Ashcroft on Verge of Major Blunder

By Reed Irvine and Cliff Kincaid

June 8, 2001

      "I will not delay the sentence of a confessed mass murderer based on documents that cast no doubt about the surety of his guilt."

That’s what Attorney General Ashcroft told a recent news conference after documents in the Tim McVeigh-Oklahoma City bombing case were delivered to defense attorneys. But as he was speaking, his Justice Department was fighting to conceal the surveillance video tapes from around the federal building in Oklahoma City which may show McVeigh’s co-conspirators. Whatever the fate of McVeigh, the truth is this case still has not been disclosed by the federal government.

      McVeigh’s first attorney Stephen Jones has not seen all the tapes, and former Oklahoma State Representative Charles Key, who has been investigating the case for years, says they could blow open the case. Key says there were at least 22 surveillance tapes that were confiscated by the FBI from the downtown Oklahoma City area, and 4 or 5 may be extremely important.

      One of them is from the front of the federal building pointing down to the street where the Ryder truck with McVeigh and another individual pulled up. Based on witness accounts of what happened, Key says this video might show McVeigh and the individual get out and walk across the street, where McVeigh got into a car with a different individual described by one witness as "Arabic looking." The person who got out of the truck with McVeigh got into a brown pickup truck that had been seen many times in connection with this case.

      There was another video across the street that may have pointed in the direction of the federal building. Still another video may have pointed in that direction as well. "All of these should be made available, but the FBI has been fighting this for years," Key says. They were requested through a Freedom of Information Act request that turned into a legal proceeding in which the Justice Department kept stonewalling. It may go to trial – after McVeigh is scheduled to be executed.

      The concealment of the documents, whose existence was announced less than a week before McVeigh's original execution date, included information about the FBI's search for a possible "John Doe No. 2" — an unidentified accomplice whom investigators claimed did not exist. Ashcroft insisted, "Nothing in any one of these documents links anyone else to the bombing." But the existence of John Doe No. 2 was confirmed by numerous witnesses, and he may appear on the surveillance tapes that the Justice Department is concealing.

      The media make much of the fact that McVeigh has denied the existence of a John Doe No. 2. But this admitted mass murderer may have his own reasons for concealing the truth. He may want to protect his accomplices. If the operation was ultimately run by foreign terrorists, McVeigh may not want that information to come out because it would make him look like a pawn or a dupe. If he’s kept alive, at least for a while, there’s a chance he could be forced to tell the whole truth. Charles Key says he believes the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City had a Middle Eastern origin.

-- Anonymous, June 09, 2001

Answers

This thing has the same smell as the Lee Harvey Oswald situation. There were reliable reports during the aftermath that some possible government, or other "official" police types, were involved in the Dallas setup. The fight of the Warren Commission was to suppress that. I am left to think that if videos exist that can help identify accomplices, and the DOJ doesn't want that released, we should get real curious as to just what/who is on those tapes besides McVeigh.

-- Anonymous, June 09, 2001

Agree with ya', Gordon. . .there's just 'something' that isn't completely out in the open, and enough people in influence that don't want it out in the open. . .

More than meets the eye, for a fact.

And all the talk of if the execution is delayed having the effect of making him some sort of 'icon' or 'martyr'. . .well, the way I see it is that if they go ahead and execute him (as they are likely will), that will just fuel the on-going speculation of others being involved, much the same as happened with Oswald.

-- Anonymous, June 09, 2001