-Caveat Lector-

http://www.parascope.com/articles/1296/okc5.htm
4: Hoppy Heidelberg

"No one who saw McVeigh with other suspects, was ever allowed to testify
before the Federal Grand Jury."
-- Former Grand Juror Hoppy Heidelberg

When David Hall at KPOC-TV asked the FBI about the All Points Bulletin they
had put out on the brown pick-up containing John Doe #2 immediately after
the bombing, they denied any knowledge of it. But when Hall, who had a copy
of the dispatch, played it back for them, the FBI suddenly had "no comment."

"It's strange that the official version has focused on Nichols and McVeigh,
and that the government is now busily engaged in denying all possibility
that there could be anybody else," said Nichols' attorney Michael Tigar.
[15]

Hoppy Heidelberg was one of the Grand Jurors charged with the task of
evaluating the evidence. Heidelberg, who quoted often from the juror's
handbook, was aware that the Grand Jury was charged with the task of
determining the relevance of the evidence, and asking those questions
pertinent to the case. So far, all the evidence presented by the government
centered around Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Heidelberg wanted to know
why prosecutors had not subpoenaed the many witnesses who had seen John Doe
#2.

"No one who saw McVeigh with other suspects, was ever allowed to testify
before the Federal Grand Jury," said Heidelberg.

But Patrick Ryan seemed to be controlling the Grand Jury. He did not like
Heidelberg's tendency to go against the flow. In the letter to the victims,
Ryan states:

The United States has never maintained or even suggested, that no other
person or persons were involved with McVeigh and Nichols in the commission
of these crimes. As stated earlier, the question of involvement of others is
the subject of intensive investigation by federal investigators and
prosecutors who are totally devoted and committed to identifying and
prosecuting all persons involved in the planning or commission of these
crimes.

Heidelberg was eventually dismissed by federal Judge David Russell for
having the audacity to question the prosecution's evidence. The government's
excuse for dismissing Heidelberg was an anonymous interview he gave with
Media Bypass magazine. But Heidelberg claims the real reason was a letter he
wrote to Judge Russell dated October 5th, in which Heidelberg states:

The families of the victims deserve to know who was involved in the bombing,
and there appears to be an attempt to protect the identity of certain
suspects, namely John Doe #2...

"I think they (the government) knows who John Doe #2 is, and they are
protecting him," said Heidelberg in an interview in Jubilee Magazine. "This
is because John Doe #2 is either a government agent or informant and they
can't afford for that to get out." [16]

But Heidelberg's brush with the government didn't end there. After agreeing
to an interview with Janya Davis at KFOR, he received a call from the U.S.
Attorney telling him that a reporter was on her way and that he was not to
talk to her, or he would be arrested.

"They tried everything to shut me up," Heidelberg said. "they have said they
were going to throw me in jail. When that didn't work, they got down on
their hands and knees and begged. I mean... they have tried everything to
keep me from talking to the press about this." [17]

[For the rest of article and footnotes, see
http://www.parascope.com/articles/1296/okc1.htm ]

++++++
http://home.earthlink.net/~alto/hoppy.html
INTERVIEW WITH THE GRAND JUROR WHO WOULDN'T SHUT UP:
THE OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING CASE - PART TWO
In the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing tragedy on April 19, 1995,
independent researchers have begun to lift the lid on very troubling details
of the crime. As in the JFK assassination, disturbing evidence of a
different sort of murder scenario from the official version has emerged; and
typically it has been relegated to the "conspiracy file" by the mainstream
press. Very serious questions about bombs other than the ammonium nitrate
truck bomb have surfaced. McVeigh himself in some eyes begins to appear as
the dupe, the patsy left holding the bag. Key stories about federal law
enforcement agencies having advance warning of a bombing in Oklahoma City
are gaining credibility. Researchers on the scene in Oklahoma City are
talking about the FBI intimidating witnesses and thereby shaping a false
version of events. The Grand Jury itself which has brought indictments
against Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols has come under fire for ignoring other
potential suspects.
Are we being treated to what is basically a gigantic government press
release, a foreshortening and distorting of the case?

On December 14, 1995, I interviewed Hoppy Heidelberg, a grand juror in the
Oklahoma City case. Several months earlier Heidelberg had, off the record,
engaged in a conversation with Lawrence Myers of Media Bypass magazine.
Subsequently thrown off the Grand Jury by Judge David Russell for allegedly
going public in the subsequent Media Bypass article, Heidelberg is very
critical of the government's refusal to pursue murder suspects beyond Tim
McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Which suspects? Start especially with the
notorious John Doe 2.

Grand jurors are not permitted to reveal details of legal proceedings on
pain of contempt- of-court citation and imprisonment. Heidelberg has now
risked being accused of this, because he feels his Grand Jury was steered
away from evidence that could implicate the government itself in the
bombing.

Has such a straightforward rebellion by a grand juror ever taken place
before in a high profile American trial? After the Media Bypass article
appeared, the major media gave the Heidelberg story one or two days and
passed on to more routine matters: car accidents, murders, storms and
potential medical breakthroughs.

Meanwhile Heidelberg has wrestled with his discovery that grand juries are
basically run by the prosecuting attorneys who herd jurors like sheep in
bringing indictments. (Indictment being the end product of a grand jury, the
defendant is then bound over for trial.)

However, with a little research Heidelberg has also discovered that grand
juries are potentially vital bodies in which jurors are legally permitted to
actually bypass prosecutors and question witnesses directly, find and call
witnesses and in general investigate the crime at hand.

Such a citizen-body, if honored - not sidetracked and intimidated by
prosecutors and judges -- would, of course, add a whole new dimension to the
American legal scene. In practice though, these grand juries are never
allowed to exercise their legally endowed powers. This was the very personal
discovery of Heidelberg and it has obviously made him more determined to
expose what he considers gross shortcomings in the legal system.

Across the U.S., several million, yes million, people are plugging into very
active underground networks of news composed of taxes, videos, internet
groups, alternative newspapers and magazines and self-published
literature -- all of which present challenging and unofficial scenarios of
the federal building bombing.

Heidelberg has formed his own unofficial perceptions close up to the action
in the Oklahoma case and that is what we discussed in our interview.


How many John Does are there?

There were at least five men ID'ed by witnesses as being on the scene the
morning of the bombing. Actually, more than five.

People who were with McVeigh?

Yes, or in the key vehicles everybody's pointed to as probably involved in
the bomb plot. The yellow Mercury Marquis. The brown Chevy pickup and the
Ryder truck. Actually there may have been two Ryder trucks.

These witnesses who saw the other John Does -- were any of them brought
forward to testify In the Grand Jury?

No.

Were any of the John Does brought forward?

No.

None?

None.

So all these suspects are left completely alone by law enforcement.

Ignored.

My understanding is you feel that John Doe 2 was not pursued by the
prosecution because he could well turn out to be a government informant or
agent. That would link the government to the bombing.

Right.

Did you think you'd get what you wanted In the Grand Jury? The presentation
of evidence you felt was vital?

They kept promising and promising to answer all my questions, but ultimately
they stalled me. I was had.

You had some kind of book on jurors'duties with you in the Grand Jury room.

It was a green government-issued handbook. It said a grand juror could cross
examine witnesses directly. But they wouldn't let me do that. They said I'd
have to get the prosecuting attorney's okay for each question I wanted to
ask. But you know, in dialog one question leads to another right away, so
you can't cross-examine that way. But I did get to ask some questions of
witnesses.

Did you think the government knows who John Doe 2 Is?

I began to feel that way, yes. But, of course, all through the trial the
prosecution insisted that John Doe 2 was the Ft. Riley soldier Todd Bunting
who served in the Army with McVeigh.

But they also said Bunting wasn't guilty of any crime.

That's right. And he didn't really look like the FBI artist's sketch of John
Doe 2 and he wasn't with McVeigh when McVeigh rented the Ryder truck. The
actual John Doe 2 did rent the Ryder truck with McVeigh. The whole thing was
ridiculous.

When did you decide to go public with your dissatisfaction with the Grand
Jury?

A couple of weeks after the indictments of McVeigh and Nichols were brought
in. I couldn't shut up. I didn't want other suspects to walk and kill more
people.

You eventually hired an attorney, didn't you?

Yes. John De Camp, for First Amendment purposes, to advise me on what I
could and couldn't say.

In a letter you wrote to the judge, David Russell, you said bomb experts and
geologists and engineers should be called as witnesses. Why?

Well, can an ammonium nitrate bomb cause the pattern of destruction that
occurred in the federal building? I looked at that building and the idea of
one explosive charge coming from one location doesn't fit. Pillars closer to
the truck bomb survived the blast and columns further away went down. That's
impossible unless the building was constructed very inconsistently with some
pillars and sections put up quite well and others very poorly. Let's get the
answer... Let's get the architects and engineers who built the building in
there and question them.

Did you request that?

Of course I demanded bomb experts all along. And engineers and geologists.
They said - - do you want to know what they said? They didn't have the
money! I said I'd go down to the University of Oklahoma and bring some
geologists back myself for free. They wouldn't let me.

The bomb Is the key to the whole case.

ANFO (Ammonium nitrate plus fuel oil) is very symmetrical in the damage it
does. You look at what happened to the federal building. That isn't
symmetrical. You can judge the power of the explosion from the crater left
under the Ryder truck. The crater tells you everything you need to know. The
truck bomb explosion wasn't powerful enough to take out 25% of the building.
That's why they covered up the crater, filled it in so quickly. ANFO is
great for moving dirt in mining, but it's no good for knocking down
buildings.

Was any of this discussed in the Grand Jury?

No!

It's clear that if the truck bomb couldn't and didn't cause the major damage
to the federal building, then other explosives were used, charges placed on
the pillars Inside the building. Then we have a whole new situation --
obviously an operation that is highly professional Involving other people.
None of this was brought up In the Grand Jury?

No.

Some people think the trial itself will be a forum, an opportunity to bring
forward these ignored witnesses as well as air a great deal of information
about the truck bomb fallacy and other bombs set Inside the building. I
think Jones, McVeigh's attorney, will try to bring this up one time and the
judge will call him to the bench and say, "Mr. Jones, these other possible
shadowy perpetrators are not on trial here. Only Mr. McVeigh, your client,
is. So I'm ruling out all this 'wider conspiracy' business. I don't want to
hear it again." And Jones will say, "Yessir," and go sit down and that will
be the end of that.

I think you're right. Yes.

Of course, just to get an initial indictment on McVeigh, all they needed --

They didn't need anything! People down in Oklahoma City say, "I know McVeigh
and Nichols did it alone because I've seen the building." Building blew up
therefore McVeigh and Nichols acted alone. You don't need a jury for that
kind of non-logic.

Let's talk about Michael Fortier, McVeigh's friend. At first when the FBI
questioned him he said McVeigh would never have blown up the federal
building and killed all those people. He said all the FBI had on McVeigh was
his arrest for a traffic violation and a concealed weapons charge. Then a
couple of months later he's saying that he and McVeigh actually went to
Oklahoma City and cased the federal building with an eye to bombing it.
What's going on there?

No. You're off base on that.

You mean on Fortier's confession? He's confessed to being a participant in
the bombing.

That's not it.

I don't understand.

Let me put it this way. If I had been Fortier's aftorney, he would have
walked. He wouldn't have given a statement and he would have walked.

That's pretty strong.

There's a lot you need to know about Fortier.

In the Media Bypass article, you said he was just a kid and the FBI put a
big scare into him.

Tremendous pressure. They brought 24-hour-a-day pressure on him for several
months at great expense. They were on him at his job in Kingman, Arizona,
and because of that he was fired. They were on him at home at his trailer,
too.

That much?

Do you see?

Well, I know there was a weapons charge they were threatening Fortier with,
and I believe they also said they'd put his wife in jail if he didn't
cooperate.

It has to do with the sheer amount of pressure over that period of time.

Wearing him down.

He had no attorney.

What?

He had no attorney.

Are you serious?

For that whole period. And he wasn't under arrest either.

That's -

He was pressured for 24 hours a day and he had no attorney. He's a kid. He's
not smart enough to understand what's going on.

Not smart enough -

To realize the FBI had nothing on him. He had no one to advise him.

The FBI couldn't arrest him?

They didn't want to arrest him.

Why not?

Because if they did, they'd have to appoint a lawyer for him. It was months
before he was arrested.

I'm digesting this. It's very bizarre.

He got conned.

But eventually he did give them what they wanted. He confessed to being
involved In the crime with McVeigh.

You're missing it.

He confessed to planning the bombing with McVeigh.

You're missing it.

Well, if he hasn't made an outright confession --

Let me ask you something. What's the fastest way to get from Kingman,
Arizona, to Southern Kansas?

I have no idea. If Fortier and McVeigh were traveling from Kingman to
Southern Kansas ...

They'd go through Oklahoma City.

Oh. Fortier just told the FBI they had been in Oklahoma City on their way to
Kansas? That's all? He didn't say they were casing the federal building?

You're warmer.

Well, all right. If Fortier never told the FBI they cased the building...

It's somewhere in between.

In between? You mean, it's between they were just passing through Oklahoma
City and they were casing the building?

You're warmer.

Fortier told the FBI they were in Oklahoma City on the way to Kansas and
they went by the federal building and they looked at It. Something like
that.

Something like that.

And there was never a real admission about planning to blow up the building.

You need to read Fortier's confession. It was printed in the Daily
Oklahoman.

Fortier, the prosecution's big witness, never confessed. Is that what you're
saying? Not even close?

Not even close.

But the prosecution didn't need him to gain an indictment against McVeigh.
They want Fortier as a witness in the actual trial. Big time. But if his
statement is so far south of being a confession, then they can't really use
him at the trial.

No, they can use him. What he has to say won't make an impression on some
jurors, but it could tip the scales for other more gullible jurors.

The FBI spent all this time pressuring the hell out of Fortier --

That's very important because you see, obviously that was the best they
could do. They stayed with him so long because they had nothing better.
Fortier's involvement in the bombing was so minimal it was a waste of time.
If I was the FBI man in charge, I would have made one run at Fortier and
then forgotten all about him.

So In other words, he never confessed to casing the building with McVeigh.
The media has completely exaggerated It. Fortier and McVeigh were driving
through Oklahoma City on the way to Kansas and they passed by the federal
building. Something like that. And media stretched that.

Something like that.

And the FBI spent so much time pressuring Fortier to link McVeigh to the
bombing because they had nothing better.

They had nothing better.

But you feel McVeigh Is linked to the bombing.

Yes, I do. But the FBI relied on a man, Fortier, who really couldn't provide
anything important to them. You need to remember that. That's important.
There's more to this.

As I say, I know you can't be very specific about exactly what happened
inside the Grand Jury, but you seem to be saying that the FBI used very poor
sources to gain an indictment against McVeigh.

Yes.

This seems to be part of a pattern.

Damn right.

For example, judging from the arrest warrant on McVeigh issued by the FBI on
April 21, they rely on unnamed witnesses who saw McVeigh at the scene of the
bombing. Witnesses who were found miraculously before McVeigh's arrest on
21st. That's extremely quick work. There's one guy who saw the police
artist's sketch of McVeigh on TV and came forward.

What guy?

That's what I'm saying. None of these witnesses' names have been released.
I'll read you the piece from my book. "On April 21st, a man who used to work
with McVeigh called the FBI. He had just seen the artist's... sketch on TV.
He said McVeigh was a right-winger. Had been In the Army and had at one
point gone to Waco to look at the ruins of the Branch David ian compound.
McVeigh was very upset about what had happened there, what the federal
agents had done. This man gave the FBI an address, 1711 Stockton Hill Road,
Kingman, Arizona."

(Laughs) All this from an artist's sketch before they even arrest McVeigh?

Must be a psychic.

Yes. A psychic.

That's what I mean. It's probable that the FBI Is using extremely thin
pretexts in accusing McVeigh.

Definitely.

But yet McVeigh is involved.

That's right and that's the whole point. For example, the various
surveillance videotapes of the bombing, tapes from, say, Southwestern Bell
and the Journal Record Building across the street, we don't know that they
showed all the details of the bombing, including the perpetrators, but it's
possible. None of this material was shown to us in the Grand Jury.

None of It?

Zero.

There Is the possibility that some of that tape showed the federal building
collapsing. The shape of that collapse could make it clear that the truck
bomb was not the real device that caused the major damage to the building.
That instead, interior charges placed on the columns did the job, because
that's very easy to see. It looks like a demolition. The building collapsing
in on itself. We've all seen that a hundred times on television.

Yes.

So the Grand Jury indicts McVeigh. But the evidence brought forward by the
FBI for that indictment is extremely thin. They do this on purpose. You feel
that McVeigh was definitely involved In the bombing, but the FBI held back.
They didn't provide any real evidence to the Grand Jury.

That's what I'm saying.

You know there was a witness to the building collapsing on April 19?

Who.

A man named Peter Schaffer. Not long after the bombing I spoke with a
reporter on the Daily Oklahoman newspaper, Ann Defrange. She said that a man
named Peter Schaffer told her he had seen the building collapse in on Itself
from the top down. That would be a classic implosion signifying charges
placed Inside the building on the columns. When I spoke with Schaffer he
denied seeing the building fall down at all. I got back to Defrange. She
remained very definite about what Schaffer had told her. She didn't budge at
all.

The FBI must have gotten to him. You know, the FBI has been able to get
witnesses to shut up about important things they know. We've talked to some
of these people. In certain instances the witnesses believe that concealing
evidence is the right thing to do. They really believe it. The FBI has sold
them a bill of goods about national security or something like that. In
other cases the FBI has used straight-out intimidation on witnesses. They
size up people. On one witness they'll use something like national security.
On another, they'll go for intimidation.

So what we've got here is an attempt by the FBI and the prosecution to
indict McVeigh In the Grand Jury without introducing other evidence that
could be somehow damaging to the prosecution's case.

Exactly.

The FBI sticks to very thin evidence and Ignores the more solid evidence
because the solid evidence contains uncomfortable Information that could
somehow link the government to the bombing.

Sure.

The truck bomb couldn't have caused the major damage to the federal
building. That indicates the presence of other professional participants who
planted charges Inside the building. The FBI and the prosecution and the
Grand Jury - 10-ignore all this. They don't want to bring this up, so they
simply focus on McVeigh and Nichols and no one else. They concentrate on
Fortier, browbeat him, and still they get nothing of substance from him.

That's right.




----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Before my second conversation with Heidelberg on December 16, 1995, I
reviewed material on Michael Fortier's indictment. Fortier will apparently
be the state's star witness against McVeigh. He's a very shaky star.
Reading through the plea-bargained charges finally drawn against Fortier
which were formally filed on August 11, 1995, it's clear that he never told
the FBI he and McVeigh "cased the federal building" just prior to the April
19 bombing. Fortier said that he and McVeigh simply drove through Oklahoma
City on their way to Kansas and passed the federal building. The Daily
Oklahoman states that McVeigh at this point "pointed to the... building as
the bombing target." That remains to be seen. At any rate, this car trip to
Kansas actually took place on December 16, 1994, four months before the
bombing.

Federal prosecutor Joseph Hartzler, according to the Daily Oklahoman (August
1 , 1995) "noted that Fortier was not charged as a conspirator in the
bombing and said the government has no evidence that he participated in that
conspiracy."

So what was Fortier charged with? Having knowledge of the McVeigh-Nichols
bomb plot before and after the fact. He was also charged with keeping that
knowledge from the FBI. He was also charged with helping to transport stolen
firearms (not bombs) across state lines.

Heidelberg had said that in arriving at a plea bargain FBI investigators had
put "huge 24- hour-a-day pressure on Fortier for several months, during
which time Fortier had no attorney and no one to advise him. Fortier could
absolutely have walked if he were more experienced," said Heidelberg.

It does appear possible that Fortier's admission of the charges finally
filed against him by the government was not a compromise downward in his
favor, but instead the result of pressure exerted upward, so to speak,
toward more culpability on his part.

If Mr. Jones, McVeigh's attorney, has a real desire to represent his client,
Fortier looks like he could come apart under cross-examination. Why? Because
if these charges filed against Fortier are made out of scare tactics and
forced exaggerations by the FBI, that can be dissected on the stand.
Fortier, the so-called star witness, could admit that his "prior knowledge
of the bombing plot" was really non-existent. That, for example, in reality
he had only heard conversation from McVeigh about "possibilities," not a
definite plot.

If Fortier does come apart under cross-examination, that could create a
psychological window of opportunity for the in-court or even out-of-court
introduction of evidence showing a wider conspiracy in which McVeigh is the
patsy, the dupe.

But Mr. Jones does not seem like the lawyer to risk his career on a fully
armed defense of his client, McVeigh. As usual, that leaves outmoded
objectives, like honesty, questioning authority and digging for the truth up
to private citizens. Welcome to America, 1996.

Obviously, Heidelberg was leading me to a conclusion about what kind of
evidence the FBI was using in this case and what kind they were ignoring. He
seemed to be saying that the FBI used the thinnest of pretexts to get an
indictment on McVeigh and Nichols while holding back other kinds of evidence
which could implicate the government in the bomb plot. I had some of that
nailed down from the first interview, but I felt there was more to grasp
here. Maybe it was just too simple and I wasn't seeing it. We started off
the second conversation talking about McVeigh's sister, Jennifer, and I
hoped that we would get to a more stark understanding of what the FBI and
the prosecution were really up to with their manipulation of evidence.
Eventually, we did. And as simple as the truth was, it was quite a shock.

The Media Bypass article said the FBI put a lot of pressure on McVeigh's
sister. Like Fortier, she started out strongly defending her brother, and
ended up being a witness against him. I mean, a sister testifying against
her brother. . .

The FBI sat on both McVeigh's sister and his mother. My impression is the
FBI took them somewhere to pressure them. McVeigh's sister is a nice person.
So pressure was effective. She has a conscience. You can turn around a
person with a conscience.

Did McVeigh's sister say McVeigh told her he had worked for a special
operations Army group that was engaged In criminal activity?

Not exactly. She said something like that.

That her brother told her such a special operations group existed.

Yes. But more than that.

That they had recruited him and he turned them down.

Yes.

He didn't testify at the Grand Jury?

He won't talk. I don't know if he's happy to be a martyr or he's confident
he won't get convicted. He doesn't seem to be terribly worried. Seems
possible he thinks he was working for the government and that therefore he
won't be convicted. That's a speculation.

McVeigh's behavior is so inconsistent. His combat scores as a soldier are in
the top 5 percent. He's said to be obvious officer material. He's smart. But
then they say he purchased 4,800 pounds of ammonium nitrate and left his
fingerprint on the receipt. A few days before the bombing he registered at
the Dreamland Motel in Kansas under his real name. He drives away from the
federal building on April 19 In a Mercury Marquis with no license plate and
gets stopped by a state trooper outside town and arrested ninety minutes
after the bombing.

Yes.

Unless he's a drug addict or drunk.

He does have druggy-type friends but there's no particular evidence that
he's an addict. He does have a lot of druggy friends, though.

One was possibly Steve Colbern who has been in police custody since last
May. They reportedly found a speed lab in back of Colbern's trailer.

Even if all McVeigh did was deliver the Ryder truck and if he didn't think
the destruction to the building would be significant -- if he was conned --
still it's enough to convict him. There was a chance while the remainder of
the building was still standing after the bombing that you could prove it
was really destroyed by demolition charges placed on the interior columns...
but now there's no forensic evidence left. [The government demolished the
rest of the federal building on May 23, 1995.] Now it would be a big job to
sell the multiple bomb theory to the jury. The public aren't bomb experts.
If they were, they'd understand the pattern of damage couldn't fit with one
bomb.

If McVeigh didn't really understand that this was a parallel operation, with
secret interior charges placed inside the building and planned to go off
simultaneously with the truck bomb ...

If McVeigh didn't know the extent of the damage that was to be done and he's
taking all the heat, you'd think they would have killed him by now because
he's too dangerous to them, because of possible revelations at the trial.

The they that you mention, would then be some part of the government. Let's
get back to John Doe 2. Here the prosecution manipulates the evidence by
completely excluding the whole Idea of John Doe 2 from the Grand Jury, Isn't
that right?

Yes. And this exclusion was pointed out to them!

You mean, you pointed It out.

[laughs]

Didn't you ask for a bomb expert?

Eventually, they brought one in. They didn't count on the fact that anyone
on the Grand Jury could spot this guy as a CIA type operator. I found out
later he was CIA although he had lots of impressive credentials. His
testimony was very effective, but the whole thing was bogus. A dog and pony
show. Now this is hypothetical. If you want to convince someone that AMFO
[ammonium nitrate plus fuel oil] is powerful, show a film of a truck and
blow the hell out of it and then say you used only five pounds of ANFO to do
it. But how could the grand jurors be sure that it was only five pounds? All
the demonstrations the prosecution used were like that. Obviously to dupe an
unsophisticated audience [the Grand Jury]. But it's easy to see through
this.

How did you feel when you first got on to the Grand Jury?

I didn't go in trying to cause trouble. I tried to get along. I wasn't
wanting to be kicked off the Grand Jury. I wanted to hang in there longer.
As it turns out I wouldn't have heard more about Oklahoma City, anyway. They
were done with that.

You've had attention from the mainstream press. You were on Good Morning
America and The Today Show.

Everybody's interviewed me. But they want me to turn out to be a nut. When I
don't come off that way, they don't print the interview, they don't do the
story-

Who doesn't do the story, for example?

The New York Times. I've had contacts with them. And with Time, Newsweek,
CBS. They don't want to give me any stature. I was supposed to do 20/20,
Dateline, a whole bunch of them. But after my appearance on Good Morning
America and The Today Show, they ignored me. Even my own governor in
Oklahoma [Frank Keating] was calling me a nut for a while. Then that didn't
work because people know me. So he invited me to his mansion, but I didn't
go.

There are so many uninterviewed people in this story.

It would seem to me that those rescue workers who found unexploded bombs in
the federal building... there's got to be somebody who knows that -- it
wasn't a hoax. They found two more bombs that didn't explode in there.
Somebody somewhere can verify this. "Yeah, we found those bombs and reported
it and gave them to whoever."

Unless they have been told to shut up about it. Unless this is more
manipulation of evidence.

Yeah. Even with the Grand Jury witnesses, you could see they didn't remember
everything they remembered. Their memories had deteriorated. (laughs) The
FBI does this to people. 'Your remembering would be counter-productive to
the investigation. It's your patriotic duty to forget." I got to hear tape
interviews with secret witnesses occasionally [witnesses already influenced
by the FBI]. It takes a tremendous amount to get them to tell what they
really knowbecause they think that they'll screw up the government's
investigation. But when some real witnesses the media found who had ID'ed
McVeigh at the bombing scene didn't show up at the Grand Jury ... How do you
explain their absence? It was a dog and pony show. The prosecution spent a
lot of money bringing in witnesses who knew nothing about the bombing. How
many witnesses do you need to bring in to say that McVeigh was at gun shows.
Not ten witnesses! That's irrelevant! Many people go to gun shows and don't
blow up buildings. They [the prosecution] had this Grand Jury to the point
where jurors were asking "How can gun shows be legal in the U.S.?" These
witnesses were used to get across the idea that McVeigh, because he went to
gun shows, was a bad guy. But we heard nothing from real witnesses who saw
McVeigh at the crime scene. Isn't that amazing? You can get most people to
buy a story without one bit of evidence. Just on association alone. You can
get them to believe what you said he did. The witness testimony we got was
pretty much all baloney. Why didn't they give us the real stuff they had,
the real witnesses?

Now, we're getting back to what you were Implying in the first interview.
Are you telling me that no witnesses who saw McVeigh driving a truck in the
vicinity of the federal building on the morning of the bombing testified at
the grand jury?

That's right! And why do you think that was. Because those witnesses saw
other people with McVeigh and those other people might have been able to tie
the crime to the government because some of those other people were ---

Government informants or agents.

Yeah.

Well, that's what you're saying then. The FBI uses incredibly thin evidence
and keeps back the real witnesses because they could tie some fraction or
faction of the government to the bombing itself.

You know, there's a saying among lawyers, "You can get a ham sandwich
indicted." The ham was probably a little sour, so the guy in the restaurant
died. He must have eaten the sandwich and been poisoned. You never tell the
Grand Jury he died in a car accident after he left the restaurant. You just
bring in lots and lots of witnesses who saw the ham, tasted the ham and say
the ham was a little bit funny. The color wasn't quite right. It tasted a
little weird.

All right. Now I see what you're getting to. This Is staggering to me. I
mean we have a bunch of witnesses, real witnesses, who saw McVeigh at the
scene of the bombing with other people, other John Does. The Grand Jury
doesn't call any of them. They show you no surveillance videotape. Instead
they browbeat Fortier, someone you say could have walked completely, had
absolutely minimal Involvement with any of this. I mean a Grand Jury Is
supposed to be a place where the crime Is looked Into.

But it isn't. They had to keep some evidence out of it. That's what you have
to understand. And you have to ask yourself why. Why would they present the
most stupid form of non-evidence to gain an indictment against McVeigh and
keep the good stuff out? You have to ask yourself that over and over, and
then you'll see what's going on here.

Concealment of evidence so that John Doe 2 Is kept out of It, and other
suspects, other John Does are kept out of it, because somehow these other
perpetrators would make it very uncomfortable for the government. They would
open up the case Into other areas. Areas showing government Involvement.

Can you think of another reason why the prosecution would withhold the most
persuasive witnesses? People who were really on the scene at the bombing?

No, I can't.

McVeigh is not cooperating with his lawyer.

What do you mean?

He's not saying who the other people are who were involved with him.

>From what you tell me, we're talking about a fair number of involved people.
Well, I think it's more than five, actually. From witnesses' reports, we can
count two men in the pickup, three men in McVeigh's car and maybe even two
more in the Ryder truck. And then there's the possibility there were two
Ryder trucks.

McVeigh won't say who they are?

He's the good soldier. I think he's willing to take the fall.

Because he's the good soldier.

I think they're holding his sister Jennifer over him. If he talks something
bad will happen to her. I also suspect he thinks he's working for the
government.

After possibly being recruited by people who said they were Patriots.

Yeah.

These "Patriots" could have told him, "We're connected to a few good people
inside this corrupt government in Washington. People who still want to save
this country. They're our ultimate employer in this."

Yeah, that would work on McVeigh. The flag and apple pie business.

Do you think, sifting In jail, McVeigh hasn't figured out these recruiters
set him up as the patsy?

I don't know. That license plate on his Mercury Marquis -- the car he was
arrested in. The license had fallen off. He has to wonder about that, about
someone loosening the nuts on those bolts. That's why the Oklahoma highway
trooper stopped his car in the first place. That's how it all unraveled.
McVeigh has to be wondering about that.

Jon Rappoport is the author of Oklahoma City Bombing - The Suppressed Truth.
A candidate for U.S. Congress in 1994, he hosts the weekly Free Form Radio
on KPFK in Los Angeles. An investigative reporter for fifteen years, he has
written articles on politics, health, and media for newspapers and magazines
in the U.S. and Europe.

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