AP: Congress Rebukes FBI Over Probe (Oklahoma City Bombing)

WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI failed to fully investigate information suggesting other suspects may have helped Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols with the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, allowing questions to linger more than a decade after the deadly attack, a congressional inquiry concludes.

The House International Relations investigative subcommittee will release the findings of its two-year-review as early as Wednesday, declaring there is no conclusive evidence of a foreign connection to the attack but that far too many unanswered questions remain.

The subcommittee's report will conclude there is no doubt McVeigh and Nichols were the main perpetrators, and it discloses for the first time that Nichols confirmed to House investigators he participated in the robbery of an Arkansas gun dealer that provided the proceeds for the attack.

There have long been questions about that robbery because the FBI concluded McVeigh was in another state at the time it occurred.

The report also sharply criticizes the FBI for failing to be curious enough to pursue credible information that foreign or U.S. citizens may have had contact with Nichols or McVeigh and could have assisted their plot.

"We did our best with limited resources, and I think we moved the understanding of this issue forward a couple of notches even though important questions remain unanswered," Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., the subcommittee chairman, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Rohrabacher's subcommittee saved its sharpest words for the Justice Department, saying officials there exhibited a mind-set of thwarting congressional oversight and did not assist the investigation fully.

The report rebukes the FBI for not fully pursuing leads suggesting other suspects may have provided support to McVeigh and Nichols before their truck bomb killed 168 people in the main federal building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995.

The report says the inadequacy of the bureau's work was exposed two years ago when some bombing evidence overlooked for 10 years was discovered in a home linked to Nichols that had been searched repeatedly by agents.

Officials at the FBI press office had no immediate comment Sunday but were looking into the details of the report.

Previously, the bureau has said it believes its investigation of the bombing was exhaustive and that there is no credible evidence that other people were involved.

The subcommittee concludes the Justice Department should not have rushed to execute McVeigh in 2001 after he dropped his court appeals, and that officials should have made more efforts to interview and question him about evidence suggesting he might have gotten help from other people who remain unpunished.

The former lead FBI agent in the case, Dan Defenbaugh, told AP a few years ago he was trying to get one last interview with McVeigh to go over unanswered questions in the case but could not get it arranged before McVeigh was executed.

Rohrabacher's report cites several leads the subcommittee believes were not fully investigated, including:

_information that McVeigh called a German citizen living at a white supremacist compound in Oklahoma two weeks before the bombing and that two witnesses saw the men together before the bombing.

_witness accounts that another man was seen with McVeigh around the time of the bombing. The FBI originally looked for another suspect it named John Doe 2, even providing a sketch, but abruptly dropped that line of inquiry. The subcommittee concludes that decision was a mistake.

_findings in AP articles in 2003 and 2004 that indicated the FBI had gathered some evidence suggesting a group of neo-Nazi bank robbers may have been tied to McVeigh. The subcommittee interviewed three of those robbers, and all denied a connection. A fourth member of the gang died and a fifth member could not be located by Congress.

_phone record and witness testimony that persons associated with Middle Eastern terrorism in the Philippines may have had contact with Nichols, and that Nichols took a book about explosives to the Philippines. The FBI and Filipino police spent months investigating such a connection, but ruled it out.

_information from a former TV reporter concerning an Iraqi national who was in Oklahoma around the time of the bombing.

Hello, My name is Harrison Thomas LaTour. I am a fellow genealogist and historian. Genealogy is an amazing tool. It tells the past, present, and sometimes the future. Here is what I have done with the Oklahoma City Bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

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MURRAH FEDERAL BUILDING

In 1972, the General Services Administration hired the joint venture architectural firm of Shaw and Associates / Locke, Wright, and Foster Architects to design the General Services Administration Office Building in Oklahoma City. It was later renamed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. James Loftis, the Head Designer of Shaw and Associates, as well as Jim Cross of Locke, Wright and Foster, were taken on a whirlwind tour of the "state of the art" Federal Buildings in Washington D.C., New York, and Boston in order to get an idea of the style that should be achieved. From these tours they determined the style of building they were looking for.
In March of 1973, the design process of the building actually began. With a budget of $15, 822,000.00, the GSA Federal Building in Oklahoma City was made as "state of the art" as possible. At an actual cost of $13,279,000.00, the building was designed and constructed past the expectations of the General Services Administration for a savings of approximately $2.5 million, a 13% savings. Completed in March of 1977 and dedicated in October of the same year, the Federal Building was designed to be the most energy efficient federal building in its GSA region. A title it easily claimed. The building was a 9 story, rebar reinforced, concrete structure which utilized flame polished granite for the endcaps of the building. It also featured bronze tinted glass, which was later replaced in favor of more efficient windows. The Federal Building also exhibited an award winning plaza which was designed to be fully handicap accessible, as was the rest of the structure. Designed to be the first of a rejuvinizing force in the downtown area, the building's South Face, the true front of the building, was equipped with observation decks which provided a commanding view of the Oklahoma City skyline. The combination of the observation areas and the fountain adorned pedestrian plaza won the building honors from the American Institute of Architects in 1983 as one of Oklahoma's 10 Best Buildings.
With an address of 200 NW 5th Street, the building's property bordered NW 5th Street to the North, NW 4th St. to the South, N. Robinson Ave. to the East, and N. Harvey to the West. The building lay-out was in a rectangular fashion with each floor except the first being 70' by 200'. This design allowed for a gross square footage of 397,346 sq. ft., with 316,539 sq.ft. of the structure assignable (approx. 107,000 sq.ft. Of office space, 196,000 sq.ft. of storage areas, and 11,750 sq.ft. for rest rooms, cafeterias, etc.). The building was built to set exactly on the property line of the North side of the building. The first floor, however, was inset to allow pedestrians to pass by on the sidewalk.
The fully sprinklered building was provided with a 4 level, 600 car parking garage, also fully sprinklered. Of the 4 levels, 3 were under the plaza and designed to be shared with the existing Federal Courthouse. The buildings were also linked by an underground tunnel which connected the Courthouse and Murrah Building parking area.
Due to the fact that the building was intended for use by federal agencies, several security precautions were taken into account, however, the risk was assessed as "low" by the Federal Protective Services. One of the requirements by the GSA was that the building must have a self stored, uncontaminated fuel supply for use by the government if the need should arise. The building was also designed to allow a truck and trailer to drive into an enclosed and secured area to load or unload materials at the building. The building was not, however, outfitted with metal detectors. Another precaution taken was the fact that the first floor contained no windows, a measure to prevent drive by shootings or small explosives. In addition to the structural security, the building had one uniformed guard who was shared between the four federal office buildings. There was also a GSA security specialist assigned to the Oklahoma City area. A security review, done 6 weeks before the bombing, found no need for change in the building's security level.
Housed in the building were numerous federal agencies, totaling an approximate 724 employees. Among these agencies were the U.S. Marshall's Office, General Services Administration, Social Security Administration, General Accounting Office, U.S. Army Recruiting, Personnel Management, Defense Audit Agency, Department of Health and Human Services, Secret Service, Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Customs, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Agriculture, Veterans Administration, U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Marine Recruiting, and Drug Enforcement Administration . Also housed in the building were some non-government entities such as the "America's Kids Day Care Center," the Federal Employees Credit Union and a Snack Bar / Food Court area on the 4th floor.

ELOHIM CITY, ADAIR COUNTY, OKLAHOMA

ELOHIM CITY AND DENNIS THE MENANCE

BIBLICAL SCHOLARS CANNOT agree about the meaning of the word Elohim. In the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome, the Hebrew is translated, simply, as GOD, and thus was it passed on to western Christendom. But Hebrew purists bridle at such imprecision. They note that Elohim is strictly plural form: Gods, not GOD. So perhaps it refers to the twin flames of the Godhead, or harkens back to the primordial polytheism of the Jewish tribes. Nobody quite knows, and that is doubtless the source of private satisfaction to Pastor Robert Millar, the founder, patriarch, and theologian of Elohim City.

Is it a Christian cult? Or is it outright paganism, a celebration of the occult practices of Druid, Norse, and Teutonic totemism?

Pastor Millar does not answer such questions. He sits contentedly, stroking his long, white, flowing beard, changing the subject to the less contentious matter of CELTIC HERALDRY. The Highland tribes are his particular passion. He is an ethnic Scot, by the way of Canada, and a proud subject of HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH who is partly Scottish, of course, as well as being a lineal des- cendant of a Saxon deity on her father's side. A good pedigree..

Elohim City is an identity settlement in Oklahoma, near the Oklahoma--Arkansas border, founded in November 1973 by Robert G. Millar. The community came to public attention after the Oklahoma City bombing April 19, 1995 when is was disclosed that Timothy McVeigh, the convicted bomber, had called the compound seeking to visit. (There is no evidence that McVeigh ever traveled to Elohim City.) Millar had friendly relations with several violent racial extremists, some of whom have stayed at Elohim City, until his death in May 2001. His son John, long active in the community, was expected to assume leadership.

Weeks before the Oklahoma City bombing, the Rev. Robert Millar, founder of Elohim City, sought out a meeting with FBI officials in MUSKOGEE, OKLAHOMA, home of James Howard Edmondson, Governor of Oklahoma. He warned them, "Something very bad is about to happen to the federal government, and white supremacists may get the blame for it." No other details of the meeting are available, but it raises tantalizing new questions about foreknowledge of the pending bombing attack.

Elohim City
Paranoia as Patriotism:
Far-Right Influences on the Militia Movement

Elohim City

Founded in the mid-1980s by Robert G. Millar, a U.S. resident alien from Canada with ties to The Covenant, the Sword and the Arm of the Lord (CSA), Identity encampment Elohim City is located on the rugged and mountainous Oklahoma-Arkansas border. The Toronto Star described the encampment as a place of white supremacy and anti-Semitism that is "among a growing number of gun-toting, right-wing religious camps across the U.S." The Canadian paper said that Elohim City has been identified as a "neo-Nazi type" camp by U.S. Justice Department officials and as a "hate group" by the Oklahoma Human Rights Commission.

Elohim City "elder" Zera Horton Patterson III said in a May 13, 1985 Arkansas Gazette article that "community members did not think of themselves as 'white supremacists,' but as a 'chosen people' charged by God with the responsibility of serving and leading others." Patterson continued "Jesus said, 'He who is the greatest among you, let him be their servant.' Jesus was the servant of all men and in that sense He was the Supreme One, the supremacist because He was the servant. So that's the way we are supremacists in that sense."

Elohim City founder Robert Millar has been connected to leaders of other Identity-type movements. He tried to raise money for CSA leader Jim Ellison's bond following Ellison's 1985 arrest for illegal weapons possession. He also served as a character witness on behalf of Richard Wayne Snell, a CSA member who was serving a life sentence in Arkansas for the 1984 murder of an Arkansas state trooper. Snell was executed by the State of Arkansas on April 19, 1995 - the same day as the Oklahoma City bombing - for the earlier murder of a pawn shop owner in 1983. According to New York Daily News columnist Michael Daly (April 23, 1995), "The Rev. Robert Millar arranged for Snell's body to be shipped to Elohim City [for burial]."

The February 24, 1987 Arkansas Gazette noted that a Federal grand jury in Fr. Smith, Arkansas was investigating members of the CSA, The Order, the Posse Comitatus and the KKK, and reported that "Rev. Robert Millar of Elohim City, Oklahoma has said that he was brought to Ft. Smith for questioning. He said that he was asked about an alleged plot to kill Federal Judge H. Franklin Waters of Fayetteville, former U.S. Attorney Asa Hutchinson of Ft. Smith and FBI special agent Jack Knox of Fayetteville, all of whom took part in the 1985 prosecution of CSA leaders."

In August 1993, The Balance, a publication of CAUSE Foundation - a legal defense group whose head, attorney Kirk Lyons, has described himself as an "active sympathizer" of his far-right clients' causes - made reference to Elohim City. It said that on July 9, 1993, members of the Adair County Sheriff's Office in Muldrow, Oklahoma visited Elohim City, describing it as "an Identity religious community led by the Rev. Robert G. Millar." It said that they "were there to warn Pastor Millar of a possible BATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms] raid on their church and homes."

Stating that the law officers were looking for a suspect wanted for alleged possession of an unregistered machine gun who was "known to be around Elohim City," the publication declared: "We believe that this information distributed to the law enforcement agencies is a prelude to a Branch Davidian-type raid. There are many parallels between the Branch Davidians and Elohim City. Both are known to be opposed to the government, are a religious separatist community, and have legal weapons to defend themselves." It added: "As a preemptory [sic] measure, Rev. Millar has signed a power of attorney to empower CAUSE Foundation to represent him and his parishioners should a confrontation with government develop."

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