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I deliberately stayed off the computer today because I was so disturbed by this thread on Friday.

After logging on, though, I think it's important to offer some clarification, in an effort to explain some of the realizations I've made in the last day or so regarding OKCsubmariner and Jayna Davis.

Nita, Pat and I have had a number of "private" discussions along the lines of your posts on this thread, a la, "Why can't we all just get along?" I did not understand until Friday.

Now I think I understand why, and to me, it has nothing to do with her testimony before the grand jury. After all, the grand jury did indict "others unknown."

And Jayna's testimony to the grand jury and her attorney's statement beforehand have been well-publicized for years.

But there is a BIG difference between a secret grand jury proceeding and a public trial in federal court.

As Pat has indicated, there were likely a number of people involved. The grand jury knew this, as well. Not to be flippant, but the indictment was for "others unknown," not "other unknown."

It was not the job of the grand jury to hunt down the other suspects. We all know who was supposed to do that job, which, at least to our knowledge, still hasn't been accomplished.

The lightbulb went on in my head with this statement: (let me post it again)

"Davis specifically told me from 1996 until 2001 that she deliberately kept the specific details of the prior warnings of the House Task Force and Bodansky on the OKC bombing from Attorney Stephen Jones even when she said she knew Jones wanted it and hoped to subpoena her during the McVeigh trial to get it made known in court."

Also, consider this statement.

"She also wants to make it perfectly clear that after her two-year exhaustive investigation, she has turned up no credible evidence that supports the theory that the federal government had sufficient prior warnings to prevent the bombing," McCoy said.

With the key word, of course, being "credible." The first question I will ask you, is why was that word inserted?

We know now, thanks to AP, that indeed there WAS a warning.

So what does credible mean? Does it mean written proof? Or does it mean the word of an FBI agent, who might or might not admit to making such a statement?

Now let me ask a series of additional questions.

Has anyone considered what might have happened at Timothy McVeigh's trial if she had been subpoenaed, and testified to the effect that there was a prior warning issued by the government, a warning that might have convinced some government agents and judges to stay home that day, and/or keep their offspring out of the daycare center?

Has anyone considered how Judge Richard Matsch would have ruled if Stephen Jones had presented him with a deposition to that effect, before or during the trial?

Has anyone considered whether such a deposition might have convinced Judge Matsch to have allowed the videtaped evidence from Edwin Angeles alleging he had met with Terry Nichols in the Phillipines prior to the OKC Bombing into the trial?

Has anyone considered how the jury might have reacted? Or how some of the witnesses might have testified, especially Michael Fortier and Jennifer McVeigh?

Has anyone considered whether that jury would have levied the death penalty? And whether that might make a difference today, in figuring out the truth in this whole mess?

Has anyone considered the possibility that OKCSubmariner is NOT telling all he knows, in an effort to protect the professional reputations and safety of some of the people most closely associated with this case?

Does anyone here really think that OKCsubmariner would make up the quote I've included in this post, or even say it without some sort of outside, additional confirmation? Does anybody here REALLY believe Pat is the kind of guy to be caught up in petty rivalries?

I didn't, and that's why I had so much trouble understanding this whole thing until Friday.

Part of the whole problem here is that Pat is unable to be perfectly clear about what he knows, because he might risk harming others. So let me be perfectly clear about what I know, limited though it may be, about Pat and about this case.

We all know what he has written and the story of his experience, so I'm not going to review that. I do know that he's always told me the truth, although he hasn't answered all my questions. I know he is a committed Christian. I know he really cares about the people who've been hurt by this, and that he really cares about this country. And I know he isn't looking to profit personally, at least in terms of becoming famous or making lots of money.

More important, I know he's been vindicated, not only by the AP about the prior warnings, but also by the Inspector General of the United States, in terms of all those additional thousands of missing 302s the FBI did not admit to having in May, 2001.

With all the time he has put into this project, he deserves to write a book, so don't trash him on this basis. Some of the rest of us feel like we could write a book, too, given the amount of time and research we've done, and there would be nothing wrong with that.

But his only goal, like most of the rest of us, I think, is seeing that the truth comes out.

And yes, Nita, there are two sides to every story. So let me try to be fair to Jayna.

As I stated privately to someone else on this thread, when you are a young, attractive female TV reporter covering law enforcement agents, cops often tell you things they're not supposed to tell. Half the time you don't know whether they're telling the truth or not, but you check it out, just in case.

It's very possible somebody somewhere did tell Jayna about the warning, and she could find no evidence of it afterward. That would make her attorney's statement prior to the grand jury proceeding essentially true.

It is also understandle why, in 1997, while she was pregnant, according to this thread, she would not want to have gotten mixed up in the insanity surrounding the McVeigh trial.

But, I do not believe she was still working at the TV station at the time. If that is the case, the decision was her own.

I don't know Jayna Davis. I don't know if she was contacted by Stephen Jones. I don't know if she was threatened by somebody in the FBI. I don't know what she thinks or thought, whether she was afraid, or whether she believed she was a better arbiter of "credible evidence" than a judge or jury might have been. I don't know if she believes she's in danger, and David Schippers found a way to offer her protection. I don't know. I just know that I have no reason to distrust OKCsubmariner.

And there is one more post on this thread I MUST take issue with,aristeides:

"So I guess the only disageement then would be can covering up the murder of 168 people ever be the right thing.

"Another possible difference is whether the FBI, rightly or wrongly, thought it was the right thing."

"But also, I will admit I can conceive of circumstances under which such a coverup in 1995 and thereafter might have been justifiable. I cannot really conceive of circumstances under which it would be justifiable after 9/11."

A coverup is NEVER justifiable, at least and especially when it involves someone's death.

One hundred and sixty-eight people died on April 19, 1995, along with three unborn babies. There is, and was no justification that I can see for a coverup,then or now. Many people, including and especially OKCsubmariner, knew that the entire truth about that day was NOT being told, prior to 9/11.

And all of those people had more than six years to go public with what they knew.

Had it not been for 9/11, OKCsubmariner, Stephen Jones, and the others clamoring about "others unknown" would have continued to have been dismissed as "tinfoilers."

There is no way to tell whether 9/11 might have been prevented, at least at this point, if the truth about OKC had become public beforehand. And we may never know. But somebody out there probably does.

Also, it was never your job, or my job, or Jayna Davis' job, or the FBI's job, to determine whether Timothy McVeigh was guilty or should have been put to death.

It was the job of the jury who heard his trial, a jury that had the right to hear and see all the evidence relevant to the case.

And I wonder sometimes whether the members of that jury ever peruse these threads, and what they think of them.

We now know there was a government warning, and we know that the jury never heard about it. And we know of course, about the thousands of missing "302's", many of which were destroyed before they ever reached the hands of the court.

We will never know what would have happened if the jury had heard about that warning, or seen those 302's. With Clinton in office, it's pretty difficult to imagine any real reform occurring at the FBI. It may not even happen now, after 9/11.

Whatever the truth is, Jayna Davis is going to have to live with the situation as it is now, as do the rest of us.

Somebody, somewhere, does know the truth, or a least a larger chunk of it than what we've heard so far.

Perhaps we'll hear more, perhaps not.

But not if the "coverup" continues.

Let me steal from the Alamo-Girl homepage (and my own) to finish, courtesy of Patrick Henry:

"It is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts."

"Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty?"

"Are we disposed to be the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation?"

"For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it. "

From me: Whatever the truth, and whatever happens, God will get us through. But the people who DO know the truth have a duty to those who died, not only in OKC and on 9/11, but to all of those who died in the struggle to keep this country whole. They have a duty to make sure those responsible are held accountable. They have a duty to do all the can to ensure future terrorist attacks in the U.S. are prevented. And WE have the duty to do all we can to hold THEM accountable.