Part 23 (1/2)
Fortier: Yes.
Jones: And his last name, sir?
Fortier: I think you're referring to Glynn Bringle.
Jones: Did you have a conversation with him by telephone on April the 30th?
Fortier: Yes.
Jones: And did you say, ”I want to wait till after the trial and do book and movie rights. I can just make up something juicy”? And then did you laugh?
Fortier: I'm not sure if I laughed or not, but I did make that statement.
Jones: ”Something that's worth The Enquirer, you know.” You made those statements.
Fortier: Yes, sir.
The obvious inference was that the ”Justice” Department had a hand in generating the Fortiers' testimony. As Jones pointed out during his closing argument, the terms of Fortier's plea agreement provided that any leniency would be contingent upon his performance in court.
Not true, according to the FBI, which spent over 175 hours soliciting statements from the Fortiers; and Joseph Hartzler, who met with his ”star witness” between 7 and 10 times to ”make sure he told the truth.”[827]
In fact, during McVeigh's trial, Lori Fortier testified on cross-examination that she had arrived in Denver five days before she was scheduled for trial. She testified that she spent the better part of Friday, Sat.u.r.day, Sunday, and Monday practicing for her testimony with federal prosecutors.
Philadelphia prosecutors spent a lot of time with Veronica Jones to ”make sure she told the truth” too - convincing her to implicate journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, accused of shooting police officer Daniel Faulkner. Jones, who was facing unrelated felony charges at the time, originally told police she saw two other men flee the scene. After threats and promises from police, she changed her story, testifying to the government's version of events. Her felony charges were subsequently dropped.[828]
Fortier, whose speech and appearance were magically transformed for his day in court, reportedly received a reduced sentence of three years in exchange for his testimony. His wife Lori was granted complete immunity from prosecution for her's.
Jones also accused the FBI of hara.s.sing Jennifer McVeigh and her friends in the days after the bombing, hoping to obtain derogatory information about her brother. He said the FBI scared people ”beyond belief with threats of prosecution” if they didn't talk.[829]
On the fifth day of Jennifer McVeigh's interrogation, the FBI ushered her into a room with huge blown up pictures of her and her brother (taken off her refrigerator door), and babies who died in the bombing. Interspersed between the photos were statutes from the U.S. Code pertaining to treason, with phrases such as ”Treason is punishable by death,” and ”The penalty for treason is DEATH.” (government's emphasis) Under cross-examination, Jennifer was asked if she was aware that treason is only punishable in times of war. Stunned by this revelation, she answered, ”No.”
The FBI also tricked Jennifer into testifying by promising her immunity from prosecution if she cooperated. During a break in the trial, a reporter asked prosecutor Vicky Behenna why Jennifer needed immunity. ”She didn't,” Behenna replied,” but she wouldn't testify without it, so we gave it to her.”[830]
The FBI also tricked Marife Nichols into signing a consent form before they searched her house. When she was asked if the agents advised her of her right to retain a lawyer or refuse to answer questions, the 23-year-old Filipino answered, ”I don't remember. I don't think so.” Marife said that when she asked whether she did need a lawyer, prosecutors and FBI agents discouraged her. ”They told me, 'You're okay as long as you are telling the truth. You don't need a lawyer.”[831]
James Nichols discovered they were raiding his house after he heard it on the news. ”I heard on the radio they were raiding a house in Decker, Michigan. I said, 'Wow, that's awful close to home.' Well, within an hour I found out... Mine!”[832]
Nichols believes the ATF, which raided his house, set him up to be murdered, either as an act of revenge or to prevent him from testifying at trial. He told Dateline's Chris Hansen that after the agents entered his home, they asked him to retrieve a gun he kept in his bedroom. Nichols responded, ”No, I won't go get it. I told you, send an agent or two in there to go do it.” 'Aw, go ahead. Go and do it,' the agent responded, and they all turned their backs, real nonchalantly. I said, 'Whoa, wait a minute...' They'd 'a shot me, because they would have just said 'He pulled a gun on us.' The fate of Terry and Tim would have been signed, sealed and delivered... Dead people don't testify.”[833]
For his part, Terry Nichols believed that he was not in custody after he walked into the Herrington, Kansas police station on April 21 to see why his name was being broadcast on television. Apparently, the agents were hoping they could get more out of Nichols by leading him to believe they had no intention of arresting him.
”Mr. Nichols was coerced, deceived, and subjected to psychological ploys designed to overcome his will and make him confess,” his attorney stated in a legal brief. Defense attorneys also contend Nichols was falsely promised he could review agents' notes on his statements for accuracy, and was falsely told he or his wife could be present at searches.
Prosecutors countered that federal agents acted ”with remarkable diligence and in a manner that honored the Const.i.tution.”
Sure.
Frank Keating: Damage Control Inc.
”We are going to impose our agenda on the coverage by dealing with the issues and subjects we choose to deal with.” - Richard M. Cohan, Senior Producer of CBS News ”The business of the New York journalist is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his race and his country for his daily bread.” - John Swinton, CEO, New York Times, New York Press Club, April 12, 1953.
”The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media.” - William Colby, former CIA Director Eight months after the bombing, Oklahoma State Representative Charles Key, dissatisfied with the ”official” investigation, attempted to form a state oversight committee. House Speaker Glen Johnson ridiculed Key's efforts, stating his satisfaction with the Justice Department's official fantasy tale. Anyone who subsequently attempted to challenge the government's official line was publicly discredited by Governor Keating, sneered at by Attorney General Drew Edmondson, and laughed at by the mainstream press.[834]
The local media provided a convenient platform for Governor Keating to dismiss critics of the government's handling of the case, including Edye Smith, Hoppy Heidelberg and Representative Key. In an attempt to discredit Heidelberg, Keating headed a carefully orchestrated chorus of media pundits, stating that Heidelberg was ”off the reservation.”
Keating also joined KWTV in attacking KFOR's coverage of the Middle Eastern connection, stating they lacked integrity.
He labeled Jim Levine, an attorney who represented several victims pro bono in an attempt to release money from the Governor and Mayor's Victims Relief Funds a ”bottom-feeding” lawyer.[835]*
For his courageous efforts in uncovering the truth, Keating said Representative Key was ”baying at the moon.”[836]
Along with bombing victim Glenn Wilburn, Key attempted to impanel a County Grand Jury. Such a jury, operating outside the scope of the federal investigation, would not only have the power to investigate facts ignored by the federal grand jury, but have the power to level criminal obstruction of justice charges against anybody whom they believed might have impeded the investigation.
Given the allegations of wrongdoing in the federal investigation, such charges could conceivably be leveled against everybody from the ATF to the Justice Department.
In an interview in the McCurtain Gazette, Key explained, ”Indisputable proof exists now that the federal grand jury was purposely s.h.i.+elded from witnesses who saw Timothy McVeigh with other suspects, both prior to and immediately after the bombing a.s.sault.... They may have a good motive for this, but thus far it escapes me - and, I might add, several members of the federal grand jury who witnessed this farce.”
Keating's response, quoted in the Daily Oklahoman was: ”I don't think a legislative committee would contribute one whit of intelligence to this process.”[837]
The Daily Oklahoman and the Tulsa World, the state's two largest dailies, which should have led the pack in ferreting out the truth of this terrible tragedy, instead led the local media chorus with editorials such as this one in the Daily Oklahoman, ent.i.tled, ”Drop It, Mr. Key.”
The Daily Oklahoman has opposed Key's mission from the beginning.... State Rep. Charles Key's quest to prove that a government conspiracy played some role in the Murrah Building bombing is a weird and misguided exercise.... Oklahoma County District Attorney Bob Macy is correct in appealing a court ruling that allows Key a free hand to seek a county grand jury probe of his conspiracy theories....[838]
The Tulsa World chimed in with editorials such as ”Making Tragedy Pay,” which labeled Key as a ”dedicated hustler” peddling ”goofy theories” to rightwing-crank audiences.” They also accused the representative of profit-making from the sale of his bombing videos, which barely paid for themselves. The fact that Key had recently lost his insurance business due to his tireless efforts investigating the bombing, and was living on his $33,000-a-year salary to support a wife and three children in a small, ramshackle house, was not mentioned by the yellow journalists of the Tulsa World.
The ”truth seekers” of the local media weren't finished either. They eagerly focused on the efforts of Drew Edmondson, who accused Key of proposing a ”wasteful witch hunt” and of engaging in ”the worst kind of paranoid conspiracy pandering.” (See Appendix) One article reported how Edmondson had convinced the State District Attorney's Council to oppose Key's investigative funding bill.
”This is unprecedented, as far as I know, for the Attorney General to go to such lengths with the District Attorneys Council and to use such intemperate language,” the soft-spoken Key told The New American.
In fact, local radio polls revealed that an overwhelming majority of Oklahomans supported Key's efforts. While the Tulsa World and the Daily Oklahoman went to extremes to label Key as a ”conspiracy nut,” they never bothered mentioning that little fact.[839]*
Naturally, the CIA-connected Was.h.i.+ngton Post would have their say, comparing the ”myth” of John Doe 2 to the Loch Ness Monster.
Lead prosecutor Joseph Hartzler added his voice to the ensemble, calling the leads ”whacky theories.”[840]
Key's grand jury pet.i.tion was quashed on November 6th, 1995 by District Judge Daniel Owens on the grounds that it would be ”re-inventing the wheel.”[841]
Key appealed. As his attorney, Mark Sanford stated, ”Legally [Owens] didn't have the right to quash the pet.i.tion. But because he's a judge he has the power, whether it's legal or not.”[842]
Beverly Palmer from Bob Macy's office argued at the appeals hearing in defense of Owens, claiming that the pet.i.tion was ”insufficient on its face,” and the request was duplicitous of the federal grand jury's efforts.
Yet, as Appeals Judge Ronald Stubblefield pointed out, nowhere did Judge Owens state why the pet.i.tion was insufficient. In fact Stubblefield was highly skeptical that Owens had any facts to advise him properly in his decision. ”I question whether Judge Owens has the discretion” said Stubblefield. ”He's just operating on what he knows about the bombing. Do you think it's right to make a judgment based on what he reads in the newspaper?”[843]
The same could be said about DA Bob Macy. At the time I interviewed him, he was collecting information on the case by reading Morris Dees' Gathering Storm, and The Turner Diaries. This was a year and-a-half after the bombing - a bombing that occurred right outside his window. He didn't know about John Doe 2. He had no idea about the Middle Eastern connection. He had done absolutely no investigation.
”I have not seen these things you are talking about right now,” Macy told me. ”When I see the evidence... I haven't been presented with the evidence.” Macy subsequently claimed he wanted me to work with his so-called ”task force” that was ”investigating” the bombing, then never called me back.
His att.i.tude was adequately reflected by his a.s.sistant DA, Beverly Palmer. Visibly nervous, Palmer grasped at straws during the appeals hearing, arguing that the grand jury shouldn't be convened because of the need for ”judicial economy,” and that it contravened ”public policy concerns.”