Oklahoma City Bomb :Prior Knowledge & cover-up

The FBI and prosecutors ordered the destruction in 1999 of evidence from a bank robbery they once suspected linked Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh to white supremacists who were threatening before McVeigh's bombing to attack the government, documents show.

The evidence included a surveillance videotape of a bank robbery by some of the supremacists that occurred in Ohio five months before the bombing. The FBI lab compared the tape to pictures of McVeigh, but concluded a match was "inconclusive," internal memos show.

The 1999 destruction order, obtained by The Associated Press, was unusual because at the time McVeigh and one of the bank robbers had legal appeals pending.

And the government knew, but had turned aside, an offer from one of the bank robbers, Peter Kevin Langan, to provide information about possible other conspirators in the McVeigh case. Langan and his lawyer claim he still possesses Oklahoma City information the government hasn't heard.

FBI officials said Wednesday they were still trying to determine whether the videotape and other evidence was actually destroyed, but remain confident all those responsible for the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building (news - web sites) have been punished.

"Every lead, regardless of its credibility, was thoroughly investigated to its conclusions," FBI spokesman Mike Kortan said. "While conspiracy stories continue to circulate, no evidence that other individuals were involved in the bombing was corroborated by the investigation."

Dan Defenbaugh, the retired FBI agent who led the Oklahoma City investigation, said while he was knew about the original effort to link McVeigh to the robbery, he was troubled by the evidence destruction order and unaware of it.

"Normally, all evidence is held by the FBI until the completion of all appeals,"FBI officials had several reasons to suspect a connection:
_McVeigh's sister told them her brother gave her money from a bank robbery and asked her to launder it in December 1994.

_The leader of the robbery gang, Mark Thomas, initially told agents after his arrest that he suspected some of his members were involved in McVeigh's plot. He later recanted.

_A girlfriend of one of the bank robbers told the FBI her boyfriend had told her beforehand of a plan to bomb a federal building, and that he left days before the bombing for a trip to Elohim City. "We are going to get them. We are going to hit one of their buildings during the middle of the day. It is going to be a federal building," the FBI quoted the bank robber as telling the girlfriend.

FBI agents stopped pursuing possible connections between McVeigh and the robbers when the suspects all denied assisting the Oklahoma bomber. Most weren't given lie detector tests, officials said.

The robbers, however, weren't the only evidence that led the FBI to suspect a link between McVeigh and Elohim City.

Agents collected a receipt showing McVeigh stayed at a hotel near the compound on Sept. 13, 1994. The hotel was about 20 miles away in Vian, Okla., one of the closest cities with a hotel near the compound. The FBI also obtained a speeding ticket McVeigh received just 12 miles from the compound.

They also interviewed a witness who had aided government prosecutors in other white supremacist cases.

John Shults told agents in 1997 he was "sure beyond a shadow of a doubt" he saw McVeigh at Elohim City in 1994 at a meeting about a mysterious delivery and the use of a Ryder truck. Shults "felt strongly the delivery may have been a reference to the bombing," according to one federal agent's interview report.

Within a few days of the bombing, FBI officials received intelligence suggesting members of Elohim City had information relevant to the investigation.

A federal informant talked with one compound member who "discussed alibis for April 19, 1995, and the components of" McVeigh's bomb, investigative memos show. The same member had claimed, before McVeigh's bombing, that he had detonated a 500-pound fertilizer bomb, similar to the one McVeigh later used.

That compound member also discussed the name of a munitions dealer that McVeigh's phone records showed the bomber called more than two dozen times in the weeks before the attack. McVeigh had the dealer's phone number in his wallet when he was captured.

Oklahoma City Bombing: the full story