- Writing this article may well reveal more about me than
I would normally be willing to do, but I happen to be in a position to
know something that most folks aren't aware of, and I feel compelled to
"share" so that at least some people will stop following the
red herring being dragged through the public square.
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- First, my bona fides. I was never employed by the FBI;
however, I worked for more than 20 years with a "sister agency"
and because of my involvement in numerous joint efforts which included
the FBI, I am more than a little knowledgeable with investigative case
management procedures in place in all federal law enforcement agencies.
This knowledge informs me that the "missing documents" being
bandied about in the national press is a lie, a canard, and a cover story
being foisted on the public for some purpose that yet remains hidden.
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- Allow me to present an overview of case management procedures
so that my position will be readily understood.
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- Every open investigation is managed by a controlling
office, or in the case of the Oklahoma City bombing, by a specially formulated
Task Force. Each investigation is conducted by a Case Agent, or in OKBomb,
by a Task Force Commander. Invariably the conduct of an investigation will
result in what are known as "undeveloped leads." These are simply
investigative questions which have not yet been answered. Some undeveloped
leads can be resolved by the Case Agent within his own area of responsibility
(AOR). Others need to be sent to another field office because the answers
are obviously to be found outside the AOR of the Case Agent. In an investigation
with the extremely high profile of OKBomb these undeveloped leads would
have been sent out to the respective field offices as soon as possible.
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- When received by the respective field office, an undeveloped
lead is immediately assigned to an agent who is responsible for finding
the answer(s) requested. These answers may turn out to be in the form of
oral testimony from witnesses (in the FBI these are reduced to written
reports of field interviews prepared by the agent, called in the FBI "302s"),
or if the information developed is more substantial or material to the
investigation, a written, sworn statement will be taken from the witness.
On occasion the person interviewed may be a "suspect," in which
case almost anything he or she has to say will be taken down in writing
and sworn. Original sworn statements are not kept by the outlying field
office; they are always forwarded under seperate and secure cover back
to the controlling office.
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- In some cases, actual physical evidence may be recovered
by the outlying field office; e.g., a receipt for the purchase of fertilizer.
All items of physical evidence will be "logged in" on an evidence
receipt to initiate chain-of-custody and stringent requirements to maintain
chain-of-custody are implemented. These items, too, are forwarded expeditiously
to the controlling office under even more exact requirements than those
applied to written statements.
-
- These are the normal procedures in place for many years
within the FBI and all other federal law enforcement agencies. The only
documentation kept by the outlying field office which ran the undeveloped
lead would be file copies of statements or evidence receipts, and the only
reason even file copies would be kept would be for later administrative
inspections seeking to insure that the field office was conducting its
business in a proper manner.
-
- Therefore, the story that some 3,000+ documents concerning
the OKBombing "were lying around in 86 different field offices"
is either totally false, OR in this one particular investigation someone
changed the rules. Since it now appears that most of this "missing
documentation" concerns the investigation into the identities and
whereabouts of possible accomplices of McVeigh, the motivation for lying
or changing normal case management rules would seem to be for the reason
of hiding this specific line of investigation.
-
- In my view, what happened is one of three different possibilities,
or some combination of same.
-
- One: Some person in the chain-of-command higher than
the OKBomb Task Force Commander sent out orders to all FBI field offices
to retain any and all evidentiary matter pertaining to McVeigh's accomplices
and/or conspiracy matters, and to not forward them back to the controlling
office. The Task Force Commander may or may not have been aware of these
orders. For that matter, FBI Director Freeh may not have known about such
orders either. I'm no apologist for Freeh, but this should still be stated.
-
- Two: A method was developed by which all items that were
not to see the light of day were intercepted between the submitting field
offices and the controlling office, and no orders were required to be sent
out for the field offices to maintain these items in their possession.
In this scenario plausible deniability is maintained by everyone involved
in the investigation; in fact, in the normal course of events it would
be expected that no one involved in the investigation would ever tumble
to the fact that evidence was being hidden away.
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- Three: All items of evidence were forwarded to the controlling
office as per normal routine, and the decision to withhold certain items
from the defense teams involved was made at Task Force/Prosecution level.
This would have then required that all items in question be sent back to
the respective field offices "just in case" or that they simply
be "overlooked" at the Task Force. This scenario is the most
unlikely, if only because too many people would have known what was going
on.
-
- Regardless how it was done, I am convinced that there
was no "mistake." All these so-called "missing documents"
went "missing" by design, not by accident.
-
- Consequently, the burning questions remaining are these:
Why is this information coming out into the public eye at all? The "archivist"
who "discovered" this "mistake" could have been easily
coerced into remaining silent if this was what really happened. And why
is this information coming out now?
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- What is happening that we are not supposed to notice?
What is going on that is even more earth-shattering than the revelation
that the FBI once again screwed up?
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