February 13, 2003: Associated Press: FBI Failed to Turn Over Evidence Suggesting Possible Links between Convicted Oklahoma City Bomber, White Supremacists

The FBI gathered a significant amount of evidence that showed links between convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997, June 11-13, 1997, and 7:14 a.m. June 11, 2001) and white supremacists who had threatened to attack government buildings, according to investigative memos procured by the Associated Press. This evidence includes hotel receipts, a speeding ticket, prisoner interviews, informant reports, and phone records suggesting that McVeigh had contact with white supremacists connected to the Elohim City community (see 1983, January 23, 1993 - Early 1994, April 1993, October 12, 1993 - January 1994, August 1994 - March 1995, August - September 1994, September 12, 1994 and After, September 13, 1994 and After, November 1994, December 1994, February 1995, March 1995, (April 1) - April 18, 1995, April 5, 1995, April 8, 1995, and Before 9:00 A.M. April 19, 1995). “It is suspected that members of Elohim City are involved either directly or indirectly through conspiracy,” FBI agents wrote in a memo shortly after the bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). An FBI teletype shows that some of the supremacists who were present when McVeigh called Elohim City (see April 5, 1995) were familiar with explosives, and had made a videotape in February 1995 vowing to wage war against the federal government and promising a “courthouse massacre.” The AP notes that the Murrah Building, devastated by the blast, was directly across the street from the federal courthouse. The teletype also notes that two members of a violent Aryan Nation bank robbery gang who live in the Elohim City compound left the compound on April 16 for a location in Kansas a few hours away from where McVeigh completed the final assembly of the bomb (see 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995). Some of the evidence was not turned over to McVeigh’s lawyers for his trial. “They short-circuited the search for the truth,” says McVeigh’s original lead attorney, Stephen Jones. “I don’t doubt Tim’s role in the conspiracy. But I think he clearly aggrandized his role, enlarged it, to cover for others who were involved.” The FBI agent in charge of the investigation, Dan Defenbaugh, says he never saw the FBI teletype that linked McVeigh to the Elohim City community. He says he would not have considered the teletype a “smoking gun” that would have altered the outcome of the investigation, but his team “shouldn’t have been cut out. We should have been kept in on all the items of the robbery investigation until it was resolved as connected or not connected to Oklahoma City.” Defenbaugh adds that he knew nothing of a 1996 plea offer by prosecutors to one of the robbers, Peter Kevin Langan (identified by the AP as Kevin Peter Langan), who said he had information about the bombing. Langan made several demands the government was unwilling to meet, and the plea offer was rescinded. Langan’s lawyer later said Langan could disprove the April 19, 1995 alibis for two of the bank robbers, casting doubt on their denials of non-involvement with the bomb conspiracy. The FBI acknowledges its failure to turn over some documents, but says it found no evidence that McVeigh was involved with anyone in the conspiracy aside from his accomplice Terry Nichols (see December 23, 1997 and June 4, 1998). FBI spokesman Mike Kortan says: “We believe we conducted an exhaustive investigation that pursued every possible lead and ran it to ground. We are confident that those who committed the crime have been brought to justice and that there are no other accomplices out there.” Part of the problem, Defenbaugh says, was that white supremacist militia groups shared many of McVeigh’s far-right beliefs, and some had their own plans for carrying out bombings that had nothing to do with McVeigh’s tightly controlled conspiracy. “Even though we had our conspiracy theories, we still had to deal with facts and the fact is we couldn’t find anyone else who was involved,” Defenbaugh says. Jones says of the Elohim City connection: “I think Tim was there. I think he knew those people and I think some helped, if not in a specific way, in a general way.” Retired FBI agent Danny Coulson says: “I think you have too many coincidences here that raise questions about whether other people are involved. The close associations with Elohim City and the earlier plan to do the same Murrah building all suggest the complicity of other people.” [Associated Press, 2/13/2003]