Who are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes?
In his article back then, Brennan's remarks concerning flight TWA 800 now come disturbingly to the fore considering the on-going fiasco of the 9-11 Whitewash Commission: "Let's begin with the matter of the downing of TWA 800. Despite the fact that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) had the authority and responsibility to assume the role of lead investigative body in the matter, the FBI barged in on the scene and took full control. Here's how the New York Times described relations between the FBI and the NTSB, on August 23, 1996: The most senior officials with the NTSB were 'furious with their own personnel at the scene, convinced that the agency had ceded control of the inquiry to the FBI.' · One NTSB investigator complained that 'overbearing' FBI agents 'immediately took control, and hampered a lot of things we did.'· NTSB officials portrayed the FBI as 'aggressive beyond propriety' and described an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust, believing that the FBI routinely withheld crucial information.
· This failure to share information was particularly focused on the FBI laboratory in Washington, which was characterized as a 'black hole.'
Clearly the Bureau was in charge and determined to make the probe come out the way they wanted [emphasis added]. And one of the things they wanted was to prevent the hundreds of eyewitness accounts of the disaster that all but proved that TWA 800 was downed by a missile from being admitted in evidence despite the fact that the testimony they wanted to suppress came from highly credible individuals [emphasis added].
The NTSB scheduled Public Hearings into the crash in Baltimore for December 8, 1997. Among the items slated for discussion were these eyewitness accounts. However, just days before the hearing the FBI pressured the NTSB to exclude those highly credible eyewitness reports and ban their live testimony from the hearings." In another of a long series of articles written by Brennan, he cites an account of the TWA 800 witness tampering by the FBI stating that, "Veteran naval aviator and crash investigator Comdr. William Donaldson said he had witnesses who heard George Gabrial, the senior FBI agent on Long Island and personal friend of [Assistant NY FBI Director, James] Kallstrom, and who was a close witness of the downing of TWA 800 when on his boat, that he believed what he had observed was a missile."
Brennan continues, "The bureau fought tooth and nail to cover up the fact that testimony given by hundreds of eyewitnesses all but proved that TWA 800 was downed by a missile. And many witnesses said FBI agents badgered them to change their testimony." Brennan also states that according to another source, "…Kallstrom told a high-ranking New York State official that the FBI would not find that a missile shot down the plane because the American people couldn't handle it."