Pat Shannan's MUSINGS
FBI Cover-up Continues in OKC
A FOIA report released to Oklahoma reporter J.D. Cash had the FBI, once again, scrambling through its Fabrication Dumpster, searching for another semi-plausible bag of garbage to hand to Americans. Bob Ricks, recipient of the plum appointment (by his chum, Gov. Frank Keating) as Oklahoma's Director of Public Safety, uncovered one of the smellier bags of refutation for public distribution in recent memory. Ricks is remembered for his deceptive 51-day stint as Minister of Propaganda at Waco.
The document in question is a hotel receipt for FBI agent Danny Coulsen, who was one of the Bureau's counter-terrorism experts in the mid-90s. The electronic printout shows that Coulsen checked into the Oklahoma City Embassy Suites at twenty minutes after midnight on the morning of April 19, 1995 -- more than eight-and-a-half hours before the multiple bombs decimated the Murrah Building. The FOIA report also shows that Coulsen cited as his reason to come to Oklahoma City as "Major Case Number 111," and the plop thickums.
At the time, "MC-111" was the code number for Attorney General Janet Reno's secret projects to investigate and infiltrate right-wing religious groups.
Coulsen is not commenting about the document and has claimed that he was in Fort Worth, Texas on the morning of the 19th before driving to Oklahoma as soon as he learned of the tragedy at Murrah. However, the FBI has listed these official records and all others on Coulsen prior to April 19, 1995, as "Missing". So what else is new?
Reporter Cash says the hotel registration and receipt represent the "Smoking Gun" of the government's prior knowledge. Bob Ricks, who was in charge of the local FBI office in 1995, angrily denied the claim, referring to Cash on talk radio as just "one more" who is looking for "poltergeists" in the bombing case. Ricks further chided Oklahoma City's Newsradio KTOK personnel for airing the story and called it "Irresponsible Journalism."
(Irrefutable computer evidence, such as telephone records placing a suspect in an incriminating position, has sent defendants to the gas chamber. But when it is "one of their own," it becomes merely "irresponsible journalism." (See: 1984 by George Orwell)
However, when a host pressed Ricks to explain the computer-recorded check-in time of 12:20 a.m. on the 19th, Ricks spelled out with Orwellian logic that it was actually midnight of the day of the bombing. Of course, the motel's automated system, at twenty minutes past midnight on the day of the attack, would have kicked out a receipt reflecting "April 20th" as the date of check-in, not the 19th.
Cash ascertained this from a spokeswoman at Embassy Suites, who also confirmed that the times and dates (reflected on Coulsen's hotel bill) appeared to be accurate. However, following Ricks' public tirade (and almost certainly following a visit by the ghost of J. Edgar Hoover, if not a couple of "friendly" agents), Embassy Suites ground to a halt and made a quick U-turn toward "My Government, Right or Wrong."
A spokeswoman from the hotel (not known if she was one and the same) was suddenly displaying the same moronic, bureaucratic buffoonery by telling KTOK Radio that the rooms were reserved on the day of the 19th, after the bombings, but that Danny Coulsen did not check in until after midnight. When asked if the other days and times stamped on the checkout receipt were in question, she said they were not.
The computer doesn't lie, only people do -- especially those who either work for or are intimidated by the Federal Investigative Bureau (FIB).
Once again, if Danny Coulsen had checked in after midnight on the 19th, the computer clock would have said, "12:20 a. m., April 20, 1995." It didn't. It was printed out for all the world to see: "April 19, 1995." Is it any wonder that the weasels buried it for nearly seven years?
Tim McVeigh's defense attorney Stephen Jones said that the document certainly does raise the issue of "FBI prior knowledge" and that we wishes he had had possession of it at trial. Jones added the document must have some validity, otherwise the FBI would not have reimbursed Coulsen for the expenses.
The FBI routinely uses its most accomplished liars in both courtroom and public relation situations. Ask the Montana Freemen or Randy Weaver or Bob Stewart. And Bob Ricks was one of their best. His perfected deception is a matter of public record on the Waco news tapes from March and April of 1993. To take his word for anything is to believe O. J. Simpson, who might be convicted of something someday. Ricks will never be.
Governor Frank Keating exposed their cards a year ago on Catherine Cryer's Court Channel show, when he said, (speaking of the "conspiracy theorists) ". . . We can never prove them right and have a system of law that survives."
Those that protect that so-called system of law are rewarded and need never fear charges of perjury. Those that challenge it are written off as "conspiracy nuts." When will conspiracy facts cease to be mere "conspiracy theory?"