Mainstream media spiked story of bombing embarrassing to FBI's account of Oklahoma City

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Dec 22, 1997 | by Paul Craig Robert

Did you know that 475 members of the victim families of the Oklahoma City bombing have filed lawsuits this year against the federal government? The first lawsuit, joined by 170 family members and filed in federal court in April, charges that the federal government "knew or should have known" that the Murrah Federal Building was the target of a bomb attack. Five families followed in a second lawsuit. The third lawsuit, with more than 300 family members, was filed in state court. It charges that the government possessed "detailed prior knowledge of the planned bombing of the Murrah Building yet failed to prevent the bombing from taking place." This lawsuit charges the government with conducting a failed "sting operation."

Think about this for a minute. However closely you might have followed the trial of Timothy McVeigh or the current trial of Terry Nichols, it is not as closely as families who suffered deaths and injuries. Why aren't these family members grateful to the Justice Department for McVeigh's conviction and for the trial of Nichols? Have they fallen victim en masse to a conspiracy theory? Are they simply greedy and hoping to profit with monetary damages?

Apparently not. The victim families believe they are staring a transparent federal coverup in the face. The Justice Department and the FBI have been caught in too many lies, and too many credible witnesses place McVeigh at the bomb scene in the presence of other men who have been identified but not questioned. Then there is Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, or BATF, undercover agent Carol Howe, who infiltrated the white separatist enclave at Elohim City, Okla. Yes, she gave the warning. The BATF was preparing to swoop in and make arrests but, apparently, was stopped by the FBI.

Did you know that during McVeigh's trial, the prosecution did not call a single witness who could place McVeigh in Oklahoma City on the morning of the bombing? The government had numerous witnesses who could provide this critical information to the jury but refused to let them testify. The government's problem with the witnesses was that under cross-examination, they would establish more than the government wanted established. The government insisted that McVeigh acted alone, but all the witnesses saw him accompanied by others.

It wasn't that the government was skimping on witnesses. The feds called 27 telephone-company employees to testify that McVeigh had used a prepaid telephone card bought under an alias, hardly a significant fact compared with eyewitness accounts of McVeigh's presence at the crime scene.

Howe was not permitted to testify at McVeigh's trial. The Justice Department insisted that the government had no prior warning of any kind. This made it necessary for the federal government to deep-six its own undercover agent, which the government tried to do by putting her on trial for making bombs. It didn't work. The jury saw it for what it was -- a retaliatory, manufactured case to silence and discredit the most important witness. She was acquitted on all charges in August.

The men whom witnesses place with McVeigh on the morning of the bombing are the men on whom Howe was spying in Elohim City. Evidence presented in Ambrose Evans-Pritchard's just-released book, The Secret Life of Bill Clinton, suggests that these men, whose identities and whereabouts are known, may have been provocateurs working for the FBI.

The critical testimony and evidence that was suppressed by the Justice Department at the McVeigh trial will be heard by the jury in the lawsuit under Oklahoma state jurisdiction. Thus, the Justice Department might not be able to orchestrate the outcomes of the victims' families' lawsuits.

But don't expect to be kept abreast of the story by the mainstream media. The Howe story was slated to air on ABC-TV on Feb. 5 of this year. It was pulled at the last moment. The producer accused ABC's top brass of caving in to political pressure. He said his bosses argued that the story would bring down the country and lead to the abolition of the BATF, the result being machine guns on every corner. When confronted with the liberals' nightmare, news reporting lost.