Wilkinson likely originated with the official memo issued by Saxton and Bodansky and the intelligence learned from Yousef’s computer and the interrogations of Murad, Angeles and Wali Kahn.

Proof that the warnings reached the Federal family came from OKC Federal Judge Wayne Ally who told his hometown newspaper the Oregonian in May 1995 that Ally was tipped (by the US Marshals) of a possible attack on an OKC Federal building. As a result, Ally stayed at home to work after April 4, 1995 and told his children to take his grandchildren out of the Murrah building day care center. Other proofs that the official warnings were taken seriously is that the BATF agents were told they did not have to report to work in the Murrah building on the morning of the OKC bombing. FBI agents were also told not to go to the Murrah building that morning even though the FBI had 3-4 agents inside the Murrah building everyday very punctually by 9 am and sometimes dropped off children at the day care center.

Al Hussaini , an Iraqi Gulf War veteran living in OKC, assisted McVeigh before and at the scene of the OKC bombing. Hussaini was brought to OKC after serving in the Iraqi Army for possible clandestine operations in the US and later in Iraq by the US if Sadam Hussein should be toppled from power. Hussaini and another OKC bombing suspect Abraham Ahmad were employees of an FBI protected Hamas cell operative in OKC, Samir Khalil who provided Hussaini with a false alibi for the day of the bombing. As mentioned earlier Hussaini was seen with McVeigh at a meeting at an OKC motel before the OKC bombing with Melvin Lattimore and other Khalil employees. Abraham Ahmad was brought back to the US the day after the bombing when blue jogging suits seen at the bomb scene and bomb making materials were found in his luggage in London after he left OKC. Inexplicably, the FBI later released Abraham Ahmad.

Hussaini was known to the FBI as a participant in the OKC bombing from many witnesses on the day of the bombing including Kay Heron. Heron was almost run over by Hussaini and another individual, perhaps Ahmad, in a late model brown Chevy truck that was the subject of an FBI APB issued with the knowledge of OKC FBI agent Dan Vogel the first week of the bombing.

Samir Khalil is known to have traveled to Las Vegas and is believed to have met an Iraqi recruiter and intelligence officer and McVeigh at O’Bannion’s Horseshoe near the MGM Grand Hotel. I drove a reporter to Khalis’s home in 1995 for an interview. The reporter said that Khalil was wearing a hat from O”Bannion’s Horsehoe. A man identified as an Iraqi intelligence officer by Iraqi expert Lorie Mylroie was photographed with Khalil and Hussaini in OKC shortly after the bombing near the body shop where it is believed that the brown Chevy get away truck was repainted yellow. The FBI impounded the repainted truck at an apartment complex in OKC where a group of Middle Eastern men had abruptly left not paying their rent on the day of the OKC bombing. The truck was seen being brought into the apartment complex by a resident named Olie Ahmad, a possible relative of Samir Khalil’s employee, Abraham Ahmad.

It is suspected that Samir Khalil is an FBI protected Hamas operative in part because he has never been known to be adequately questioned by the FBI AND especially because a Federal Grand Jury investigation against him by the assistant US attorney Ted Richardson was abruptly dropped after the OKC bombing. The grand jury was investigating Khalil for HUD property scams and for income tax evasion believed to have raised funds for Hamas terror operations in the US and against Israel. Richardson was found dead from a shotgun blast near his church and near Khalil’s house in May 1997.

Samir Khalil’s secretary, Sharon Twilley, identified Khalid Mohammed as being in OKC in 1995 where he was paid three checks written on behalf of Samir Khalil and handed to Khalil by Twilley. Recall that Khalid Mohammed has been identified as the mastermind of the 1993 WTC and 9/11 attacks and behind the OKC bombing planning meetings with Terry Nichols and Ramzi Yousef in the Philippines in January 1995. If the story about Twilley is true, it would further substantiate that Bin Laden and Khalid Mohammed were involved if not masterminds of the OKC bombing.

The information about Twilley’s identification came from James Reeser in a public reply he posted November 3, 2001on FreeRepublic.com under BlueDogDemo. I was asked to contact Reeser in October 2001 by phone to request that he obtain protection for Twilley. I later asked the person requesting the protection if Reeser’s story was true and if Twilley had received protection. The person replied in the affirmative to both questions. I sent this information publicly posted by Reeser to William Dunke, an aide for Senator Shelby on the Senate intelligence committee over a month ago after first describing the info about Khalid Mohammed to Dunke on the phone. I have received no response from Dunke as of yet.

And Al Hussaini appears to have been protected for a time in Houston after the OKC bombing by CIA asset, Heider Barbouti, whose father Ishan assisted President GHW Bush transfer technology for weapons of mass destruction (biological, chemical and nuclear) to Sadam Hussein and Iraq before the Gulf War (see the Congressional Record and statements by Congressman Henry B. Gonzales). Ishan Barbouti assisted Iraq in OKC to try to acquire a rocket fuel booster (and bomb accelerant) TK7 from Israeli investor Moshe Tal.

Hussaini and McVeigh called the same phone number in Iraq according to what sources in the Pentagon told US News and World Report in October 2001. The Pentagon sources complained of FBI connivance to withhold the Iraqi involvement from the Pentagon. This may be another proof that Senator Inhofe’s chief of staff was correct went he wrote that the FBI was ordered to cover up involvement of Middle East participants in the OKC bombing. But was it done to cover up corruption and foreknowledge with Middle East terrorists or was it done to protect a State Department peace initiative? Either way the American public was not protected or well served by the cover up.

Terry Nichols was seen with a man resembling Hussaini one day before the OKC bombing in Newkirk, Oklahoma by the wife of a police officer and two other witnesses. Nichols and the Hussaini looking suspect were with a convoy of men driving Nichol’s blue pickup truck and a short Ryder truck with an overhang. The FBI showed sketches to the witnesses in Newkirk of a man resembling Hussaini within a few weeks of the OKC bombing after the BATF showed up in town to canvass for witnesses and dust for fingerprints. A man resembling Hussaini was also seen with McVeigh in Ogden, Kansas before the OKC bombing at Pat’s Pawn shop and FBI sketches were shown by the FBI to verify this. The Hussaini visits to Newkirk, Oklahoma and Ogden, Kansas with McVeigh and Nichols were withheld from the courts and not adequately documented in FBI 302 interview reports.

The FBI has yet to interview Al Hussaini even though many witnesses place him with McVeigh and Nichols. Since the FBI refuses to follow up on witness reports that Hussaini was seen at a motel in OKC meeting with McVeigh and possible FBI informant Melvin Lattimore (who himself was known to other FBI informants), it is very plausible that Hussaini may be a protected FBI or CIA informant and provocateur. Hussaini was known by the FBI for several years to have become a baggage handler at Boston’s Logan Airport including on the day of the 9/11 attack flights leaving from Boston. Was Husssain allowed to help terrorists on 9/11 or was Hussaini trying to help the FBI catch terrorists at Boston’s airport? Continued failure of the FBI to pursue Hussaini for what ever reason is indefensible and is another proof of FBI connivance in the OKC bombing and 9/11 attacks that puts the public at risk from more terror attacks.

As mentioned earlier, two of three Pakistanis, Anis and Asad Sidiqqy, were seen by witness Debbie Burdick with McVeigh near the Murrah building just prior to the Murrah building explosion after their arrival from Brooklyn New York. The Sidiqqy brothers were also suspects in the 1993 WTC attacks. The Pakistanis were arrested on the day of the OKC bombing, with one arrest made in Dallas and the other in OKC. Janet Reno and Deputy FBI Director Weldon Kennedy lied to the public about these arrests at the time. Bomb sniffing dogs found traces of explosives in the Pakistani’s luggage. The Pakistanis were inexplicably released after false information was given to local police authorities by FBI agent Floyd Zimms concerning their get away car. FBI 302 interview reports of the Pakistani’s arrests were withheld from the courts until early 2001 when they were found in FBI OKC Bomb Task Force Inspector Danny Defenbaugh’s Dallas office.

FBI agent Odom called witness Debbie Burdick from Denver before and after the McVeigh and Nichols trials to admonish her not to talk to the press or defense attorneys about her seeing McVeigh with the Pakistanis. The FBI treatment of witness Debbie Burdick is another example of extreme FBI criminal connivance.

FBI agents wrote multiple 302 interview reports to confuse the story of Pakistani involvement in the OKC bombing as reported originally to the FBI by former CIA Middle Eastern operations chief Vincent Cannistraro. Cannistraro had told the FBI that he was told by the head of Saudi intelligence a few hours after the OKC bombing that Sadam Hussein had hired seven Pakistanis to assist in the OKC bombing. This would be consistent with the arrests of the Pakistanis and what the Pentagon told US News World Report about McVeigh and Al Hussaini calls to Iraq. It also is consistent with what FBI agent Dan Vogel revealed in OKC in January 1999 to an OKC reporter, namely that the FBI had been tracking some of the seven Middle Eastern men in Dallas that had been identified as possible suspects in the OKC bombing.

Yet FBI agent Floyd Zimms who had been involved in the cover story for the arrest of the Pakistanis was seen meeting in an upscale OKC bar frequented by suspects of the OKC bombing as late as 1997 during the McVeigh trials. Zimms had brow beaten a key witness of Middle Eastern John Does or FBI informants seen with McVeigh. Zimms had also allegedly falsified his FBI 302 report with the witness after refusing to give the witness a lie detector test.

Was Zimms acting on orders to cover up the FBI connivance with Middle Eastern provocateurs and informants such as Hussaini and the Pakistanis involved with McVeigh? A close friend of Zimms came to my house in 1999 to tell me I should not be so critical of Zimms, that Zimms was only carrying out orders and doing what he was told to do. My response to Zimms friend was that the Nuremberg defense of FBI agents knowingly carrying out unlawful orders does not apply and does not justify Zimms actions.

The FBI even knew of a government helicopter used to track the delivery of the Ryder truck in front of the Murrah building. This helicopter was seen by more than three witnesses above the Murrah building moments before it was bombed. FBI agent Dan Vogel personally refused to investigate the witness sightings of the helicopter called into him at the FBI on April 21, 1995. OKC police officer Don Browning investigated and confirmed the helicopter movements that were known to the FAA in OKC. Browning’s supervisors told him that a reporter called the police and tried to have Browning sanctioned by the police internal affairs department over his efforts to investigate the helicopter incident.

The FBI learned of and tracked the OKC bombing plot in advance not only from the Philippine meetings with Nichols, but also from FBI informants and provocateurs operating with domestic terror individuals working with McVeigh.

Cary Gagan was given a grant of Federal immunity by the US attorney in Denver after working with the FBI agents to inform them of a plot against a Federal building in OKC. Gagan delivered to Dwight, Kansas bomb making materials and equipment believed to be used in the OKC bombing. Gagan’s grant of immunity was rescinded when Gagan publicly complained after the bombing that the FBI deliberately had not tried to stop the OKC bombing based on his information. Gagan’s complaints should remind us of similar complaints made by the FBI informant Salem for not stopping the 1993 WTC attack when Salem was involved with bomb making materials for the 1993 WTC bombing. The FBI refused Salem’s pleas to stop the 1993 WTC bombing just like the FBI refused to stop the OKC bombing based on Gagan’s information.

New American magazine reporter William Jasper traveled with Gagan to retrace Gagan’s steps and confirmed Gagan’s story. Jasper reported his findings in the New American magazine about Gagan and approache Judicial Watch and Congressman Bob Barr in an attempt to get them to do something about about Gagan’s story. Also, attorney Stephen Jones met with Gagen but did not use Gagan’s story in the McVeigh trial.

McVeigh is known to have traveled in Kansas with German national and FBI provocateur Andreas Strassmeyer who was the military training officer hat the FBI infiltrated radical compound Eloheim City in Oklahoma near Arkansas. McVeigh attended a meeting at Eloheim City shortly before the OKC bombing and also called Strassmeyer at the compound. The McVeigh meeting was described in court documents for the Washington state trial of Chevy Kehoe who knew of the OKC bomb plot. A witness living near Eloheim City gave McVeigh directions to Eloheim City. McVeigh was also known to have been associated with other FBI informants living at the compound including Peter Ward and the compound’s spiritual leader, Reverend John Milar.

FBI director Louis Freeh is known to have discussed Strassmeyer’s undercover operations at Eloheim City with German authorities in Germany in 1993. Strassmeyer was protected from arrest for a traffic violation near Eloheim City by the US State Department. After the OKC bombing the FBI agent John Hippard of OKC assisted Strassmeyer in leaving the US across the Mexican border to avoid questioning by the INS.

FBI informant Peter Ward was with three other men using McVeigh’s car at the Travelers Aid in OKC the day before the OKC bombing. One of these men was James Rosencrans, an FBI informant and prosecution witness against McVeigh for the Federal Grand Jury in OKC in the summer of 1995. Another of these men was a man looking like Melvin Lattimore, the black man seen at an OKC motel meeting with McVeigh and the Iraqi Al Hussaini. Lattimore was also named to the FBI by an FBI informant the day after the OKC bombing as a participant in the OKC bombing but the FBI ignored their own informant.

Peter Ward was also the man in McVeigh’s Kansas motel room identified by Jeff Davis who delivered Chinese food a few days before the OKC bombing. The FBI refused to check the identification of fingerprints collected in the motel room perhaps fearing the identification would reveal the presence of the FBI informant Peter Ward.

James Rosencrans was a drug dealer and Michael Fortier’s neighbor in Kingman, Arizona. Fortier was sentenced to fourteen years in prison for knowing of the bombing plot but not telling authorities. FBI informants like Ward and Rosencrans were not sentenced for knowing about and helping encourage the OKC bombing. Rosencrans was allowed by the FBI to keep the proceeds from the sale of guns stolen from Arkansas gun dealer Roger Moore that the FBI had claimed in court were used to finance the OKC bombing. Less than a week after the OKC bombing, ammonium nitrate like that used in the OKC truck bomb was found dumped next to Rosencran’s trailer according to press reports in the Arizona Republic newspaper.

The U.S. District Court order resulted from a defamation suit filed by Hussain Al-Hussani against Palmer Communications, KFOR-TV, and reporters, Jayna Davis, Brad Edwards and Melissa Klinzing. The court denied a request by Al-Hussaini for more discovery because he failed to show how specific depositions would create a genuine issue of fact as to whether defendant statements are defamatory. But worse yet for Al-Hussaini, the order publically documented long suppresssed, devastating evidence collected by KFOR-TV reporters implicating him in the April 19, 1995 bombing. Here are some key excerpts taken verbatim from the the court order without commentary:

"...The court accepts as undisputed the following facts as stated by defendants:

3. A witness reported to the FBI that two Middle-Eastern looking men were seen running from the vicinity of the Murrah Building toward a brown Chevrolet truck. A third person was believed to be in the truck.

4. On April 19, the FBI issued an all points bulletin for authorities to be on the look-out for a late-model Brown Chevrolet pickup truck with tinted windows and a smoke-colored bug deflector.

6. On April 20, 1995, the federal government issued an arrest warrant for "John Doe #2," who was described as of medium build 5'9"-5'10" tall, about 175-180 pounds, with brown hair and a tattoo on his left arm.

9. On April 20, 1995 federal authorities detained Abraham Abdallah Ahmad, a Jordanian-American resident of Oklahoma City, in London, England as a possible witness in the bombing. Ahmad was reported to have duffel bags containing electrical tape, silicone, a hammer, tweezers and a photo album with pictures of missiles and other weapons. Ahmad was reported to have left his home in northwest Oklahoma City approximately a half hour after the bombing and flown to Chicago, then London en route to Jordan.

11. At about the same time as her interview with Ahmad, Davis interviewed Ernie Cranfield, who knew Ahmad. Cranfield told Davis that Ahmad had been to Cranfield's place of employment with unusual frequency in the days just before the bombing. Cranfield said that several of his co-workers were Iraqis who had been hired by his employer, Samir Khalil, in about November, 1994.

13. Cranfield said that one of his Iraqi co-workers, Al-Hussaini, had a tattoo on his left arm.

14. Cranfield also told Davis that he had seen a brown pickup truck with tinted windows and bug shield at Khalil's place of business prior to the bombing.

16. Davis also interviewed Sharon Twilley, Samir Khalil's secretary. Twilley confirmed Cranfield's statements that Ahmad had visited Khalil's office several times a day in the weeks before the bombing, which was far more often than usual; and that she had also seen a brown pickup truck with tinted windows and a bug shield at Khalil's office. Twilley confirmed Cranfield's statements about the arrival of the Iraqi employees, including Al-Hussaini about November, 1994. Twilley told Davis that Khalil had become unusually secretive after that.

18. KFOR took surveillance photographs and videotape of Khalil and his Iraqi employees including Al-Hussaini. The photos were taken from a public street while the subjects of the photo were in public places.

19. On April 25, 1995 federal authorities isssued an enhanced composite photo of John Doe #2 the full face sketch shows the supect wearing a ball cap.

20. On May 1, 1995 federal authorities released a third sketch of John Doe #2, a profile view of the suspect wearing a ball cap.

21. After comparing videotape and still photos of Khalil's Iraqi workers with the composite sketches of John Doe #2 and talking wih law enforcement persons, Davis formed the opinion that Al-Hussaini bore a strong resemblance to the composite photo of John Doe #2. Law enforcement persons expressed their opinions to Davis that Al Hussaini looked like the sketches of John Doe #2.

22. Al-Hussaini approximated the physical description of John Doe #2 and bears a strong resemblance to the composite sketch of John Doe #2. He has a tattoo of an anchor and a snake on his left arm.

23. In their investigation of the bombing, Davis, defendant Brad Edwards, and other reporters for KFOR discovered several witnesses who believed that they had seen John Doe #2 in the company of Timothy McVeigh a few days before the bombing in a bar along N.W. 10th street, or speeding away from downtown Oklahoma City moments after the bombing in a brown pickup truck with tinted windows and a bug shield. Each of these witnesses gave videotaped interview in which they described what they saw, picked Al-Hussaini out of a photo line up as the person they saw, and assured Davis on camera that they believed their observations enough to testify to them under oath before a grand jury.

28. The plaintiff claims that at the time of the bombing he was painting a house for his employer in Oklahoma City.

29. The plaintiff's co-workers dispute his alibi.

30. The person who prepared a timesheet which the plaintiff showed to the other media to substantiate his alibi later admitted she fabricated it."

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/37/news-crogan.php

Link

From the L.A. Weekly:

TO DATE, THE FBI AND DEPARTMENT OF Justice have seemingly exerted more effort in shutting down these leads than pursuing them. Last October, the Justice Department blocked the court appearance of retired Oklahoma City FBI agent Dan Vogel at a hearing in the state murder case against convicted Oklahoma City accomplice Terry Nichols. In an interview with the Weekly, Vogel said he intended to tell the court the truth -- that he had accepted evidence from former TV reporter Jayna Davis that tied Timothy McVeigh, Nichols and a group of Iraqis working in Oklahoma City to a larger bombing conspiracy.

Vogel said he passed the materials to the Bureau but was later told the documents were returned because of questions regarding who owned the documents. Davis and her attorneys contend that the documents were never returned. Whatever the case, the Bureau's reputed rationale for spurning potential evidence is slim indeed.

The Oregonian

April 20, 1995

IF HE'D BEEN AT WORK . . . FORMER PORTLANDER SAYS Summary: Wayne Alley, a federal judge born in Oregon, takes the day to work at home and escapes the devastation from the blast

As a federal judge whose office faces looks across the street at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building across the street in Oklahoma City, Wayne Alley felt lucky that he didn't go to his office Wednesday.

Alley, who was born and raised in Portland, had taken the rare opportunity to work at home. ``Of all the days for this to happen, it's absolutely an amazing coincidence,'' Alley said in a telephone interview from his home.

The judge said the bombing came just a few weeks after security officials had warned him to take extra precautions. caution.

``Let me just say that within the past two or three weeks, information has been disseminated . . . that indicated concerns on the part of people who ought to know that we ought to be a little bit more careful,'' he said.

Alley, who started his law career in Portland, said he was cautioned to be on the lookout for ``people casing homes or wandering about in the courthouse who aren't supposed to be there, letter bombs. There has been an increased vigilance.''

He said he was not given an explanation for the concern.

Asked if this might have just been a periodic security reminder, he said, ``My subjective impression was there was a reason for the dissemination of these concerns.''

An FBI spokesman in Oklahoma told reporters during a news conference that he was not aware of any warning.

Not all of Only some members of Alley's staff were as lucky as he was Wednesday.

Some were in his suite of offices in the courthouse, which is across the street on the other side of the federal building from where the bomb exploded Wednesday.

Still, the force of the blast smashed the windows of his office, and one of his law clerks was injured by the flying glass.

Alley attended Washington High School in Portland and was a law clerk for an Oregon Supreme Court justice.

Despite the damage to his office, Alley said the destruction of a child care center in the federal building hit him hardest. He said his son and daughter-in-law in Oklahoma City had a baby 4 1/2 months ago, and they had considered using the facility before deciding on other child care.

``The thought that our grandchild might have been in there was the thing that was the most chilling about all of this,'' the judge said.

http://thenewamerican.com/tna/1998/vo14no04/vo14no04_istook.htm

Istook and the OKC Cover-up

by William F. Jasper

David Kochendorfer was on his way to an insurance appointment and waiting at a stop light when the bomb went off. It was 9:02 a.m. "I looked up and saw this big black plume of smoke," he recalls. "And my first impression by the black smoke was that it was probably a [fuel] tank or something exploded."

An insurance agent by profession, Kochendorfer is also a reserve deputy with the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Department. He knew instinctively that his help would be needed at the explosion site. By the time he had wended his way through traffic to the Alfred P. Murrah Building, it was 9:30. The area looked like a war zone, with wounded people lying about and rescue personnel ministering to them and searching the rubble. Kochendorfer flashed his badge to a deputy sheriff and asked where he could help. He was told to join in the search effort for survivors inside the hulking remains of the devastated federal building.

Throughout the day Kochendorfer worked with other rescuers, searching for bodies of the dead as well as live victims who might be trapped. Sometime in the afternoon he teamed up with fellow reserve deputy Don Hammons, with whom he had frequently worked on past assignments.

Later that afternoon they were approached by a U.S. Marshall. His agency had taken over from the Oklahoma City Fire Department, he said, and the area was now a federal crime scene. Deputies Kochendorfer and Hammons were assigned to protect the northwest corner of the perimeter and instructed to keep all unauthorized persons out of the area.

Stunning Admission

"It was about 9:00 p.m. when the dignitaries started showing up. Governor Keating, [District Attorney] Bob Macy, and the mayor all came in with their people," recalls Kochendorfer. "I spotted Congressman [Ernest] Istook walking toward me from the east perimeter. He stopped and we spoke for about 15 to 20 minutes — small talk mostly, about what a tragedy it was and such." Then, says the deputy, the congressman uttered a stunning comment. "Istook said, ‘Yeah, we knew this was going to happen.’" Kochendorfer was shocked, and asked, "Pardon me? How did you know that?" He says Istook responded, "Well, we got word there’s an undercover … right-wing, Muslim, fundamentalist group operating in Oklahoma City," and that "an information source thought that a federal building was going to be bombed." The deputy was even more stunned.

Then, says Kochendorfer, Congressman Istook looked closely at his hat and asked, "What department are you with?" It had been raining and the deputy’s uniform was covered by a yellow slicker. Kochendorfer told him he was with the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Department. The deputy says the Oklahoma City congressman replied, "Oh, I thought you were with the Highway Patrol," and then turned and walked away. According to Kochendorfer, his deputy’s hat and those of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol are both of the Smokey-the-Bear type, so it was easy for him to understand the congressman’s mistake. What he didn’t understand was Istook’s odd reaction and apparent snub of the Sheriff’s Department.

While Deputy Kochendorfer was talking with Istook, his partner, Don Hammons, was accompanying Lana Tyree, a local attorney, around the bombing area. He had noticed her taking photographs of the site and was under strict orders not to allow anyone but official law enforcement photographers to shoot pictures. This photo ban was put in effect for several reasons: to protect the identities of undercover officers who were working the scene; to protect the privacy of victims whose bodies or body parts were lying exposed; and to keep from having the crime scene invaded by hordes of photographers. Throughout the day, Deputy Hammons and other officers had confiscated the film of several individuals who had slipped onto the site illicitly to take photos.

According to Hammons, when he told Ms. Tyree that photography was prohibited, "she stated to me that she was with Congressman Istook and that Mr. Istook wanted her to take pictures of the crime scene." Since she had been admitted through the security gate and it was clear that she and the congressman "were definitely together," the deputy says he decided this was an exceptional case. He allowed her to take pictures, but stayed close by to be sure that none of her shots would capture any of the "photo sensitive" law enforcement officers. While they conversed, Hammons attests, Ms. Tyree stated: "Congressman Istook told me there had been a bomb threat called in back on April 9th." The startled deputy says he "thought to myself … hum … ten days. They knew for ten days?"

Press Conference

On Thursday, January 15th, the two deputies told their stories publicly for the first time, at a press conference called by Key’s Oklahoma Bombing Investigation Committee.

The outdoor press conference, held at the bombing site under the Survivors’ Tree, was opened by Key and Kathy Wilburn, whose grandsons Chase and Colton were killed in the Murrah Building’s daycare center....

As David Kochendorfer began to tell his story to the assembled reporters, aides to Congressman Istook started handing out a brief, two-sentence printed statement. The release, on Istook’s congressional stationery, declared: "It is garbage and a total fabrication to suggest that I have information that the government supposedly had prior knowledge of the Murrah Building bombing. Any such suggestion is the product of somebody’s sick and warped imagination." In subsequent interviews that night, the congressman tempered his strident response, allowing that perhaps misunderstanding and faulty memories, rather than mendacity or neurotic imaginings, were behind the allegations.

Portions of the press conference, including statements by Deputies Kochendorfer and Hammons, were carried on all four of the television news broadcasts in Oklahoma City that evening and were the focus of heated debate on Talk-Radio KTOK’s Mike McCarville Show, the state’s largest radio talk show. McCarville interviewed both deputies as well as Charles Key and Istook, then took calls from listeners and ran an automated call-in poll to see whether the radio audience found the congressman or the deputies more believable. The program prompted over 900 calls, with over 55 percent registering in favor of the deputies.

Excerpt from the Daily Oklahoman

Grand Jury Waste of Money, Time, Istook Says
Judy Kuhlman
02/21/1998

U.S. Rep. Ernest Istook said Friday he thought taxpayers' money and grand jurors' time spent investigating the Oklahoma City bombing were being wasted on "wild-goose chases."

Istook, R-Warr Acres, voluntarily appeared before the grand jury to answer questions about allegations that he knew about a bomb threat to an Oklahoma City building before the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

"There's been some garbage thrown around. ... I think there is a lot of taxpayers' money being wasted on wild-goose chases with people claiming that somebody said something," Istook said.

Last month, two Oklahoma County reserve deputies said Istook told them the day of the bombing that "some right-wing fundamentalist Muslim group operating in Oklahoma City" had threatened a local building.

State Rep. Charles Key, R-Oklahoma City, first presented reserve deputies David Kochendorfer and Don Hammons in a Jan. 15 news conference at the downtown bomb site.

For educational purposes and discussion, not for distribution

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