APRIL 2001
DANIEL KAGAN, UPI: A new study by the Cato Institute says that the final
official government report on the 1993 Branch Davidian disaster
in Waco, Tex.-- which exonerated federal officials from wrongdoing--
is "not supported by the factual evidence." In "No
Confidence: An Unofficial Account of the Waco Incident,"
criminal justice scholar Timothy Lynch, director of the libertarian
Cato's Project on Criminal Justice, analyzes the legal implications
of certain undisputed events and concludes that the official
investigation into the incident -- led by special prosecutor
former Sen. John Danforth of Missouri -- was "soft and incomplete."
According to Lynch, many obvious crimes have gone unprosecuted.
For example, says Lynch, ATF agents were caught on tape assaulting
a local television cameraman after he had filmed their retreat
from the initial raid on the Branch Davidian complex. Lynch says
that ATF agents also lied to federal investigators -- a federal
offense -- but were never prosecuted despite recommendations
by U.S. Marshals. More seriously, he says, FBI agents exhibited
a gross disregard for human life when they indiscriminately fired
"ferret" rounds at the Davidian residence and used
tanks to ram its walls. "Since at least one child was struck
by a ferret round, second-degree murder charges may be appropriate,"
Lynch writes.
NOVEMBER 2000
INDICTING THE
MESSENGER
WASHINGTON POST:
The whistle-blower who triggered the probe into the 1993 deaths
of 74 Branch Davidians near Waco, Tex., was indicted yesterday
by a federal grand jury on charges of obstructing justice and
making false statements to investigators for special counsel
John C. Danforth . . . Johnston, a former Texas prosecutor, maintained
his innocence and said he is being made a scapegoat because he
embarrassed top government officials. Danforth said Johnston
is being prosecuted because he broke the law . . . Johnston's
lawyer, Michael Kennedy, said his client will vigorously fight
the charges. He said Johnston has been targeted because he embarrassed
the government by forcing disclosure that the FBI fired pyrotechnic
tear gas projectiles in the raid that left 74 Branch Davidians
dead after their compound went up in flames. Attorney General
Janet Reno and others had told Congress no such devices were
used.
WASHINGTON POST
OCTOBER 2000
LEE HANCOCK & MICHELLE MITTELSTADT,
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: A congressional report alleges that President
Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno misled the public for
years with claims that US military experts endorsed the "flawed"
FBI tear gas attack that ended the Branch Davidian siege. "President
Clinton and Attorney General Reno have deceived the American
people for over seven years by misrepresenting that the military
endorsed, sanctioned or otherwise approvingly evaluated the plan,"
stated the report by the House Government Reform Committee. The
99-page report also vigorously criticizes that Justice Department's
response in the aftermath of the tragedy, contending that all
of the agency's actions "were consistent with an organization
that was not eager to learn the full truth about what happened
on April 19, 1993" . . . The report issued by the committee's
Republican majority includes accounts from an Army general and
colonel of how they refused Ms. Reno's request to evaluate an
FBI plan to assault the Davidian compound when FBI officials
were seeking her approval for the tear-gas operation carried
out on April 19, 1993. The two special forces officers said they
told Ms. Reno that federal limits on involvement by US military
in domestic law enforcement actions prohibited them from offering
any critique or suggestion about the Waco plan . . . The report
adds that both officers told Congressional investigators that
they were stunned when they later learned that the tear-gassing
plan had been allowed to go forward, but were never contacted
by Justice officials assigned to review what happened after the
siege. "When they left the April 14, 1993, meeting, they
were convinced the FBI would never execute the proposed operations
plan as it was briefed at the meeting. The Army Colonel stated
he believed the Attorney General 'didn't buy the plan being proposed
by the FBI.' ...His impression from the meeting was that no one
thought it was a smart way to proceed. He went on to state that
he was astonished when he saw the fire on TV on April 19, 1993.
AUG 2000
LEE
HANCOCK, DALLAS MORNING NEWS: The former prosecutor who warned last
year of a possible cover-up of federal actions in the Branch
Davidian siege has been told he is being targeted for prosecution
by Waco Special Counsel John C. Danforth. Friends and associates
of former assistant US Attorney Bill Johnston say he has been
told by the special counsel's office that he will soon be indicted
on charges ranging from obstruction of justice to making false
statements to federal investigators. They say he has been told
that the charges stem from his withholding of several pages of
personal, pretrial notes from the 1994 federal prosecution of
surviving Branch Davidians. They say that Mr. Johnston's action
was a mistake driven by his concern that his notes would be misused
by others in the US attorney's office who were angry about his
public criticism of the Justice Department's handling of the
Waco tragedy . . . Mr. Johnston's friends and former law enforcement
associates in Waco say they already are rallying support for
the embattled former prosecutor, starting a legal defense fund
for what is expected to be an aggressive court battle . . .
Several Waco officials said US District Judge Walter S. Smith
Jr. was so dismayed by reports of the special counsel's treatment
of Mr. Johnston that he told Mr. Danforth's investigators last
week that they could no longer carry firearms into the Waco federal
courthouse and would be allowed only the access to the building
given to the general public.
. . . Mr. Johnston
resigned from the US attorney's office in February, ending a
17-year career as a federal prosecutor. But his friends in Waco
said he continued to be summoned for questioning by investigators
for Mr. Danforth, who twice brought him before a federal grand
jury. In a particularly grueling three-day interrogation in St.
Louis last month, friends said, Mr. Johnston was even warned
that he could expect to be indicted if an article on his Davidian
ordeal being prepared for publication in Texas Monthly ever appeared
in print. The article, titled "Law's good soldier,"
appeared in the September issue as part of the magazine's annual
issue on the state's 20 most influential Texans.
"How they treated him was a disgrace," said Carey Hobbs,
a friend of Mr. Johnston's who owns a Waco manufacturing plant
and is assisting in his legal defense fund. "People here
who know the details are just livid. You meet somebody and talk
to 'em' about it, and tears run down the cheeks of grown men."
THE CAUSE OF
WACO
The proximate
cause of the Waco massacre was a federal government that lacked
the sense, patience and decency not to play paramilitary chicken
with a group that included a large number of innocent persons
including children. From the start, the standoff was unnecessary
and unjustified. The Danforth report ignores this central point
in its exculpation. But then could one have expected less from
the famed apologist for Clarence Thomas?
JULY 2000
THE REAL DANFORTH
REPORT
The so-called
Danforth Report has predictably exonerated the government participants
in the Waco massacre. But the accuracy of this document is seriously
called into question by an another Danforth report, written six
years earlier, in the form of a bizarre and self-damning exoneration
of Clarence Thomas. After reading Danforth's "Resurrection,"
one should be loathe to ask the author for the correct time,
let alone any questions of greater complexity or ethical content.
It is important
to bear in mind that this political and media icon, near veepster,
and prospective Dubya appointee holds both a divinity and law
degree from Yale Thus he came to the Thomas matter as a person
professing allegiance to higher moral standards than, say, your
average political hit man. Yet page after page, Danforth displays
remarkable ethical entropy, indifference to facts, a willingness
to muck around in the gutter, and a sanctimonious self-justification
that is almost, well, cult-like.
Because of Danforth's
efforts to send Waco down the memory hole and the likelihood
that we will hear of him again should Bush win, a few points
about his strange book are worth noting:
*** Danforth
knew Thomas wasn't qualified for the court. Danforth never admits
this but hands us the evidence:
-- Danforth,
who had hired Thomas while Missouri attorney general, dispenses
with Thomas' virtues in two pages of trivial anecdotes, including
the fact that as a judge he was nice to a black employee of the
Senate Commerce Committee. He adds: "My support for Clarence
Thomas had nothing to do with Clarence the person. I assumed
President Bush could nominate any number of qualified individuals.
. . I also assumed that there were many people more experienced
and with better legal ability than Clarence. Certainly Clarence
was intelligent enough to do the work on the Supreme Court, but
he had served only a short time on the court of appeals, and
most of his professional experience was not in the practice of
law but in administering. . ."
-- "It seemed
to me that because of his brief history as a lawyer and a judge,
Clarence's first challenge was to get a 'qualified' rating by
the American Bar Association. I thought as well that senators
seeking to defeat him would keep him before the committee for
a prolonged period of time, peppering him with difficult questions
in an effort to show that he did not know enough law to serve
on the highest court in the land."
[In fact, Thomas
ended up in near the bottom of the only class for which records
are available. All other records are under seal, although Thomas
presumably could have unsealed them. Thomas' high point while
working for Danforth in Missouri was to win a case in support
of the governor's decision to abolish vanity license plates.
Thomas then went on to be counsel for Monsanto, where, as Newsweek
put it, "he learned the law of pesticides, fungicides and
rodinicides." At the time of his Supreme Court appointment,
Judge Thomas had written just 20 decisions. Further, Bush had
named 73 judges in his first two years, but only two of them
were black, including Thomas. Thus, as Danforth undoubtedly knew,
Bush did not have much of a pool to choose from if he was looking
for a black nominee.
And there is
little doubt that is what was in the GOP's mind. The Sunday before
Thomas was nominated, Orin Hatch appeared on the David Brinkley
Show and was pressed to name some potential court choices. He
said:
"Well, you
have --you'd have to start with people like Ken Starr, the current
solicitor general. And I think the president will have to look
to minorities, such as our person on the Ninth Circuit Court
of Appeals [pauses] -- Fernando Fernandez I believe is his name.
There's a fellow down on a district court down in Texas. Edith
Jones, a wonderful woman jurist from the south. You could go
on and on. Our current black judge on the Circuit Court of Appeals
for the District of Columbia, he'd be a terrific choice."
Hatch couldn't
even remember the name of the guy he would soon be assiduously
defending. But he sure knew the color of Clarence Thomas' skin.]
*** Danforth
and others coached Thomas over long periods of time, in order
to give his colleagues and the American public a false impression
of Thomas' abilities.
-- "Study
for the hearing did not begin in earnest until after Congress
recessed in early August. Seven days a week, the routine was
the same. Mike Luttig gave Clarence large notebooks, each covering
an area of the law. For example, there were two notebooks on
the right of privacy, which includes the abortion issue. Each
notebook contained the text of important cases and law review
articles on the subject. The material was voluminous. Clarence
got up between four and six o'clock every morning to being reading
the notebook of the day. Every afternoon, Clarence and Mike met
for two to five hours, usually at Clarence's house. Mike, who
had done his own preparation in the morning, asked Clarence questions
-- about court opinions, about dissents, even about footnotes
to cases. The Mike, the process resembled a study group at law
school."
-- "In fact,
Luttig himself did not know how Clarence would rule as a judge.
In Mike's eyes, Clarence had been 'much more of a political person
than he was a judicial or a lawyer person.'"
*** Danforth
knew that Thomas lacked the temperament to be a good justice.
-- "Luttig
explained to Clarence the perils of giving public voice to his
anger at attacks. If Clarence were to say what he thought, the
next criticism would be that he lacked judicial temperament .
. . Throughout the confirmation process, Luttig worried that
Clarence's strong feelings and passion to speak out would hurt
him. Always, Clarence's first reaction to a charge was shock
and outrage."
-- "On Wednesday
night, Clarence did not sleep at all. Ginni [his wife]stared
to sleep, but was soon awake with her husband's tossing turning
at her side. He got out of bed and was on the floor. Ginni describes
it as 'like something was inside of him, physically, like there
was this battle going on inside of him.'"
-- "Mike
arrived at about nine o'clock and was sitting at the conference
table when Clarence came in. He stood as Clarence closed the
door. Clarence broke down immediately. He headed toward the conference
table in what Mike describes as 'loud tears.' He began to stagger
and seemed to collapse. Mike caught him halfway between the door
and the table and 'almost carried him over to the conference
table. Clarence was crying and hyperventilating.' . . . For about
fifteen minutes, Clarence was 'just wailing.'"
*** Danforth
deceived his senatorial colleagues.
-- "I was
asking fellow senators to make public statements of support without
disclosing to them that the Hill allegation was in the possession
of the Judiciary Committee . . . I think that if I have any standing
in the Senate, it is because my colleagues trust me. I have tried
to win that trust by telling them the truth and not being devious.
Now I was urging them to act without telling them about a charge
that could cause them to act differently. Still, the strategy
of trying to get senators to commit to Clarence was clearly correct."
*** Danforth
knew that Thomas did not react in a way typical of someone certain
of their innocence.
-- "At 0:45
AM on Wednesday September 25, Lee Liberman phoned Clarence at
his home to tell him that the white House had received another
allegation. . . Clarence describes his reaction to the call as
'panic.'"
-- Danforth quotes
Thomas' wife: "What it felt like is that Clarence still
had some sin his life and he had to get that out in order to
be open to the Holy Spirit and that he had a vestige of sin,
that he was in this furnace and God wasn't going to let him keep
going without eliminating this vestige of sin."
*** Danforth
displays an abysmal indifference to facts, preferring ex cathedra
exculpation of Thomas and supporters and ad hominem attacks on
his critics.
*** Danforth
performed various sleazy or propagandistic tasks without remorse.
-- "My appearance
on 'Face the Nation' was the beginning of my effort to destroy
the credibility of Anita Hill. In the past four days, I had had
a deeply spiritual experience. There would be no spiritual content
to what would follow. When I put my hands on Clarence's shoulders
on Friday morning and said, 'Go forth in the name of Christ,
trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit," I acted as a
minister. Now I would begin to act like a street fighter. No
question about the propriety of doing this crossed my mind."
-- "Of course,
I had never met Anita Hill. I had no expertise in psychology
or psychiatry. I was not in a forum where my comments could be
challenged successfully. I was in a fifteen-minute segment of
a talk show, and I was accusing a perfect stranger of having
a psychiatric condition."
-- "Now
there was a new possibility: to establish Clarence's credibility
behind a doubt by destroying the credibility of Anita Hill .
. . I knew that Anita Hill was going to be demolished."
*** Danforth
deceived his own readers.
Known to the
committee, but mainly reported only by the alternative media
(including TPR 12/91]was the fact that three key witnesses supported
Hill's allegations but were never called to testify because,
by that time, both the Democrats and the Republicans on the committee
had apparently decided to take a dive on the Thomas case. Danforth
mentions only one of these witnesses, Angela Wright, whom he
says had been fired been three times, once by Thomas, but never
cites her deposition corroborating Hill. This is typical of Danforth
who seemed to make up his mind swiftly on such matters based
on convenient tidbits from the right sources. The two other women
are not mentioned at all.
*** Danforth
made dubious, some might even say blasphemous, use of the Christian
faith to pursue his tawdry ends.
-- "So I
took Clarence into a bathroom and punched the button of a tape
player, and a song came on that is rarely heard anymore in Christian
churches. It is considered far too bellicose for today's believers
Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war! And when Clarence
left my office for the Caucus Room, it was not as a martyr with
his eyes fixed on heaven. It was as a warrior doing battle for
the Lord."
-- He called
his book "Resurrection."
-- He ends his
book with these extraordinary words: "Clarence Thomas walked
into the Senate Caucus Room, took his seat at the witness table,
and commenced his testimony. Clarence had risen. Alleluia.!"
***
This is the man
who was entrusted to investigate the deaths of those who had
followed another leader who misused religion for his own puerile
purposes. Danforth was clearly not the right person for the job
and his latest report, like his book, must be regarded with deep
suspicion. The Waco case is still open.
MAY 2000
HERE IS WHAT
HAS HAPPENED recently to experts looking into aspects of the
Waco massacre:
-- DIED: Carlos
Ghigliotti, who had provided a congressional committee with damaging
evidence, based on forward-looking infrared, against the FBI.
According to the Laurel Police Department, an autopsy found that
Ghigliotti, 42, had died of natural causes - a heart attack precipitated
by arteriosclerosis.
-- STROKE: Edward Allard, who appears in the documentary, "Waco:
The Rules of Engagement," produced by Michael McNulty. Has
not fully recovered from the stroke that occurred in March.
-- BLOOD POISONING:
FLIR expert Fred Zegel and associate of Allard at the Pentagon.
Zegal at first sided with the government than changed his mind.
Writes Sarah Foster in WorldNet Daily, "In April, he reportedly
went to a public auction where he collapsed and was rushed to
a hospital where he was diagnosed as having blood poisoning.
He was in a serious condition for 10 days."
-- KIDNEY INFECTION:
Maurice "Mac" Cox, a technical intelligence expert
who as a consultant for McNulty's documentary. McNulty told WorldNet
Daily that Cox had recently had a serious renal [kidney] infection.
"However, he noted, Cox has had a "renal condition"
for a number of years."
WORLDNET DAILY
LEE HANCOCK,
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: The lead lawyer in the Branch Davidians'
wrongful death lawsuit asked a federal judge Monday to impound
all information relating to the 1993 siege of the sect's compound
from a Washington-area office where an infrared expert was found
dead last week. Mike Caddell of Houston said he sought emergency
intervention from the court in Waco to ensure that all significant
information was preserved from the Laurel, Md., office and home
of Carlos Ghigliotti. Police were still investigating the cause
of Mr. Ghigliotti's death Monday.
WASHINGTON POST:
Carlos Ghigliotti, who had been retained by a US House committee
to help investigate the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian compound
in Waco, Tex., was found dead in Laurel under unexplained circumstances
yesterday.
"We're investigating it as a homicide," said Laurel
police spokesman Jim Collins. Ghigliotti, 42, was found about
1:30 p.m. in the 600 block of Washington Boulevard. His body
was badly decomposed, said police. There were no signs of a break-in
or a struggle at the home, where Ghigliotti ran his business,
Infrared Technologies Corp., police said. An expert in thermal
imaging and videotape, Ghigliotti told the House Government Reform
Committee in October that his analysis of tapes at Waco indicated
that an FBI agent fired shots at the compound on April 19, the
final day of the siege--a view disputed by the FBI.
WASHINGTON POST
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38496-2000Apr29.html
THE LIST
Summary of most important events
that occurred on April 19, 1993,
at Waco according to the late expert
and congressional consultant Carlos Ghigliotti,
recently found dead in his home of suspected foul play
-- Total number
of gunfire shots coming out of the structure 69
-- Total number of gunfire shots going into the structure 57
-- Total number of flash devices 1 cluster
-- Total number
of times the tanks penetrated into the structure 33
-- Total number of times the tanks penetrated through the structure
1
INFOWARS: InfoWars has learned that the supposedly independent
British company hired by the Justice Department to analyze the
March 19, 1999 Fort Hood FLIR video is actually a Washington,
DC-area defense contractor with ties to the BATF. Vector Data
Systems is a division of Anteon Corporation, a professional technical
services corporation staffed with 4,000 highly trained employees
in more than 70 offices and government sites worldwide. The Fort
Hood FLIR video project was staged by the government in order
to counter the evidence presented in two documentary films produced
by Michael McNulty that show clear evidence of government gunfire
during the Mt. Carmel Massacre on April 19, 1993.
[An attorney who worked closely with suddenly dead FLIR expert
Carlos Ghigliotty has posted an account of what he knew about
the investigation and what Ghigliotty intended to give congressional
investigators. David Hardy says that now that Ghigliotty is dead,
he is free to reveal what he knows. It is disturbing.]
NEWSMAX http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/4/30/160306
NEWSMAX http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/4/30/155105
BEFORE WACO
AND MIAMI
The Gonazalez
and Waco incidents are not the only times that Janet Reno has
mangled a case involving children. In 1989, as Florida state
attorney, she pressed adult charges against a 13-year-old youth,
Bobby Fijnje, accused of sexually molesting 21 children in his
care during Presbyterian church services. The charges were driven
by the testimony of children interviewed by mental health professionals
using techniques against child-care providers later discredited
as a contemporary version of witch hunts. The state dropped two
of the accusers, including a boy who claimed he had turned himself
into Superman, tied Fijnje up, flew out the window, and called
the police.
As PBS Frontline
reported later: "Prosecutors pressed forward, charging Bobby
with seven counts of sexual battery against two young girls.
But, neither of the girls, or other children serving as collateral
witnesses, would testify at trial. The prosecutors took advantage
of newly-adopted state laws that allowed for the admission of
the children's videotaped testimony and expanded acceptance of
hearsay evidence from parents, psychologists and state interviewers
. . . [The defense] attacked the interviews of the therapists
and State interviewers. They argued that repeated and suggestive
questioning had accounted for the children's allegations."
Despite an early
and disputed confession, Finjnje was acquitted of all charges
and his family moved to Holland. According to PBS:
"And after
the trial, Janet Reno received a letter from the jury. The jurors
in the Fijnje case wanted Ms. Reno to know why her office had
failed to make a convincing case. They wrote: 'It is our hope
that this case will lay the foundation upon which a set of policies
and guidelines are built so that when cases of abuse, especially
child abuse, are alleged, the programs in place will allow for
appropriate questioning and investigation by the police, physicians
and child psychologists so as to drastically reduce the chances
of conflicting testimony and charges of contamination that can
and will raise reasonable doubt.'"
One of the experts
in the case, Dr. Stephen Ceci, explained to PBS part of the problem
with the techniques upon which Reno relied:
"There's
something that we call stereotype induction in the literature,
which means that if you repeatedly tell kids that someone's bad,
sooner or later quite a few of those kids start acting in accordance
with that. They start fearing the person, they won't be in the
room with him, some of the kids will begin to confabulate stories
about bad things the person did to them. We and others have done
lots of experiments on this where we induce stereotypes in the
preschoolers that someone takes something that didn't belong
to him or someone doesn't share with another or someone is clumsy
and is always breaking things or whatever. And we look to see
what impact that has three, four months later, and it does have
an impact on kids' accuracy. They give you a lot of this stereotyped
consistent confabulation. And in Fijnje there was quite a lot
of that.... For instance, the interviewer says things such as,
"Don't worry, Bobby's in jail," or, "Did your
mom and dad tell you he can't hurt children anymore because he's
in jail?" That kind of repetitive negative stereotyping
can be found, it's really littered throughout lots of the interviews
in that case . . . Kids are cooperative conversational partners.
They believe that you're asking them about something because
it probably happened. They want to please you, they want to give
you the answer that they think will make you happiest, and especially
if the first couple times they resist this and say no and you
keep bringing it up, they start to get the message that, "Well,
maybe I've been giving the wrong answer and I should switch."
So the negative stereotype induction frees kids. It allows them
to use their imaginations about what other things would be consistent
with someone who's bad, so you start to hear things about how,
"Oh yeah, I remember, he made us kill a baby and put it
in the microwave and we cooked it and we ate it."
APRIL 2000
LEE HANCOCK,
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: A key FBI decision-maker wrote in late March
1993 that he feared bureau officials in Waco were lobbying to
gas the Branch Davidians because the officials were tired, frustrated
and under pressure from the FBI's hostage rescue team commander,
documents show. Congressional officials said that memo is particularly
disturbing because they have never seen it or several other internal
FBI records detailing the contentious decision-making process
that lead to the tear-gassing of the Branch Davidian compound.
Some of those documents, which The Dallas Morning News recently
obtained, show that senior FBI officials were initially deeply
skeptical of their on-scene commander's insistence that tear
gas was the only safe way to end the Waco standoff.
DALLAS
NEWS
LEE HANCOCK,
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: Efforts by federal prosecutors to access
files from the government computer once used by a Waco whistle-blower
prompted angry complaints to the Justice Department this week
from a congressional committee investigating the Branch Davidian
siege. House Government Reform Committee Chairman Dan Burton
sent a letter to Attorney General Janet Reno late Tuesday demanding
a full explanation for the search, which occurred days after
that committee's investigators conducted lengthy interviews with
the whistle-blower, former federal prosecutor Bill Johnston.
DALLAS
NEWS
FEBRUARY 2000
SPIN OUT OF
CONTROL
DALLAS MORNING
NEWS: Suspicions about the role of military commandos in Waco
also have been fed by various differing Pentagon statements about
the total number of Delta Force soldiers who were sent. In October
1993, Congress was told that a total of three were sent "during
the 51 day siege." A General Accounting Office investigator
said last August that a lengthy GAO audit of military assistance
in Waco could not determine the number of special forces soldiers.
The investigator was told five by Pentagon officials but later
found records showing eight were there. Justice Department lawyers
filed court statements last year swearing that 10 special forces
soldiers were sent. But Defense Department records include classified
rosters of 14 special forces personnel assigned to Waco duties,
and investigators are still trying to resolve the discrepancies.DALLAS
NEWS
LEE HANCOCK,
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: The FBI's two lead Waco commanders violated
a Washington-approved plan by ordering tanks to begin demolishing
the Branch Davidian compound in 1993, and thus should be liable
for the horrific tragedy that ensued, the sect's lawyers argued
Wednesday. Their Wednesday plea in a Waco federal court lays
out a detailed case for how FBI commanders Jeffrey Jamar and
Richard Rogers within hours diverted from the plan authorized
by top FBI officials and approved by Attorney General Janet Reno.
That written plan allowed for demolition of the sect's embattled
building only after tear gas had been sprayed into it for 48
hours, but FBI tanks began demolishing the rear of the building
less than five hours after the gassing began. "The decisions
made by Rogers and Jamar were unauthorized, outside the scope
of their authority, unjustified by the circumstances, and caused
or contributed to the deaths of countless innocent children and
some adults," the plaintiff's motion argued.DALLAS
NEWS
ASSOCIATED PRESS:
The federal prosecutor who took a risky career step five months
ago by warning Attorney General Janet Reno of a possible cover-up
within her own department regarding the 1993 Branch Davidian
siege resigned Tuesday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Johnston,
whose willingness to re-examine evidence from the deadly standoff
touched off a re-investigation of the government's actions, handed
in his resignation to his boss, U.S. Attorney James Blagg in
San Antonio . . . "Any time you are at odds with someone
who is your boss, it is difficult to even have conversation.
You just avoid one another," Johnston said Tuesday during
an interview with The Associated Press.
DECEMBER 1999
LEE HANCOCK,
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: During the FBI's efforts in 1993 to force
sect members to surrender, agents used loudspeakers to blast
loud music and other ear-splitting noises into the compound.
FBI commanders said that nonstop nightly Nancy Sinatra songs,
shrieks of dying rabbits, Christmas carols and Tibetan monk chants
would increase the Branch Davidians' discomfort and sleep deprivation
. . . Fredrick Lanceley, a retired FBI negotiator who was at
Waco, said in 1993 that negotiators warned "they knew of
no situation where this ever worked or where the FBI had ever
failed to look bad in the media for doing this" . . . Intervention
from FBI Director William Sessions, prompted by a letter of complaint
from the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, finally
silenced the chant broadcasts, FBI records indicate. Other broadcasts
continued.
OCTOBER -
NOVEMBER 1999
THE REVIEW LIST
Things that John Danforth,
Clarence Thomas, and Ralston Purina
have in common
-- DANFORTH hired THOMAS out
of law school as an assistant attorney general in Missouri.
-- DANFORTH brought THOMAS to Washington as a legislative assistant
when elected to the Senate.
-- DANFORTH helped THOMAS get appointed to the Reagan transition
team, the Department of Education, and the EEOC.
-- DANFORTH helped THOMAS get appointed to the US Court of Appeals,
calling him my "personal friend."
-- DANFORTH played a crucial role in getting THOMAS appointed
to the Supreme Court.
-- DANFORTH, during the time in question, owned RALSTON PURINA
stock worth more than $7.5 million.
-- Two brothers of DANFORTH were on the board of directors of
RALSTON PURINA
-- One brother of DANFORTH was a member of the board of trustees
of Washington University, which had large holdings in RALSTON
PURINA.
-- Alpo and RALSTON PURINA were sued on charges of false advertising.
-- US District Judge Stanley Sporkin fond both companies in the
wrong, but found that RALSTON PURINA alone had acted willfully
in having "perpetrated a cruel hoax" on dog owners
in its claims that it dog food could cure a serious ailment.
He assessed a $10 million fine against RALSTON PURINA.
-- A few weeks after being confirmed, THOMAS heard the RALSTON
PURINA appeal. He wrote an opinion for the court overturning
the $10 million fine against RALSTON PURINA.
-- This was good news for his friend DANFORTH and his $7.5 million
in RALSTON PURINA stock, but appears to be a clear violation
of 28 USC 455 which requires a federal judge to disqualify himself
in proceedings in which the judge's impartiality "might"
reasonably be questioned.
[This information appeared
in the August 24, 1991, edition of Legal Times in an article
by Monroe Freedman, professor of legal ethics at Hofstra University
Law School. Freedman wrote that "Thomas showed no regard
for his ethical obligations as a judge and no respect for the
statutory mandate that he recuse himself. On both counts, Thomas
is unfit to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States."
The media, more interested in stray hairs on Coke cans, ignored
the story.]
WACO INVESTIGATORS
PLEASE COPY
The new defense authorization
bill contains hidden language that would allow the Secretary
of Defense to keep secret the names of any members of the armed
forces "assigned to an overseas unit, a sensitive unit,
or a routinely deployable unit." "Sensitive" units
include a "unit that is primarily involved in training for
the conduct of, or conducting, special activities or classified
missions" or "any other unit that is designated as
a sensitive unit by the Secretary of Defense." This measure
would provide additional cover for illegal and anti-democratic
domestic activities.
WASHINGTON POST: An expert retained
by the House Government Reform Committee said yesterday that
he believes an FBI agent fired shots during the bureau's 1993
siege of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Tex., a view
that is at odds with the FBI's consistent position that none
of its agents fired at any time.
WASHINGTON POST: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1999-10/06/064r-100699-idx.html
LEE HANCOCK, DALLAS MORNING NEWS:
Federal officials from Attorney General Janet Reno down have
maintained for years that the FBI did not know that the Davidians
were spreading fuel and preparing to set a fire throughout the
FBI's six-hour tank and tear gas assault on the compound. But
Col. Rodney L. Rawlings of Austin said in an interview that "you
could hear everything from the very beginning, as it was happening.
I heard it," said Col. Rawlings, who heard bug transmissions
from speakers in an FBI monitoring room. "Anyone who says
you couldn't at the time is being less than truthful."
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
http://www.dallasnews.com/specials/waco/1008waco1colonel.htm
DRUDGE REPORT: Recently unearthed
internal FBI documents reveal that the bureau faxed a formal
assault plan directly to the White House in the early days of
the 51-day Branch Davidian seige, Sunday's Dallas Morning News
is reporting. The DMN's Lee Hancock and David Jackson are reporting
that the attack plan was sent to the White House on March 8,
1993 at the behest of then Assistant Attorney General Webster
Hubbell. Hubbell testified before Congress in 1995 that the White
House played no role in Waco decision making ....
Also revealed: Tactical experts
for the FBI also sought authority -- but were rejected -- to
shoot upon Branch Davidians leaving the compound and approaching
their armored vehicles .... The documents show regular and ongoing
consultations between the FBI and military experts during the
stand-off .... One undated document shows that the former head
of the Army's secret anti-terrorist unit Delta Force, General
Peter J. Schoomaker, was sent to Waco despite questions that
he had the authority to be there in the first place.
DRUDGE REPORT http://www.drudgereport.com
JAMES RIDGEWAY, VILLAGE VOICE:
The Army's Delta Force and the Navy Seals weren't the only observers
at Waco, which, as details spill out, looks more and more like
a training op for the international commando set. Among others
present were representatives of Britain's elite Special Air Services,
infamous for its counterinsurgency operations in Northern Ireland."
Ridgeway cites a 1996 letter from the FBI to Senator Charles
Robb, which says that "...two SAS soldiers visiting at Fort
Bragg, North Carolina, requested and were granted a courtesy
visit. The main purpose...was to experience how the FBI operated
its command post. They were shown the relationship of the FBI's
command post to the tactical operations center, were allowed
a visit to the forward tactical area, and were provided generic
briefings regarding the incident. Although the [Hostage Rescue
Team] had tactical interface with the SAS during routine practice
and training, at no time was the SAS called upon to participate
in...the siege."
LEE HANCOCK AND DAVID JACKSON,
DALLAS MORNTING NEWS: Despite written statements from FBI agents
and technicians that recordings were made [at Waco], no videotape
from the surveillance cameras has ever been made public by the
federal government. Critics of the government's actions in Waco
say their efforts to obtain such videos have been blocked for
years by the FBI and the Department of Justice .... Formal written
statements, known as FBI 302s, obtained by The Dallas Morning
News show that at least five FBI agents were sent to Waco to
maintain closed-circuit cameras .... One agent reported watching
from the closed-circuit TV system as FBI tanks began firing tear
gas into the compound on April 19, the documents state. A supervisor
from the FBI's Quantico, Va., training academy said that the
FBI's cameras were also running as the compound caught fire with
sect leader David Koresh and more than 80 followers inside, according
to a second FBI 302.
LEE HANCOCK AND DAVID JACKSON,
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: Despite written statements from FBI agents
and technicians that recordings were made [at Waco], no videotape
from the surveillance cameras has ever been made public by the
federal government. Critics of the government's actions in Waco
say their efforts to obtain such videos have been blocked for
years by the FBI and the Department of Justice .... Formal written
statements, known as FBI 302s, obtained by The Dallas Morning
News show that at least five FBI agents were sent to Waco to
maintain closed-circuit cameras .... One agent reported watching
from the closed-circuit TV system as FBI tanks began firing tear
gas into the compound on April 19, the documents state. A supervisor
from the FBI's Quantico, Va., training academy said that the
FBI's cameras were also running as the compound caught fire with
sect leader David Koresh and more than 80 followers inside, according
to a second FBI 302.
ASSOCIATED PRESS: A former undercover federal agent who infiltrated
the Branch Davidian sect in 1993 says he contemplated suicide
after fellow officers tried to blame him for the botched raid
in Waco. "I put the gun in my forehead, in my mouth, and
I just wanted to so bad, but I couldn't," former agent Robert
Rodriguez told KATE-TV in an interview aired Wednesday night
.... Rodriguez has testified in court and before Congress that
he warned fellow ATF agents that they had lost the element of
surprise with their raid against sect leader David Koresh and
his followers .... When Rodriguez entered the place hours before
the scheduled raid, he found Koresh had been tipped off to the
operation. But his supervising officers proceeded with the raid,
then later alleged Rodriguez hadn't given sufficient warning
that the element of surprise was lost .... "They were all
lying," he said. "It put a lot of guilt on me. I felt
responsible for a very long time for the murder, for the deaths,
of these agents."
"It was the last page of the report.
Sometimes the staple doesn't go all the way through and a page
gets lost. I'm sure that's what happened here" --Justice
Department official explaining how in 1995 Congress only received
48 pages of a 49-page Justice report on the Waco siege. The final
page included information on the use of military tear gas rounds.
ASSOCIATED PRESS: The federal prosecutor who raised questions
about a possible Justice Department cover-up in the Waco standoff
was abruptly removed from the case along with his boss, according
to a court filing made public today. Deputy Attorney General
Eric Holder recused U.S. Attorney James W. Blagg in San Antonio
and assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Johnston in Waco from any further
dealings in criminal or civil proceedings related to the siege.
Holder appointed the U.S. attorney in a neighboring district
as a ``special attorney to the U.S. attorney general." ....
Johnston wrote Reno warning that aides within her own department
were misleading her about federal agents' roles. The recusal
notice provides no explanation for Holder's action.
[TPR: Holder has been an absolutely reliable Clinton machine
aparatchik]
DRUDGE REPORT: The Justice Department has decided to back
down from its attempt to stop a federal judge in Texas from gaining
control of evidence relating to the Branch Davidian siege at
Waco in 1993, the Dallas Morning News is reporting .... The News'
Lee Hancock and David Jackson quote U.S. Attorney Mike Bradford,
who initially expressed the government's plan to challenge Smith:
"Our intent is to comply with the order. We're working on
that now."
WACO TRIBUNE-HERALD: Plaintiffs in the Branch Davidian lawsuit
against the government filed a document Monday in Waco's federal
court stating they have an expert who will testify his analysis
of a FLIR tape shows at least 60 shots were fired at the Davidians
on the day their residence burned down.
THE FIRE UPCOMING
CARL LIMBACHER, NEWSMAX: Inside Cover has learned that Parkland
Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas was warned, by federal agents
on the scene in Waco, to prepare for trauma victims at least
six hours before a fiery inferno consumed the Branch Davidian
compound on April 19, 1993 .... A news report, broadcast on local
Dallas television as the Mt. Carmel church fire raged out of
control, revealed that Parkland Hospital staff had been called
by the FBI just after 6:00 A.M. that day, more than six hours
before fire erupted inside the compound. The report featured
a live interview with Parkland's then-Director of Emergency Services
Jorie Kline by Channel 4's Cynthia Gau, a little more than an
hour after the fire erupted: ....
UNIDENTIFIED ANCHOR: You bring up a good point
here that 25 to 30 people may have survived. Let's go live now
to Parkland Hospital, where Cynthia Gau is standing by with more
on the medical aspect. Cynthia, what can you tell us in that
respect?
GAU: We are in one of the largest and best
burn centers in the state of Texas. And standing with me right
now is Jorie Kline. And she is a nurse administrator here and
she was put on alert; the whole hospital was put on alert, at
6:11 this morning. Now, what's going to be happening here?
KLINE: Well, everyone is on alert because
of the potential situation in Waco and everybody's prepared to
take care of any patients that are flown to us from the Waco
area.
GAU: How many doctors will be available?
KLINE: Well, from the general surgery service
we can pool our resources of approximately 50 surgeons. And then
we also have our emergency medicine program as well as internal
medicine in case there are any smoke inhalation victims.
NEWSMAX http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=1999/9/10/214817
WACO VS MENA
MARA LEVERITT, ARKANSAS TIMES: Good for Asa Hutchinson. This
week the Arkansas congressman called for a bipartisan inquiry
into the federal government's use of incendiary tear gas canisters
during the final hours of the siege at Waco .... Way to go, Congressman.
Pursue those questions about who consulted with whom, to what
extent the Army's Delta Force was involved, why the attorney
general was kept (as she claims) completely in the dark, and
whatever other dark secrets whose answers ought to come to light
.... But don't forget that there are federal secrets concerning
a town in Arkansas that have been even more deeply buried.
As you may remember, I contacted you, asking your help in
persuading the FBI to honor a Freedom of Information request
about Mena that I'd had on file with them for years. You promised
your assistance, but Rep. Vic Snyder, to whom I'd also written,
actually went to work. The FBI stalled, but Snyder's staff persisted.
Finally, their efforts paid off -- at least partly. Two weeks
ago, I received 488 pages of FBI records pertaining to Barry
Seal, the cocaine smuggler who, as you know, moved his billion-dollar
drug business from Baton Rouge, Louisiana to the airport at Mena,
Arkansas in 1982.
You were the U.S. attorney for Arkansas's western district
at the time, and, according to at least one former agent, you
called a meeting soon after Seal arrived to advise federal investigators
in the state that the smuggler was setting up shop.
But, though he was constantly watched, Seal was never stopped.
He operated from Mena, apparently unimpeded, until 1986, when
he was murdered by Colombian operatives.
.... Opening the box from the FBI, I hoped that the documents
inside would answer some of these questions. Unfortunately, they
did not. Instead, they raised several even more intriguing questions.
For example, according to one document, the Justice Department
kept tight control of the investigation into Seal's murder, "since,"
as an assistant attorney general explained, "this is a case
with apparent national and organized crime dimensions..."
.... But this is what I found most interesting. Notes explaining
several of the deletions said that they had been made under provisions
of the National Security Act of 1947 and the CIA Act of 1949.
So it's quite a mess, you see, these jumbled references to organized
crime and national security, to Colombian drug cartels and the
CIA -- all within the heavily censored file of a smuggler who
found safe haven in Arkansas during the last four years of his
life.
ARKANSAS TIMES http://www.arktimes.com/mara/090399mara.html
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: Some Justice Department officials involved
in the Branch Davidian case knew within months after the 1993
tragedy that FBI agents had used military tear gas rounds against
the sect, documents
submitted to Congress this week indicate. The documents also
indicate that
FBI agents involved in the final tear gas assault on the Branch
Davidian
compound freely discussed firing several military CS tear gas
devices when
questioned by Justice Department lawyers. But not until 1996
did any of the
disclosed FBI or Justice Department documents include the acknowledgment
that the military rounds were capable of sparking fires. None
of the
documents submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee indicate
that Attorney General Janet Reno or FBI Director Louis Freeh
were told that the devices were used despite Ms. Reno's explicit
ban on any pyrotechnic devices in the April 19, 1993, assault.
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
http://www.dallasnews.com/specials/waco/0911waco1papers.htm
AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN: In an admission sure to fuel new
questions about military involvement in the Branch Davidian siege,
state officials revealed in an Austin courtroom Friday that a
Texas Rangers' report on evidence collected at the scene contains
classified military secrets. Attorneys for the Texas Department
of Public Safety said the report can't be made public yet because
other agencies needed time to review it to see whether any parts
of it should remain confidential.
AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN
http://www.austin360.com/statesman/editions/today/news_2.html
"What's interesting about 'Waco,' is
if you're looking for people who are unbalanced zealots, you
don't find them among the Branch Davidians, you find them among
the FBI and Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Those are the people
who deserve to be fears, I think." -- Movie critic Roger
Ebert in a review when "Waco: The Rules of Engagement"
was first released.
LEE HANCOCK, THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS: Expended U.S. military
illumination flares fired by U.S. government personnel have been
discovered in the tons of evidence recovered from the Branch
Davidian compound, the head of the Texas Department of Public
Safety said Tuesday night. Texas Rangers searching a Waco storage
facility for missing pyrotechnic tear-gas grenades discovered
one of the military devices, a star parachute flare. Evidence
logs indicate that more of the flares were recovered in the weeks
after the compound burned following an FBI siege and tear-gas
assault April 19, 1993, said James B. Francis Jr. of Dallas ....
"They didn't need these flares to light the compound. One
or more was fired. For what purpose or reason would these rounds
be used?" he said. "I can't tell you whether they were
[shot by] the military or FBI, but certainly, they were fired
by government officials," Mr. Francis said.
http://www.dallasnews.com/specials/waco/0908waco1111waco.htm
MATT DRUDGE IS REPORTING that a former CIA agent who claims
knowledge of involvement by Delta Force members in a shoot-out
at Waco has been warned by the FBI that he signed confidentiality
papers when he went to work for the agency. Two important points:
-- He is not alone. Nearly every government official with
a security clearance has signed such a gag order -- as have those
working for defense contractors. These employees commit a crime
if they reveal even illegal activities. This system is designed
to keep the public from knowing what is going on in the government
it pays for.
-- What the hell was the CIA doing at Waco? It is against
the law for the agency to intervene in domestic matters.
CHOOSING JOHN DANFORTH to investigate the Washington establishment
is like asking a member of the College of Cardinals to rat on
the Pope.
LEE HANCOCK, DALLAS MORNING NEWS: A federal judge was forced
to intervene Friday after the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco
and Firearms tried to block Texas Rangers from searching a Waco
storage facility for evidence that pyrotechnic devices were fired
at the Branch Davidian complex. The brief skirmish came as FBI
officials in Washington released the second of two newly discovered
aerial videotapes that include conversations between FBI commanders
about the use of combustible tear-gas canisters.
WACO TRIBUNE-HERALD: When the FBI took over the government's
standoff with the Branch Davidians, it quickly asked for and
got a store of equipment from the military. The list was extensive:
10 Bradley Fighting Vehicles; 4 Combat Engineering Vehicles;
2 Abrams tanks; an M88 tank retriever; helicopters; Humvees;
tents, generators, video equipment; gas masks, night vision goggles
and concertina wire. What the FBI didn't get was tear gas. An
FBI spokesman told the Tribune-Herald that the agency's Hostage
Rescue Team in 1993 carried military tear gas as a regular part
of its inventory.
NEW YORK TIMES: The Pentagon's elite Special Operations Command
sent observers to the siege of the Branch Davidian compound in
Texas more than a month before the final assault on the compound,
suggesting that military commandos had a far longer and closer
involvement in the disastrous 1993 operation than previously
divulged, according to declassified government documents. The
documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act also
show for the first time that officials at the highest levels
of the Defense Department, including Secretary of Defense Les
Aspin and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were briefed by the Special
Operations Command about the events near Waco. The command, which
is based at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, oversees the military's
most secretive commando squads, including the Army's Delta Force
and the Navy Seals, and the documents suggest that the command
was monitoring the situation virtually from the start of the
51-day siege. The command's spokesmen did not return calls for
comment on the documents.
AGENCE FRANCE PRESS: Women and children among the 80 dead
in the FBI siege at Waco, Texas in 1993, faced the choice of
being burned alive in an inferno or shot to death by FBI agents
blocking their escape, critics of the siege alleged Sunday. Michael
McNulty, producer of a new film on the siege of the Branch Davidian
compound, told "Fox New Sunday" talk show he had evidence
that FBI sharpshooters were blocking the only exit from the burning
building. He said he had footage of "individuals at the
back of the building engaged in a gunfight" who were blocking
the only escape route unmolested by tanks. "Once that building
caught on fire, the women and the children and the adults inside
that building had no way out," he said. "They had a
choice of being shot to death or burning to death."
DRUDGE REPORT: A former government officer has told investigators
that members of the secret Army unit Delta Force said they participated
in a shoot-out during the final assault on the Branch Davidian
compound in Waco. The witness, according to congressional sources,
has already named names -- and will soon offer his account under
oath.
THE OKLAHOMAN: It was April 1994, a year after the Branch
Davidian standoff ended in disaster, when Bob Ricks had his chance
to quiz Attorney General Janet Reno. He had finished his job
as chief FBI spokesman during the 51-day siege outside Waco,
Texas, but it still bothered him that the Justice Department
later ordered agents, he said, not to speak about the operation.
Reno was in Oklahoma City to promote a congressional crime bill
and met with employees of the local FBI office. "I said,
'You probably don't realize it, but in the Midwest, Waco is still
extremely a big deal out here, and it's the subject of much conversation.
As you know, we've been ordered not to respond or say anything,
and I think that that could ultimately end up being a problem,'"
Ricks said Friday. The ex-agent said Reno replied, "I don't
think the American people care about Waco anymore."
A Justice Department spokesman said Reno denies making the comment.
THE OKLAHOMAN: http://www.oklahoman.com/cgi-bin/shart?ID=370047&TP=getarticle
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: A U.S. district judge ordered government
lawyers Thursday to turn over all evidence pertaining to the
1993 Branch Davidian siege by Oct. 1 or face contempt-of-court
charges. The order by Judge Walter Smith of Waco came in response
to a U.S. Justice Department motion this week challenging his
authority to demand control of the evidence being sought in a
wrongful-death lawsuit .... "The court's purpose is to secure
the evidence so that neither the parties to the pending civil
litigation, the media or the public will perceive that the government
may have the opportunity to conceal, alter or fail to reveal
evidence," Judge Smith wrote.
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: http://www.dallasnews.com/specials/waco/0903waco2judge.htm
JOSEPH FARAH, WORLD NET DAILY: One of the original witnesses
against the Branch Davidians was Bill Buford, the agent in charge
of the Little Rock, Ark., branch of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco
and Firearms. Buford was, also, according to Arkansas sources,
a friend of Bill. The Waco case was apparently very important
to Buford as an affidavit states he was working on New Year's
Day calling former Branch Davidians seeking to find evidence
of sexual abuse .... Documents show Buford is noted as one of
two "senior raid planners." He was also one of the
BATF agents wounded during the Feb. 28 assault, but he is perhaps
the only BATF agent to be visited in the hospital by none other
than top Treasury Department official Roger Altman. Altman was
the long-time "Friend of Bill" appointed to be deputy
secretary of the Treasury and chief executive officer of the
Resolution Trust Corporation. He resigned in August 1994 due
to his interference in the Whitewater investigation. At the time
of the Waco raid, Roger Altman was the second highest-ranking
official at the Department of the Treasury. The BATF is a bureau
within the Treasury Department
WORLD NET DAILY
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_btl/19990903_xcbtl_wacos_litt.shtml
AUGUST 1999
JERRY SEPER, WASHINGTON TIMES: In addition to seeking information
on the FBI's use of incendiary devices, which the FBI now admits,
House
investigators have targeted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms
agents in its preparation for a failed attempt to arrest Davidian
leader
David Koresh seven weeks before the compound exploded in a fireball
on April 19, 1993 .... Capitol Hill sources say investigators
want information about the suspected misuse of a Texas National
Guard helicopter as a diversion during an earlier failed arrest
attempt Feb. 28, 1993 -- during which four ATF agents were killed.
LEE HANCOCK, DALLAS MORNING NEWS: U.S. Justice Department
lawyers on Tuesday challenged a federal judge's authority to
take control over evidence in the Branch Davidian case, setting
up a high-stakes legal showdown. An Aug. 9 order in which U.S.
District Judge Walter Smith demanded custody of all documents
and other evidence is without any legal basis under federal or
civil court rules, Justice Department lawyers argued in a 19-page
motion. The judge's move "threatens a wholesale intrusion"
into the executive branch and an "unwarranted and substantial
burden" on the entire federal government.
DALLAS MORNING NEWS http://www.dallasnews.com/
TEXAS DEPT OF PUBLIC SAFETY CHAIR JAMES FRANCIS: I think it's
very unfortunate that the Justice Department would try to prevent
the federal court in Waco from gaining access to all of the evidence
in light of
everything that's happened in the last week... From what I can
understand of
the Justice Department's motion today, they're still attempting
to prevent
the evidence from being judicially reviewed. And I think that
is most
unfortunate. [Note: Francis is a top fund-raiser for GWB]
LEE HANCOCK, DALLAS MORNING NEWS: A Waco federal prosecutor
wrote Attorney General Janet Reno on Monday to warn that "individuals
or components within the Department of Justice" may have
long withheld evidence from her and the public about the FBI's
use of pyrotechnic grenades on the day the Branch Davidian compound
burned. Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Johnston said he felt compelled
to warn Ms. Reno after he was given a 5-year-old document that
discusses the use of "military gas" by the FBI on April
19, 1993. He said he was concerned because the document, a three-page
set of notes detailing an interview with members of the FBI's
hostage rescue team, included handwritten notations suggesting
that it be kept from anyone outside the department's legal staff.
DALLAS MORNING NEWS http://www.dallasnews.com/texas_southwest/0831tsw1waco.htm
UPI: The woman who headed the federal jury that convicted
eight Branch Davidian members in connection with the 1993 siege
near Waco, Texas, says they should get new trials because of
new FBI admissions. Sarah Bain headed a federal court jury that
convicted the Davidians on charges related to the Feb. 28, 1993
shootout .... In an interview with WOAI radio in San Antonio
today, Bain said the admission by the FBI that agents fired flammable
tear gas grenades near the compound hours before the fire that
ended the siege is grounds to ask for new trials. Koresh and
80 of his followers died
JEFF NESMITH, COX NEWSPAPERS: Army anti-terrorism specialists,
including the commander of the top-secret Delta Force, attended
the 1993 meeting at which Attorney General Janet Reno approved
use of tear gas against members of the Branch Davidian group
near Waco, Texas. It is the first indication that the Delta Force,
whose presence at the fatal raid was disclosed this week, was
involved in planning the operation .... Documents released to
Cox Newspapers on Friday by the FBI indicate that Col. William
Boykin, then Delta Force commander, and Brig. Gen. Peter Schoomaker,
then the assistant division commander of the 1st Cavalry Division
at Fort Hood, Texas, were the previously unidentified officers
who told Reno use of CS gas, a potent form of tear gas, would
make the compound "untenable."
TPR : Nesmith is wrong in claiming this is the first report
of Delta Force's involvement. Here's a story from Counterpunch
that TPR described a month ago:
"Counterpunch has identified the two military men who
took part in a Waco Massacre planning session at the Justice
Department: Colonel Gerald Boykin, and his superior, Peter J.
Schoomacher, the commanding general at Fort Bragg. Counterpunch
says that NATO Commander Wesley Clark (who had served under Schoomacher)
was not directly involved in the attack:
"Boykin and Schoomacher were present because the Army's
Fort Bragg-based Combat Applications Group -- popularly known
as the Delta Force -- had been enlisted as part of the assault
team on the Branch Davidian Compound. It appears that President
Clinton had signed a waiver of the Posse Comitatus Act, with
the precedent being Ronald Reagan's revocation of the Act in
1987, allowing the Delta Force to be involved in suppressing
the Atlanta prison riot.
"The role of the Delta Force, the identity of the two
Army officers, the revocation of Posse Comitatus all form part
of the disclosures of a forthcoming documentary film, 'Waco:
A New Revelation,' put together by the same team that produced
an earlier, excellent film, Waco: Rules of Engagement."
Among the materials obtained by the film producers are 28 videos
showing US military in special assault gear and with name tags
obscured in the final onslaught on the Waco compound.
"Producer Mike McNulty isolates Vince Foster as the White
House point man for the Waco operation. Writes Counterpunch:
"McNulty cites Foster's widow as saying that the depression
that prompted the White House lawyer's death was fueled by horror
at the carnage at Waco for which the White House had given the
ultimate green light. Foster was writing a Waco report when he
died. McNulty says that some documents about Foster and Waco
were among those removed from his office after his death, later
to surface in a White house store room sheltering archives of
the First Lady."
COUNTERPUNCH http://www.counterpunch.org/
LEE HANCOCK, THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS: The chairman of the
Department of Public Safety said that federal authorities also
need to investigate and fully explain why members of the U.S.
Army's secret Delta Force anti-terrorist unit were present on
the day the compound burned. "Everyone involved knows they
were there ...." said James B. Francis Jr. of Dallas. "Some
of the evidence that I have reviewed and been made aware of is
very problematical as to the role of Delta Force at the siege.
However, I think it's only fair that real independent experts
look into that highly sensitive issue." A Department of
Defense document released under the federal Freedom of Information
Act confirmed that members of a classified Army special forces
unit were in the area when the FBI's hostage rescue team used
tanks to assault the compound with tear gas.
DALLAS MORNING NEWS http://www.dallasnews.com/texas_southwest/0826tsw1davidians.htm
LEE HANCOCK, DALLAS MORNING NEWS: The FBI is preparing to
acknowledge in a formal statement that its agents fired pyrotechnic
tear gas grenades on the last day of the Branch Davidian siege,
senior federal law enforcement officials said Tuesday. The statement
would represent a reversal from the federal government's adamant,
long-held position that the FBI used no device capable of sparking
a fire on the day the Davidian compound burned near Waco. Earlier
this week, former senior FBI official Danny Coulson told The
Dallas Morning News that pyrotechnic grenades had been used on
April 19, 1993, the day that the compound burned with David Koresh
and more than 80 followers inside .... Earlier Tuesday, Texas
Department of Public Safety Commission Chairman James B. Francis
said the Texas Rangers have ``overwhelming evidence'' supporting
Coulson's statement.
WACO EVIDENCE ORDERED BY COURT
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: A federal judge in Waco told the federal
government Monday to hand over every piece of evidence relating
to the 1993 Branch Davidian standoff. In a sweeping order, U.S.
District Judge Walter Smith told federal authorities to surrender
to the federal clerk in Waco everything "in any way relevant
to the events occurring at Mount Carmel," the Davidian compound
besieged by federal authorities from Feb. 28 to April l9, 1993.
"It is important for two reasons that the materials be
maintained and safeguarded. First and foremost, the parties to
civil litigation pending in this court have a right to seek access,"
Judge Smith wrote. "Second, the events that took place between
Feb. 28 and April 19, 1993, and thereafter, have resulted in
sometimes intense interest from the national media and members
of the public."
JULY 1999
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: The head of the Texas Department of Public
Safety said Tuesday that evidence held by the Texas Rangers since
the 1993 Branch Davidian siege calls into question the federal
government's claim that its agents used no incendiary devices
on the day that a fire consumed the sect's compound. "There's
some evidence that is at least problematic or at least questionable
with regard to what happened," said James B. Francis Jr.
of Dallas, chairman of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
DALLAS MORNING NEWS http://www.dallasnews.com/texas_southwest/0728tsw100davidians.htm
Counterpunch has identified the two military men who took
part in a Waco Massacre planning session at the Justice Department:
Colonel Gerald Boykin, and his superior, Peter J. Schoomacher,
the commanding general at Fort Bragg. Counterpunch says that
NATO Commander Wesley Clark (who had served under Schoomacher)
was not directly involved in the attack:
"Boykin and Schoomacher were present because the Army's
Fort Bragg-based Combat Applications Group -- popularly known
as the Delta Force -- had been enlisted as part of the assault
team on the Branch Davidian Compound. It appears that President
Clinton had signed a waiver of the Posse Comitatus Act, with
the precedent being Ronald Reagan's revocation of the Act in
1987, allowing the Delta Force to be involved in suppressing
the Atlanta prison riot.
"The role of the Delta Force, the identity of the two
Army officers, the revocation of Posse Comitatus all form part
of the disclosures of a forthcoming documentary film, 'Waco:
A New Revelation,' put together by the same team that produced
an earlier, excellent film, Waco: Rules of Engagement."
Among the materials obtained by the film producers are 28
videos showing US military in special assault gear and with name
tags obscured in the final onslaught on the Waco compound.
Producer Mike McNulty isolates Vince Foster as the White House
point man for the Waco operation. Writes Counterpunch: "McNulty
cites Foster's widow as saying that the depression that prompted
the White House lawyer's death was fueled by horror at the carnage
at Waco for which the White House had given the ultimate green
light. Foster was writing a Waco report when he died. McNulty
says that some documents about Foster and Waco were among those
removed from his office after his death, later to surface in
a White house store room sheltering archives of the First Lady."
COUNTERPUNCH http://www.counterpunch.org/
WACO AND FOSTER
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in The Secret Life Of Bill Clinton
writes, "The Branch Davidian siege was clearly on Foster's
mind. He was 'drafting a letter involving Waco' on the day of
this death, surely a point of some significance. He kept a Waco
file in the locked cabinet that was off limits to everybody,
including his secretary. His widow mentions Waco twice in her
statement to the FBI: 'Toward the end of his life, Foster had
no sense of joy or elation at work. The Branch Davidian incident
near Waco, Texas, was also causing him a great deal of stress.
Lisa Foster believes that he was horrified when the Branch Davidian
complex burned. Foster believed that everything was his fault.'"
Evans-Pritchard makes no claim that Waco was a cause of Foster's
death. After discussing other anomalies, such as his ties to
the National Security Agency, the investigative reporter notes,
"The point is that Foster was involved in activities that
belie the carefully drawn portrait of a bemused country lawyer,
and that have clearly been obscured on purpose."
These comments are worth reviving because of Counterpunch's
revelation that two key Army officers were involved in the Justice
Department planning for Waco and that Clinton had abrogated an
longtime American principle of not using the military in domestic
law enforcement.
We now also know that NATO chief Wesley Clark, then Texas-based,
at the very least approved the seconding of logistical support
from his command. We know that important records in Foster's
possession were removed. And we know that a military intelligence
group moved in on the White House following his death for unknown
purposes.
This all, however, merely adds to the mystery of Foster. What
remains true is that the existing facts argue strongly against
Foster having died in a park of his own hand. Put directly, if
he did kill himself, someone moved him afterwards, or else he
was murdered. Under what circumstances and for what reasons,
we still don't know.
CLINTON & WACO
According to an must-read report by Ken McCarthy at Brasscheck,
the military was far more deeply involved in the Waco massacre
than is generally realized. Behind the military's part in the
operation was now NATO commander General Wesley Clark. Among
the points McCarthy makes are these:
-- The military's involvment in a domestic law enforcement
matter was illegal.
-- Used in the Waco massacre operation were 13 track vehicles,
9 combat engineer vehicles, 5 tank retrieval vehicles, and a
tank.
-- The military equipment and personnel came from the US Army
base at Ft. Hood, Texas, headquarters of III Corps. According
to an account from attorney David T. Hardy, who filed a freedom
of information action in the incident, "The operation required
mustering approximately a hundred agents (flown in from sites
around the country), and who received military training at Ft.
Hood. They traveled in a convoy of sixty vehicles and were supported
by three National Guard helicopters and one fixed-wing aircraft,
with armored vehicles in reserve."
-- Clark was the Commander 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas
from August 1992 to April 1994. The Mt. Carmel raid was on February
29, 1993. The arson-murders occurred April 19. Clark had been
Commander of the National Training Center and Deputy Chief of
Staff for Concepts, Doctrine and Developments, US Army Training
and Doctrine Command TRADOC, where Clark was Deputy Chief right
before becoming an armor commander at Ft Hood, has as its primary
mission to "prepare soldiers for war and design the army
of the future." Item number one from the TRADOC vision statement:
"...enable America's Army to operate with joint, multinational
and interagency partners across the full range of operations."
-- General Clark, thanks to his operations at Waco and in the
Balkans, is now a front-runner to become America's first commander-in-chief
of the anti-democratic domestic command Clinton wants to establish.
-- President Clinton said, "The first thing I did after
the ATF agents were killed, once we knew that the FBI was going
to go in, was to ask that the military be consulted because of
the quasi-military nature of the conflict."
-- Attorney General Janet Reno attempted to explain away the
FBI use of US Army tanks as being equivalent to an innocuous
"rent a car" arrangement.
-- From early in the siege, "Operation Trojan Horse"
became a popular destination for special forces officers both
from around the United States and from its closest ally, the
UK. They came to observe the effectiveness of various high tech
devices and tactics that were being tested against the Branch
Davidians.
-- Two unnamed high ranking Army officers personally presented
Attorney General Janet Reno with the final assault tactics for
her, as chief law enforcement officer of the US, to sign off
on.
-- There are a number of rules used for the Waco massacre and
the invasion of Yugoslavia including 1. Exert tight information
control over a mostly cooperative US news media 2. Attribute
civilian casualty reports to "propaganda" 3. Declare
that the attacks are for humanitarian purposes, to "stop
the bad guy." 4. Break numerous agreements then call the
other side unreliable 5. Offer absurd terms in negotiation sessions,
hide these terms from the public, then punish the other side
for its recalcitrance in failing to accept a "reasonable"
settlement. 6. Coordinate a propaganda effort against the other
side before the assault (The Waco Tribune-Herald ran a two part
smear piece against Koresh on Feb 27, 1993, the day before the
raid, and on the morning of entitled, "The Sinful Messiah")
7. Accuse the other side of being responsible for crimes they
did not commit.
-- General Clark's last assignment before taking over NATO was
as Commander-in-Chief, United States Southern Command, Panama,
where he commanded all U.S. forces and was "responsible
for the direction of most U.S. military activities and interests
in Latin America and the Caribbean." i.e. the support of
repressive Latin American military and police operations and
a phony war against drugs.
Meanwhile, Dan Gifford, producer of "Waco: The Rules
of Engagement" writes that "Secret anti-terrorist U.S.
Army Delta Force and British SAS soldiers were present at FBI
invitation as 'observers.' But reports of those troops illegally
killing Americans on American soil persist from sources that
have provided accurate information in the past. So do reports
of classified weapons testing on the Davidians that was being
micro managed, along with everything else, from Washington. A
confirmed June, 1997 'Soldier of Fortune' article by ABC Nightline
contributor James Pate tells how FBI agents who crept into Mount
Carmel on April 17th to plant electronic devices had a chance
to arrest Koresh. But then Associate Attorney General Web Hubbell
(the de facto U.S. Attorney General) passed word back from then
White House counsel Vince Foster that Koresh was to be left in
the building."
FULL BRASSCHECK ARTICLE http://www.brasscheck.com/clarkatwaco.html
WESLEY CLARK'S CAREER: http://www.counterpunch.org/clark.html
WACO MATERIALS: http://www.waco93.com
JAN 1999
GOLDEN OLDIES
The car of an aide to President Clinton's chief counsel was
burglarized this week and several "sensitive documents"
were stolen, White House officials said late Thursday. A local
television station, WTTG, a Fox affiliate, reported that the
documents included ones pertaining to the investigation of the
1993 death of White House deputy counsel Vince Foster and the
1994 federal raid on the Branch Davidian compound at Waco, Texas.
The White House press office declined on the record to characterize
the content of the documents. Other White House officials, speaking
on the condition of anonymity, said however that among the material
taken were several "sensitive documents." They did
not elaborate and suggested that the break-in was more in the
nature of a street crime than one of political motivation. "It
was a simple break-in," said one official. The car belongs
to Cheryl D. Mills, a special assistant to White House counsel
Abner Mikva. -- Chattanooga Free Press, July 14, 1995
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