At 11:06 AM 8/25/99 -0700, you wrote:
>Craig J. Bolton wrote:
>>
>> These things are just so difficult for the government. Everyone use to be
>> content with one big lie. Ah, the good old days.
>
>Just sitting here not 30 seconds ago, I heard CN radio report on this.
Ya the story really seems to have broken loose. And, if you'll recall, this all started a few weeks ago when someone in government decided to be somewhat honest for a change and gave McNulty access to the evidence stores that had been held by the Texas Rangers for the Justice Department for years, but with respect to which the Justice Department refused to respond to requests from Waco defense counsel or FOIA requests. [Obviously, the government has learned it's less about hoesty and there will be no such slip ups in the future.] Here's the story:
JULY 28, 1999
HEAD OF TEXAS RANGERS INFERS FBI COVER-UP OF WACO FIRE
Official disputes FBI account of Davidian fire Justice Department denies incendiary devices used
By Lee Hancock / The Dallas Morning News 07/28/99
WACO, Texas - The head of the Texas Department of Public Safety said Tuesday that evidence held by the Texas Rangers since the 1993 Branch Davidian siege calls into question the federal government's claim that is agents used no incendiary devices on the day that a fire consumed the sect's compound.
"There's some evidence that is at least problematic or at least questionable with regard to what happened," said James B. Francis Jr. of Dallas, chairman of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Mr. Francis declined to detail the evidence but said, "With the proper experts analyzing it, it might shed light as to whether an incendiary device was fired into the compound that day." Myron Marlin, a spokesman with the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., dismissed the allegation.
.... Mr. Francis said Tuesday that some FBI officials made statements to Texas Rangers immediately after the fire "that are contradictory" to the federal government's account of what happened.
... Mr. Francis told The Dallas Morning News that he only recently became aware of those statements as he began looking into complaints about the lack of public access to evidence in the Davidian investigation.
Mr. Francis said he became concerned enough to contact U.S. District Judge Walter Smith of Waco, who has presided over all the cases arising from the deadly standoff. DPS recently filed a motion asking Judge Smith to take control of the evidence in the case.
"I took the steps to turn it over to the court so the court could decide what to do," Mr. Francis said. "I think it's very important that whatever the evidence is and whatever it shows, that all of it come out and let the chips fall where they may."
.... Mr. Francis said he told Judge Smith that a Justice Department policy blocking all public access to the Davidian evidence had created what amounted to an "absurd" shell game, with the DPS stuck in the middle.
"I said, 'It is in effect a cover-up. It is not intended to be, but in effect it is," Mr. Francis said. "It is a complete stonewall."
Mr. Francis said he doesn't think there was "some grand conspiracy to hide the evidence. I think it evolved into a situation where that was the effect of it."
.... "It was a perfect Catch-22 to block everybody from seeing the evidence," Mr. Francis said. "There is some evidence there that the world needs to see, in my opinion. The government does not want this evidence out, and yet, that's not right."
.... The issue began coming to a head last spring when DPS officials began fielding complaints that a Colorado documentary researcher had been allowed access to the evidence.
... The researcher, Michael McNulty, was a producer and principal researcher in a 1997 documentary that alleged that government agents fired into the Davidian compound and set off devices that started the fire. He is preparing a new documentary on the standoff, with release expected in September.
Mr. McNulty's visits were approved by a Justice Department public-affairs official who has since left the agency, and they were supervised by Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Johnston, the Waco-based federal prosecutor who handled the Branch Davidian case from its inception.
Mr. Johnston said he supported the decision to give Mr. McNulty access because "I didn't want to be a party to even a perception that we had something to hide."
"Although I may not agree with him on many things, I believe that Mr. McNulty has a right to his opinions," Mr. Johnston said.
In those visits, Mr. McNulty said, he and an expert assisting his film company examined a 40 mm shell casing and two 40 mm projectiles that he contends are pyrotechnic devices.
He said they also found that at least si items listed in Texas Ranger inventories as silencers or suppressors were actually "flash-bang" devices. Those devices are commonly used by law-enforcement officers to stun suspects, and they sometimes ignite fires in enclosed spaces because they emit a loud bang and flash driven by a small pyrotechnic charge.
Mr. McNulty said he thinks those devices could be key evidence because Texas Rangers' evidence logs indicate they were recovered from areas of the compound in which the fires broke out.
© 1999, The Dallas Morning News
For full article go to:
http://www.dallasnews.com/texas_southwest/0728tsw100davidians.htm
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