The Oklahoma City Bombing And The Politics Of Terror Part 22

Catina Lawson, who was friends with McVeigh, remembered John Doe 2 from the Summer of '92, when she and her friends would hold parties and invite soldiers from nearby Fort Riley. McVeigh showed up with Andy Stra.s.smeir, Mike Fortier, and Michael Brescia. In fact, Lawson's roommate, Lindsay Johnson, dated the handsome, well-built Brescia.

Two days after the bombing, Lawson called the FBI and told them that Brescia closely resembled the sketch of John Doe 2.

Yet in spite of overturning 21,000 stones, the FBI never even bothered to follow up on her story.

Robert Gohn, who lived across the road from McVeigh in Kingman, recalled seeing one of the mysterious John Does around the early Summer of '94. According to Gohn, one day a short, stocky man who looked "like a weight lifter" arrived at McVeigh's trailer with Terry Nichols.[787]

On April 7, Dr. Paul Heath was working in his office at the Murrah Building when "McVeigh" and two of his companions stopped by for a chat. Heath recalled one of the men as "American-Indian looking" and "handsome."[788]

As the a.s.sociated Press reported on April 27, 1995: ... [U.S. Attorney Randy] Rathburn said neighbors of Nichols'... reported that Nichols spent April 12-14 with McVeigh and several unidentified men. One of the men resembled sketches of John Doe 2....[789][790]

On Sat.u.r.day, April 15, Barbara Whittenberg served breakfast to three men at the Sante Fe Trail Diner in Herrington, Kansas. One of the men was dark-skinned and handsome. When he told her they were on their way to Oklahoma City, McVeigh shot him a hard look that said "keep quiet."[791]

Early the next day, around 1:00 a.m., Melba was working the deli counter at Albertson's Supermarket on South May in Oklahoma City, when "McVeigh" and John Doe 2 stopped by for sandwiches.[792]

"McVeigh," it seems, was still in town when Phyliss Kingsley and Linda Kuhlman saw three vehicles pull into the Hi-Way Grill, just south of Oklahoma City, around 6:00 p.m. on Sunday. McVeigh came in and ordered hamburgers and fries to go, and was accompanied by a short, stocky, handsome man, of either Mexican or American Indian descent. The man closely resembled the FBI sketch of John Doe 2.[793]

That same day, back at the Dreamland Motel in Junction City, Connie Hood was returning to her room around 12:45 a.m. when a man in room 23 quickly opened the door as if expecting a visitor, then quickly closed it when he saw Hood. The man, who startled her, was in his early 20s, about 5'8" tall, 180 lbs., with dark hair brushed straight back and an olive complexion. Hood recalls he closely resembled the sketch of John Doe 2, but with slightly fuller features. She described him as a "foreigner."[794]

The following day, Hood and her husband Donald returned to the Dreamland to visit their friend David King in room 22. A Ryder truck pulled up at the same time they did, the driver strongly resembling the man Hood saw the previous day.

Shane Boyd, a helicopter mechanic who was also staying at the Dreamland, later told reporters and investigators that he saw a bushy-haired man resembling the John Doe 2 sketch in the parking lot near room 25 - Timothy McVeigh's room.

One exit away from the Dreamland Motel sits the Great Western Inn. According to the manager, a Middle Eastern man stayed at the motel on the 17th. "He spoke broken English," said the manager. "[He] gave a foreign name and was driving a Ryder truck." The man closely resembled the FBI's sketch of John Doe 2.

"Sometime on Monday," recalled Connie Hood, "those two - McVeigh and the foreigner - loaded up together, in a Ryder truck, and pulled out of the Dreamland parking lot together... that was the last I saw of them."[795]

Later that day, janitors Katherine Woodly and Martin Johnson were working the 5-9 p.m. s.h.i.+ft in the Murrah Building when they saw "McVeigh" and John Doe 2. McVeigh spoke to Martin about a job, and John Doe 2 nodded to Woodly.[796]

At 3:00 p.m. on Monday, or possibly Tuesday, Jerri-Lynn Backhous and Dorinda Hermes were working at the Easy-Mart in Newkirk, 100 miles north of Oklahoma City, when a convoy pulled in. One of the vehicles - a light blue pick-up with a camper top - was being driven by Terry Nichols. Backhous recalled Nichols' pa.s.senger as average height, dark-skinned, with black hair and a muscular build. "He looked just like the John Doe 2 sketch," she said.[797]

Debbie Nakanas.h.i.+ was working at the Post Office across the street from the Murrah Building around on Monday or Tuesday when "McVeigh" and John Doe 2 stopped in and asked where they might find federal job applications. Nakanas.h.i.+ helped provide the description for the well-known profile sketch of John Doe 2 in the baseball cap.

Guy Rubsamen, a security guard at the Murrah Building saw a large Ryder truck pull up to the curb in front of the building around 4:00 p.m. on Monday, the 17th. Rubsamen later concluded it was a dress rehearsal.

"There was either two or three men, but one jumped out the driver's side, and one or two out the pa.s.senger side," Rubsamen told the Rocky Mountain News. "The first thing that struck me was how quickly they jumped out. Those guys were in a hurry."[798]

The Ryder truck would make its appearance the following evening at the Cattle Baron's Steakhouse in Perry, Oklahoma. Jeff Meyers and another customer recalled seeing McVeigh and a companion, who stopped by for a few beers. The man was approximately six feet tall and weighed 260 pounds - a description not befitting the John Doe 2s described by other witnesses.[799]

Richard Sinnett, the a.s.sistant manager of the Save-A-Trip convenience store in Kingman, Kansas, sold fuel to McVeigh and three other men at approximately 1:30 a.m. on April 19. Sinnett saw three vehicles in all, including a Ryder truck, an older brown pick-up (possibly belonging to Steven Colbern?), and a light colored car.

Sinnett described John Doe 2 as muscular, 170 to 180 pounds, with short light brown hair and a light complexion. He recalled the Ryder truck was towing a trailer that contained a large, round tank filled with clear liquid. The store is about 175 miles north of Oklahoma City.[800]

Fred Skrdla, a cas.h.i.+er at a 24-hour truck stop near Billings, told the FBI he sold fuel to McVeigh between 1 and 3 a.m. on April 19. The station is about 80 miles north of Oklahoma City.

As the sun rose, McVeigh and a friend sat down for coffee at Jackie's Farmers Store in Mulhall, Oklahoma. Mulhall Postmaster Mary Hunnicutt stood right next to McVeigh as he ordered his coffee. She was "advised" not to discuss what she had seen, lest she be summoned before the Federal Grand Jury. She wasn't.[801]

Ten minutes before the blast, Leroy Brooks was sitting in his car at the Sooner Post Office across from the Murrah Building, when a Ryder truck pulled up across the street, trailed by a yellow Mercury. The drivers of both vehicles got out and walked to the back of the truck, where they spoke for a few seconds, and exchanged a small package. After Brooks came out of the Post Office, he saw that the Ryder truck, which contained a pa.s.senger, had moved in front of the Murrah Building. "McVeigh" was walking briskly across 5th Street towards the Journal Record building.

Danny Wilkerson sold "McVeigh" a pack of cigarettes (McVeigh doesn't smoke) and two soft drinks at a deli inside the Regency Towers apartments a block from the Murrah Building. Wilkerson recalled a pa.s.senger sitting in the cab of the Ryder truck, which had a cab overhang, and was shorter than the 24-foot model the FBI claimed McVeigh had rented.[802]

Federal authorities had still more witnesses to call on had they wanted to. Mike Moroz, who was at work at Johnny's Tire Store on 10th and Hudson, on April 19, looked up to see a Ryder truck pull in at 8:40 a.m. The occupants were looking for directions to the Murrah Building. Moroz caught a glimpse of the pa.s.senger - a stocky man with dark curly hair wearing a ball cap, and a tattoo on his upper left arm.

Several minutes earlier, David Snider was waiting for a delivery in Bricktown, about 25 blocks away, when a Ryder truck pa.s.sed slowly by, as if looking for an address. However, this time the driver was a dark-skinned man with long, straight black hair, wearing a thin mustache and tear-drop sungla.s.ses. The pa.s.senger was "McVeigh." Since Snider's account of the occupants differed remarkably from the previous accounts, could this have been the second Ryder truck described by witnesses? If so, did this mean there were two "McVeighs" and two John Doe 2s?[803]

At approximately the same time as Snider saw the Ryder truck, Tulsa banker Kyle Hunt came upon the truck at Main and Broadway, trailed by a yellow Mercury. Hunt said the Mercury driver was Timothy McVeigh. "He gave me that icy, go-to-h.e.l.l look," said Hunt. "It kind of unnerved me."[804] While Hunt didn't see the occupants of the truck, he did recall two pa.s.sengers in the car. One of them, he said, had long hair, similar to the man Phyliss Kingsley saw on Sunday at the Hi-Way Grill. None of the men was Terry Nichols, who was in Herrington that morning.

Just outside the Murrah Building, Dennis "Rodney" Johnson was driving his catering truck, when he suddenly had to brake to avoid hitting two men who were running towards the parking lot across the street.[805]

The men, who were in "a fast lockstep" with each other, appeared to be Timothy McVeigh and John Doe 2. Johnson described McVeigh's companion as "Mexican or American-Indian." He was "dark-skinned... probably about 5-8 and maybe 160 pounds," Johnson said. "He was wearing blue jogger pants with a stripe across the side. He had slicked-black hair."[806]

Then there was Gary Lewis. A pressman for the Journal Record, Lewis stepped outside to smoke his pipe just minutes before the blast. As stood in the alley across from the Murrah Building, a yellow Mercury peeled away from its spot and bore down on him. The driver, whom he made brief eye-contact with, appeared to be Timothy McVeigh. And his pa.s.senger resembled the sketch of John Doe 2. The car had an Oklahoma tag (not an Arizona tag as authorities claimed) dangling by one bolt.

Even FBI Agent John Hersley had testified before the Federal Grand Jury that "...several witnesses spotted a yellow car carrying McVeigh and another man speeding away from the parking lot near the... [building] before the blast."[807]

Finally there was Daina Bradley. A young mother, Bradley was standing by the window of the Social Security office seconds before the blast, when she saw a man get out of the pa.s.senger side of the Ryder truck. Moments later, Bradley's world turned to blackness, smoke and dust as she was showered by falling concrete. Bradley, who lost her leg, her mother, and her two children in the bombing, still clearly recalls the man who got out of the truck. He looked like John Doe 2.

Of course, federal "investigators" would show as little interest in these and other discrepancies as they would in the numerous John Does. Some of these witnesses were never even contacted by the FBI, eventhough all of them had repeatedly tried to alert the Bureau. Only after federal prosecutors had coerced Daina Bradley into changing her story, did she testify at McVeigh's trial. None of the others were ever called.

"I know I wasn't called because I would have to testify that I did see John Doe 2. I know I saw John Doe 2," said Rodney Johnson.[808]

Then in March of 1997, after changing it's mind half a dozen times about the existence of John Doe 2, it was "leaked" to the press that the FBI was searching for a John Doe. His name was Robert Jaques.

This "new" John Doe 2 had appeared at the office of real estate broker William Maloney, of Ca.s.sville, Missouri, in November of '94, along with Terry Nichols and a man who looked like McVeigh. They were there to discuss purchasing a remote piece of land. Joe Lee Davidson, a salesman in Maloney's office, recalled the encounter with Jaques: "The day he was here, he seemed to be the one that was in control and in charge of what was going on," said Davidson. "Nichols never said a whole lot and McVeigh never did come in...."[809]

Maloney described Jaques as muscular, with a broad, dark face, similar to, but not quite identical as, the original FBI sketch of John Doe 2.

Is it possible the sudden announcement of Jaques was a diversion, to satisfy a public increasingly savvy about the existence of John Doe 2?

Nevertheless, a month after this new lead was announced, the government went ahead with the trial of McVeigh, making no attempt to introduce any additional suspects.

They also dropped the lead on Steven Colbern, in spite of the fact that his pick-up was seen stopped ahead of McVeigh 90 minutes after the bombing.[810]

The Middle-Eastern lead was also dropped. The FBI denied putting out the APB on the brown pick-up containing the three Middle Eastern males seen speeding away from the bombing. And while the FBI knew about Sam Khalid, they did nothing but ask him some questions.

An affidavit submitted by FBI Agent John Hersley stated: "A witness to the bombing saw two, possibly three persons in a brown Chevrolet pickup - fleeing the area of the crime - just prior to the blast." Although agents interviewed the witness who saw Hussain al-Hussaini driving the brown pick-up, she was never brought before a line-up, and never called to testify before the Federal Grand Jury. Hussaini's friend Abraham Ahmed was turned loose as well.[811]

As in the Kennedy a.s.sa.s.sination, the FBI sent thousands of agents. .h.i.ther and yonder to scour the country, searching out even the most obscure leads. Agents swarmed through Kingman, conducting warrantless searches, arresting innocent people, and wrecking havoc. Dozens more swooped down on Terry Nichols 12-year-old son Josh, whom they thought may have been John Doe 2. Agents were sent to the Philippines to investigate Nichols' activities there, and thousands more had detained and questioned anyone even remotely suspicious.

Yet, as in the Kennedy case, few agents actually knew just why they were following up on any given lead. Very few ever were ever allowed to compare notes, or catch a glimpse of the "big picture."

More importantly, those individuals who should have been prime suspects for questioning were never even detained. No agents were sent to Elohim city to interview Andreas Stra.s.smeir or Michael Brescia, or Peter and Sonny Ward. Likewise, none of the Middle Eastern suspects previously mentioned were arrested.

Had any FBI agents actually attempted to follow up on any of these leads, like their predecessors in Dallas, they would have been quickly rea.s.signed to other cases by Was.h.i.+ngton.

The same held true for local law-enforcement. FBI SAC Bob Ricks - who doled out a mendacious dose of propaganda during the Waco ma.s.sacre - was appointed Public Safety Director after the bombing, putting him in charge of the OHP.

The OSBI were made coffee boys and drivers for the FBI. District Attorney Bob Macy, along with local police, were "advised" to stay out of the case.[812]

Six days before the start of McVeigh's trial, Steven Jones filed a defense motion citing law-enforcement and defense interviews with a Filipino terrorist who admitted meeting with bombing defendant Terry Nichols.

Lead prosecutor Joseph Hartzler called Jones' carefully investigated and researched information "pulp fiction."

Yet a Was.h.i.+ngton-based terrorist expert who investigated the World Trade Center bombing and is familiar with some the suspects in Jones' brief said, "The whole idea that no one but Timothy McVeigh - that there's nothing wider than this - no one would believe it if the government weren't saying it. It's so implausible a story.

"The government has the nerve to call it pulp fiction," added the highly-respected source. Their story is 'pulp fiction.'"[813]

Apparently, the government was concerned enough about Jones' revelations to order all the witness statements sealed.

In the end, the FBI propounded its disingenuous theory that McVeigh and Nichols were the "lone bombers" just as quickly as they had decided that Lee Harvey Oswald was the "Lone a.s.sa.s.sin" twenty-eight years ago.

Choir Boys "Stated simply, neither the ATF nor any other federal agency had any advance knowledge of the deadly bomb that McVeigh delivered to the Murrah Building.... The prosecution is not withholding anything that even remotely would support such an outrageous charge." - Department of Justice "I can a.s.sure you that there has been no government misconduct and the men and women of the FBI that we're working with are beyond reproach."

- U.S. Attorney Joseph Hartzler "Our government, unfortunately, has shown remarkable ability to lie."

- Stephen Jones One example of the Justice Department's refusal to admit the possibility of any suspects other than McVeigh and Nichols was its stubborn insistence on h.o.a.rding discovery doc.u.ments that it should have been rightfully turned over to the defense under the federal Brady requirements. In a motion filed six days before the start of McVeigh's trial, Jones alleged that the prosecution not only lied about the available evidence, they deliberately obsfucated and distorted certain ATF and FBI reports on Elohim City, deliberately misspelling the names Carol Howe, Robert Millar, Andreas Stra.s.smeir, Dennis Mahon and others so that the defense would be unable to retrieve any doc.u.ments regarding these suspects during their computer searches. As Jones wrote in his brief: Defense counsel is convinced that the government has engaged in a willful and knowing cover-up of information supplied to it by its informant. The defense was unable to locate this insert using a computer because all major search terms contained in the insert were misspelled. Elohim City was misspelled or misidentified (Elohm City), as was Mahon (Mehaun), Stra.s.smeir (Stra.s.smeyer), the Rev. Robert Millar (Bob Lamar) and in addition, Carol Howe was not identified in the insert at all.[814]

Thus the defense was unable to locate important information that Carol Howe, a ATF informant, had provided critical warnings that the Murrah Building was about to be bombed. As Jones wrote: Our patience is exhausted... We are no longer convinced the doc.u.ments drafted and furnished to us, after the fact, by bureaucracies whose very existence and credibility is challenged, can be relied upon....

The government has told the district court that it had 'no information" of a possible foreign involvement when it did. The government has told the district court that "Andreas Stra.s.smeir was never the subject of the investigation," when he was....

Statements to the court by the prosecution that it cannot connect Stra.s.smeir and Mahon to the bombing are hardly surprising. They did not try very hard to connect them because had they been connected, and Carol Howe's previous warning disclosed, the resulting furor would have been unimaginable....

The repeated practice of the government and prosecution in this case when the shoe gets binding is to make a partial disclosure, a.s.sure the District Court it understands its Brady obligations, and hold its breath, hoping the court does not order further disclosure, or will rely on the prosecution's "good faith"....

This is a solemn criminal case, not Alice in Wonderland where definitions mean only what "the Queen thinks" and what she thinks is not known to anyone else.[815]

Lying about additional suspects wasn't the only crime the "Justice" Department was guilty of. Manipulating and confiscating evidence also seemed to be a major tool in their a.r.s.enal of deceit.

Richard Bieder, the attorney representing a group bombing victims in their negligence lawsuit against the government, told the London Telegraph that he had seen internal ATF doc.u.ments which supported many of the claims made by Carol Howe. But the reports for December 1994, probably the most critical ones, have vanished from the files.[816]

On April 14, 1995, the FBI placed a call to a.s.sistant Chief Charles Gaines at the Oklahoma City Fire Department to warn him of a potential terrorist threat within the next few days. Yet like the FBI's warnings of the threat against the life of President Kennedy, or Nixon's infamous Watergate tapes, the audio logs of the Fire Department's incoming calls were mysteriously "erased."

When asked to explain this "accidental" erasure, a.s.sistant Chief Jon Hansen intelligently replied, "We made a boo-boo." Hansen then admitted to reporter J.D. Cash that the tapes had been erased after the national media had requested them.[817]

On April 28th the tape of James Nichols' hearing was released by court order, and it was blank. Nothing whatsoever could be heard on the tape. It was the only record of the proceedings.

On April 19, the seismic data monitor at the Omniplex Museum, four miles from the Murrah Building, had recorded the shock waves of the explosion. The seismograph readings, including one from the University of Oklahoma 16 miles away in Norman, presented startling evidence - evidence that the explosion that ripped through the Alfred P. Murrah building may in fact have been several distinct blasts. The implications of this are ominous.

At a meeting of the Oklahoma Geophysical Society on November 20th, Seismologists Ray Brown of the Oklahoma Geological Survey and Tom Holzer of the U.S. Geological Survey gathered to discuss the findings. Pat Briley, a seismic programmer, who has independently investigated the bombing, attended the meeting, as did U.S. Attorney Patrick Ryan and a.s.sistant U.S. Attorney Jerome A. Holmes.

Although the two scientists disagreed on findings regarding the number of bombs, less than a third of the way through the presentation, Ryan got up, walked to the back of the room, and began giving a private press conference: "I was certainly satisfied that these scientists could not say that there was anything other than one bomb that caused the seismology reading," said Ryan, a statement obviously inconsistent with the discussion occurring at the time.

"Ryan lied very heavily," said Briley. "This guy really lied."

After the meeting, Briley politely asked Ryan to give him the original seismogram in the FBI's possession. Ryan got up, angrily accused Briley of working for the defense team, then stammered out of the room.[818]

Surveillance cameras located in the parking lot across from the Murrah building, and on neighboring buildings, would have recorded the entire fateful event that terrible morning. The tapes would have also shown the building collapsing. They would have conclusively proven whether the structure was destroyed by cutting charges, or by a truck-bomb. But like Abraham Zapruder's famous footage of the Kennedy a.s.sa.s.sination, the tapes were quickly confiscated by the FBI.

In an interview with Jon Rappaport, Hoppy Heidelberg said, "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."

Certain segments of the footage was presented by the prosecution at trial. One cut included a shot of a blue GMC pick-up with a white camper top (the kind owned by Terry Nichols) driving slowly past the Regency Towers apartments near the Murrah Building on April 16 - the day Nichols allegedly drove to Oklahoma to pick up McVeigh.

The prosecution also displayed a still frame of a Ryder truck driving by the Regency Towers on the morning of the blast. The time was 8:59 a.m. They then showed a still of the truck blowing up, stamped 9:02 a.m. Curiously, the government was careful not to show the jury any footage which showed any suspects getting out of the truck.[819]

Surveillance footage taken by Trooper Charles Hanger upon his arrest of McVeigh had caught a brown pick-up stopped just ahead - thought to belong to Steven Colbern. When researcher Ken Armstrong questioned the OHP about the tape, he was told it had been "seized" by the FBI. The OHP would not comment further.[820]

On June 1st, KFOR reporter Brad Edwards sent the Justice Department a Freedom of Information request concerning the various surveillance footage. In their reply, the FBI stated: A search of our indices to the Central Records System, as maintained in the Oklahoma City Office, located material responsive request (sic) to your request. This material is being withheld in its entirety pursuant to the following subsection of t.i.tle 5, United States Code, Section 552: (b) (7) (A) When Jones finally filed a motion for disclosure after prosecutors refused to hand over the tapes, he was given 400 hours of footage. According to defense attorney Amber McGlaughlin, the tapes did not reveal the presence of Timothy McVeigh.[821]

Of course, who knows what the FBI actually turned over to the defense. In the Kennedy case, the most revealing evidence was the Zapruder film - homemade footage showing Presidents Kennedy's head being blasted towards the right-rear - indicating the fatal shot came from the Gra.s.sy Knoll, not the Book Depository as the government claimed. Yet the FBI confiscated Zapruder's film and altered the sequence of the incriminating frames, reversing them to give the impression that Kennedy's head had lurched forward. It was only later that experts revealed the tampering.

The FBI said it was a "mistake."

The Zapruder film was finally released in 1968, the result of District Attorney Jim Garrison's courageous efforts to reveal the truth. The question is, when will the American public get to see the video footage of the Oklahoma City bombing?

While the FBI did their best to keep key evidence from the grand jury, as in the Kennedy case, they even went so far as to convince several witnesses that their former statements were false, and to retract them in lieu of statements more favorable to the prosecution. A primary example is Michael Fortier, who originally told investigators, "I do not believe that Tim [McVeigh] blew up any building in Oklahoma. There's nothing for me to look back upon and say, yeah, that might have been, I should have seen it back then - there's nothing like that.... I know my friend. Tim McVeigh is not the face of terror as reported on Time magazine..."

But after the FBI raided his home, Fortier reversed his statement, saying that he and McVeigh has "cased" the federal building, in response to an offer of a plea bargain. Fortier was then transferred to the Federal Medical Facility at Fort Worth, Texas. It is not known why.[822]

According to Heidelberg, the FBI brought 24-hour-a-day pressure on Fortier for months before he was arrested. Consequently, Fortier did not retain a lawyer, didn't know he needed one, and was subsequently bullied by the Bureau. By the time he managed to retain a lawyer, Fortier had already been broken.

Lori Fortier testified that McVeigh tried to solicit Nichols' help in building the bomb, but that Nichols wanted out. He then allegedly tried to solicit her husband. According to her testimony, McVeigh got down on the floor of their trailer and, using soup cans to represent 55-gallon drums, demonstrated how to make a bomb.[823]

Were the Fortiers relaying accurate testimony? Like the testimony of Eldon Elliott about McVeigh's height, or that of Thomas Manning regarding McVeigh's phone call to Elliott's, none of this information was contained in prior statements made by the Fortiers to the FBI.

As will be seen with prior incidents of government witness tampering and fabricated testimony, their testimony is highly circ.u.mspect.

The Fortiers' testimony is also somewhat questionable due to their drug use. According to co-worker Deborah Brown, who testified at McVeigh's trial, Lori Fortier used crystal methamphetamine almost daily. Methamphetamine is widely known for its ability to induce delusional or even psychotic states over time.[824]

Fortier eventually confessed to transporting and selling stolen firearms, drug possession, foreknowledge of the bombing plot, and failing to inform federal authorities.[825]

Said grand juror Hoppy Heidelberg, "The FBI relied on a man, Fortier, who really couldn't provide anything important to them. You need to remember that. That's important."[826]

Lori Fortier also testified that "I still believed he (McVeigh) couldn't really do it." Jones then asked her, "Ms. Fortier, you said you thought McVeigh really wouldn't carry out his plans, then you said you, 'wanted out.' How can you 'want out' if there was nothing to 'be in'"?

Jones would take this one step further. On cross-examination, he a.s.siduously questioned Fortier's motivations: Jones: Now, in addition, in your conversation you had with your brother on April the 25th, 1995 - that's your brother John?

Fortier: Yes, sir.

Jones: Did you make the following statement: "I've been thinking about trying to do those talk-show circuits for a long time, come up with some asinine story and get my friends to go in on it"?

Fortier: Yes, sir, I made that statement.

Jones: And in the same conversation, did your brother say to you: "Whether the story is true or not, if you want to sit here and listen to a fable, that's all it was at the time is a fable"? And then did you say: "I found my career, 'cause I can tell a fable"? And then did you burst out laughing and say, "I could tell stories all day"?

Fortier: Yes, sir.

Jones: Then do you know an individual named Glynn?