[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 47 (Tuesday, April 19, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H2143-H2147]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




DEGREE OF SKEPTICISM SURROUNDING INVESTIGATION OF OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Rohrabacher) is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, on March 23, my office received an 
extraordinary tip that a stockpile of explosives remained undiscovered 
by the FBI in the home of Terry Nichols, one of the two men convicted 
of the mass murder of 168 Americans in the bombing of the Oklahoma City 
Federal building. What made this tip even more provocative were the 
informant's claims that the FBI had been contacted weeks earlier and 
that nothing had been done to recheck the location.
  On March 31 the FBI finally raided the small-framed home of Terry 
Nichols; and after 10 years of insisting that the location had been 
thoroughly searched for evidence, the FBI found a yet-to-be discovered 
stash of bomb-making materials, blasting caps and the rest. That this 
discovery is relevant to the Oklahoma City bombing case is an 
understatement.
  If nothing else, this episode justifies a degree of skepticism about 
the claim that all the relevant facts concerning the Oklahoma City 
bombing have been uncovered and/or disclosed. After serving for 8 years 
as chairman of the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics of the House 
Committee on Science, this year I was pleased to be reassigned to head 
the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation of the Committee on 
International Relations. Already we have conducted several hearings 
into the scandal and malfeasance involving the United Nations Oil-For-
Food program.
  But as chairman of the investigative arm of the Committee on 
International Relations, I was asked by several people whom I respect 
to direct my attention to the Oklahoma City bombing and to a possible 
foreign connection. That this mass murder of Americans was accomplished 
by two disgruntled veterans acting alone seems to be the conclusion 
reached by those in authority. However, there are some unsettling loose 
ends and unanswered questions that deserve to be considered before 
joining those affirming the official explanation.
  I promised to honestly look at the information available from 
official and unofficial sources to determine whether or not a hearing 
of my subcommittee would be justified in this matter. I have yet made 
this determination. However, my limited personal inquiry has brought 
howls of anguish, even from friends who have warned me, oh, you will 
hurt yourself and be called a conspiracy nut even for considering a 
hearing. Well, admittedly, when listening to these howls and people 
pulling out their hair, my reaction inside has been, as Shakespeare 
once said, ``Me thinks that thou doth protest too much.'' So I am and 
have been proceeding on a personal inquiry into this matter. The day I 
walk away from trying to determine the truth of a matter of this 
magnitude because of possible personal attacks is the day that I will 
lose respect for myself and for the system.
  The Oklahoma City bombing was the worst and most deadly terrorist 
attack on Americans in our history up until September 11, 2001. Those 
monsters who built the ammonium nitrate fuel oil bomb and detonated it 
next to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City 
slaughtered 168 of our fellow citizens. Nineteen of them were children. 
The bomb went off at 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, 10 years ago today.
  Of course, in situations like this, it is unnerving to think that 
those we trust to defend us from mayhem and slaughter may not have done 
their jobs. I am sorry, but that is what we found after 9/11. Our 
intelligence community had let us down. The Oklahoma City bombing may 
or may not fall into that category. The fact that Terry Nichols' house, 
a central focus of law enforcement officials, was not thoroughly 
examined, is one of those items that justifies a certain level of 
skepticism about the other assurances by those in power who were 
investigating this monstrous crime.
  Furthermore, I am not certain that this site, Terry Nichols' home, 
would have been reexamined if it had not been known that I was 
considering a congressional hearing. So with a skeptical eye, we need 
to look into this matter, consider the questions being raised, and 
honestly assess the explanations we are given. Honest, hard-working, 
patriotic, responsible professionals led and were part of the 
investigation into the Oklahoma City bombing. My assumption is that all 
of them were highly motivated and committed to truth and justice. My 
experience tells me, nevertheless, that even in such situations, 
mistakes can be made and a group-think mentality can prevail.
  No one could fault the great job that was done by law enforcement 
right away, of course. American law enforcement, with the FBI in the 
lead, mobilized an investigation and man hunt that continued in high 
gear even after initial quick results. Within days, Timothy McVeigh was 
identified and, incredibly, had already been taken into custody by the 
exemplary reaction of Oklahoma Highway Patrolman Charles Hanger.

                              {time}  2145

  Having sought McVeigh for driving without a license plate, Officer 
Hanger noticed McVeigh was carrying a pistol and arrested him on the 
spot. Good work, Officer Hanger.
  So when the FBI, with amazing speed, traced remnants of the Ryder 
truck rental used to transport the crude, but powerful, bomb, Timothy 
McVeigh was already in jail. And shortly after this discovery, another 
man was connected to the bombing, Terry Nichols, McVeigh's buddy who 
had helped in the purchase of the bomb materials and was involved in 
planning this monstrous crime.
  Today at the 10th anniversary of this horrific crime, this terrible 
blood-letting, America needs to know that our government has followed 
every lead and that all of the significant facts are known and have 
been thoroughly evaluated.
  There begins the first of a number of disturbing questions, questions 
that remain unanswered or are obscured by a fog of indecisive rabble, 
official rhetoric. Obfuscation may be too harsh a way to put it, 
internal official ambiguity might be a more distinctive phrase. Maybe.

[[Page H2144]]

  So what is question number one? It is very basic. Is the 
investigation of the Oklahoma City bombing after 10 years an ongoing 
investigation, an active case or not? This question needs to be 
answered because it will give us all of the basis, our basis to 
evaluate the situation as it stands.
  If this is an ongoing investigation, the government must be holding 
open the possibility that this heinous crime was committed not just by 
McVeigh and Nichols but also by others unknown or others yet to be 
proven.
  How could this case still be open and the possibility of others being 
involved if the authorities, with this in mind, permitted Timothy 
McVeigh to be executed, thus eliminating the primary witness against 
others who are thought to be involved?
  No. This case is ongoing. If it is an active investigation and 
authorities permitted McVeigh to be executed, well, this is beyond bad 
policy. This would be the equivalent of executing Oswald very quickly 
even though he refused to talk.
  No, in cases of this magnitude, the same type of procedure is not 
followed by law enforcement as is followed in a normal crime, where 
someone commits murder while robbing a liquor store or something. When 
you have the biggest terrorist attack and the most bloody terrorist 
attack in American history, no, you did not let a primary witness be 
executed if you think it is even possible that someone else was 
involved and that the person you are executing knows about it, even 
though he is not talking at the moment.
  So let us hear the status of this case. That is our first question. 
If it is an ongoing investigation, why has significant evidence and why 
is significant evidence still being withheld from the American people?
  There are a number of specifics to which I refer, such as the 
videotapes from the surveillance cameras located around the Murrah 
Building in the time leading up to the bombing and the moments 
immediately after the bombing.
  It has been reported that there may be up to 23 such surveillance 
tapes. The Justice Department requested, and a judge agreed, to seal 
these tapes. Well, if this is not an ongoing investigation, then these 
surveillance tapes should be made public.
  If there is nothing new and the videotapes reveal, as the authorities 
insist, that Timothy McVeigh by himself drove the bomb-laden Ryder 
truck to the front of the Federal building, then why not reassure us? 
If that is the case, why are these tapes sealed?
  However, if the tapes reveal a second person in the truck with 
McVeigh, we know that Terry Nichols was not with him that day, then let 
us go look for that co-conspirator. Let us track him down and bring him 
to justice.
  But keeping this from the American people, something as basic as 
whether or not the surveillance tapes of the Federal building indicated 
that there was a second person in the truck, and thus a third 
conspirator in this monstrous crime, then do the American people not 
have a right to know about this?
  No. That is unacceptable. This is a free society. And if the public 
is to have faith in their government, we cannot keep secrets like this. 
We cannot keep it from the public as a whole. We cannot keep it from 
the families of the victims who died 10 years ago today.
  Whatever is on the video, it is time for the American people to see 
it. Ten years have passed, and there is no longer any excuse. Keeping 
the tapes sealed can do nothing but undercut public trust in the 
authorities who have overseen this investigation. So that is question 
number one: Is the investigation ongoing or not?
  And, number two, why are the videotapes taken from the surveillance 
cameras around the Federal Building on the morning it was blown up not 
available to the public? Whatever the status of this investigation as 
determined by the FBI and law enforcement authorities, it has not been 
a closed case for a number of patriotic, hard-working investigative 
journalists.
  Many of these journalists launched their own investigation in the 
face of career-destroying ridicule. They paid a price for trying to 
find out the facts in this case. But despite this, despite being called 
names and conspiracy nuts, et cetera, despite all of this, they did 
research and pushed for facts.
  These investigators were not always right. They made mistakes. But to 
this day, they are asking questions that deserve answers before we 
Americans can just move on and leave the slaughter of 168 of our fellow 
Americans behind us. And, yes, there has been a certain degree of 
fanaticism that motivated some of these inquisitors, but that does not 
refute truth. And there are some disturbing unanswered questions and 
loose ends out there that have been brought up that we need to hear the 
answers about.
  Jayna Davis was a broadcast journalist who worked as a reporter for a 
network-affiliate TV station in Oklahoma City at the time of the 
bombing. Over the years, she has presented information and raised 
issues that need to be addressed. Jayna Davis collected 22 affidavits 
from individuals who swear they saw Tim McVeigh in the company of 
certain individuals, especially one who looks uncannily like John Doe 
2.
  To remind you, a few days before Tim McVeigh was positively 
identified, the FBI released a drawing of McVeigh. Then he was known 
only as John Doe 1. They also released a drawing of John Doe 2, who was 
described, well, both of them were described by an employee of the 
rental truck office and by others at the bomb scene.
  John Doe 2 arguably resembles a man of Middle Eastern extraction. 
Jayna Davis followed up on reports by those claiming to have seen 
McVeigh with someone who resembles John Doe 2. And she has followed up 
on those reports over the years. I have spoken to several of her 
witnesses. And I find at least some of her witnesses to be credible.
  In one case, I spoke to a motel owner from near Oklahoma City. He 
claims that McVeigh stayed at his motel several times. He spoke to 
McVeigh and spent time with him. This is a man who was not just getting 
a glimpse of McVeigh, but actually was able to talk to him over a 
period of minutes, half an hour, an hour. Accompanying McVeigh on 
occasion, according to the motel owner, were some individuals the 
manager believes were of Middle Eastern extraction.
  He also claims McVeigh stayed at his motel the night before the 
bombing. The Ryder truck, stinking of diesel and fertilizer, was parked 
on a lot near his motel, and he saw it pull out the next morning.
  A read of Timothy McVeigh's book reveals that McVeigh said that he 
had parked his truck at a lot near a motel outside of Oklahoma City. It 
seems to me that this motel owner has a lot to say and is a very 
credible witness.
  But how seriously was he taken? Was that testimony taken by the FBI? 
Well, the motel owner says the FBI did not even interview the other co-
employees of the hotel who would have disproved or proven what he had 
to say. And, by the way, as I say, the official version of McVeigh is 
that he did pull up into a vacant lot near a motel and that is where he 
spent the night.
  Well, he did not say he spent the night in a motel; he just said that 
is where he parked the truck. Davis has a number of believable 
witnesses. These witnesses, and she just kept following this throughout 
the years and just kept on going and kept on going like an Energizer 
bunny, and she could not be stopped.
  And she has amassed an important amount of information, an important 
list of witnesses who claim to have seen McVeigh with John Doe 2 at 
different times before the bombing and immediately after the bombing.
  Clearly, at some point, the FBI began having second thoughts about 
the existence of John Doe 2. So here we have a reporter finding 
witnesses who have actually seen McVeigh, who is very easy to identify, 
with John Doe 2; but the FBI is beginning to think that John Doe 2 
really does not exist at all.
  This character, John Doe 2, just was not fitting into the scenario 
the FBI saw taking shape, the explanation that seemed to be gathering 
steam in terms of official circles as to what had happened. So they 
went back to the Ryder truck rental operation again and asked the owner 
again, and asked the employee who had identified, who had actually 
described John Doe 2, to take a second thought.
  The employee who originally described McVeigh, and by the way he had 
described McVeigh in such a way

[[Page H2145]]

that that drawing was based on his description, the description of John 
Doe 2. He actually changed his position and changed the description of 
the man that he claimed to have seen.
  However, I talked to the owner of the rental company, the one who 
actually did the business with McVeigh, and he is adamant. Even though 
the FBI is now saying that McVeigh went into that rental company alone, 
and is trying to convince the man who originally identified and had the 
drawing made of John Doe 2, and said, oh, yes, there was a person with 
him, that employee actually gave in to the FBI's suggestion. But the 
man who owned that little Ryder rental shop insists that McVeigh was 
not alone as the FBI is now trying to say, and insists that there was a 
man accompanying McVeigh; and although he cannot describe the man, he 
is absolutely sure McVeigh was not alone there at that company.
  And of course we ended up with a sketch of John Doe 2, and John Doe 
1, who looked exactly like McVeigh. So then it became a question, all 
of a sudden, is there a John Doe 2? Well, how much did the FBI follow 
up on the extensive investigation of Jayna Davis who has collected the 
affidavits of 22 people, who saw John Doe 2, a person that looked like 
John Doe 2 with McVeigh?
  Now, she even identified a suspect that looks like John Doe 2. And 
there are many reasons to suspect that he may well have been with 
McVeigh. And there may be a John Doe 2. But there is a lot of 
conflicting things that have to be looked at here.
  However, she actually got a picture of a Middle Eastern man who works 
there in Oklahoma City who had great trouble explaining where he was at 
the time of the explosion, and in fact was caught in many lies when 
trying to explain that. And many of the witnesses who Jayna Davis had 
shown the sketch to later on, when they were shown pictures of various 
people, she went and got a picture of this particular man who worked 
there in Oklahoma City, who was an immigrant from Iraq, I might add.

                              {time}  2200

  Many of her witnesses positively identified the man in the photo, not 
just the sketch that the FBI artist had given them, but the man in the 
photo as being the man that they saw with Timothy McVeigh. This is eye 
witness testimony. And, yes, eye witness testimony can be wrong. People 
can make a mistake. But this is important enough that the FBI should 
have looked at this individual as a potential suspect and treated him 
as such. And I would like to think that was the case at any time.
  Was the individual Jayna Davis pointed out at any time considered a 
suspect, and what type of investigation was done on this individual? It 
appears that the investigation was not a thorough investigation into 
this man, but I certainly would like to hear from authorities as to how 
extensive that investigation was. Jayna contends it was difficult even 
to get the FBI to take possession of the sworn testimony that she had 
collected that linked this individual with Timothy McVeigh. That sworn 
testimony, the affidavits she collected, was at long last accepted by 
an FBI agent. But we must note here that Jayna Davis now tells us that 
that testimony, that sworn testimony, that Timothy McVeigh was in a 
relationship with a Middle Eastern man and that he was identified at 
the scene of the bombing and in the days leading up to the bombing by 
various people. That was never passed on to McVeigh's lawyers or Terry 
Nichols' lawyers during their trials, even though by law the government 
must provide all pertinent information to the lawyers, defense lawyers 
in a trial like this.
  So why was there such a hesitation? Was there such a complication of 
just trying to get a proper investigation into someone who has been 
fingered by so many witnesses as being John Doe 2? And why was he not 
being treated as a potential suspect? Why? Was he being treated as a 
suspect? What was the investigation like? Yeah, we need to know that. 
And we need to know why all of those people were wrong, if they were 
wrong.
  So Jayna Davis, who has recently written a book called ``The Third 
Terrorist,'' should not be dismissed out of hand. I spoke to Jim 
Woolsey, former director of the CIA, and he believes, as I do, that her 
evidence and witnesses deserve serious scrutiny, and her investigation 
should be looked at judiciously. Even though 10 years has passed, it is 
not too late to look at what she has found.
  As far as Mr. Woolsey and myself, we are not saying everything that 
Jayna Davis is accurate. I, in fact, have some serious disagreements 
with some of the information that she put in her book, just an analysis 
of some other individuals, not the ones who were pointing the finger at 
John Doe 2, but I had some serious disagreements with her. But that 
does not negate the other things in the book, and especially the hard 
work she did to try to pin down those people who had actually seen 
McVeigh and this Iraqi immigrant who looked exactly like the first, not 
exactly, but looked like John Doe 2 and even had a tattoo on his arm 
which, I might add, was in the description of John Doe 2.
  So here we have a man who looks like John Doe 2 and has a tattoo on 
his arm and mysteriously cannot back up his claim of where he was when 
that bomb went off. Well, was he John Doe 2? Was he involved with 
McVeigh? We need to know that that has been thoroughly investigated.
  Other possible terrorist links can be found centered around a whole 
different approach than the one that Jayna Davis took. This time we 
must look to see if the terrorist links can be found that can be traced 
back to the encampment of a neo-Nazi compound that was near the 
Oklahoma City-Arkansas border, about a half a day's drive from Oklahoma 
City.
  A number of journalists, including J.D. Cash, Rita Cosby of Fox News, 
and others, have focused enormous energy and investigative talents into 
the activities surrounding the compound of neo-Nazis, white racists, 
gun nuts, Christian separatists, and irrational anti-government 
extremists, all of whom can be found at Elohim City, which was more 
like a small village or compound, as I say, about an afternoon's drive 
away from Oklahoma City. There were reports that as many as 250 crooks 
and criminals were based in Elohim City.
  What McVeigh and Nichols had to do with this nest of vipers has yet 
to be fully determined. So we know that neo-Nazis were there. We know 
Ku Klux Klan types, we know people whose hearts were filled with hate 
who could commit acts of violence were there, who organizing there. We 
are not so sure how much exactly Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols had 
to do with this gang.
  Records show that he stayed in a motel very nearby this compound, and 
this is way out in the sticks. And so if he was in that hotel, he was 
there because of that compound of racists and Nazis. And also his car 
and he as the driver of the car were pulled over and received a traffic 
ticket very near the compound. Again, no one is just driving on a 
Sunday afternoon and just happens to drive by this racist Nazi compound 
in Oklahoma.
  So there are some indications that McVeigh was on the scene there or 
nearby; and if he was nearby, that would mean to us that he was 
probably meeting with some of the people in the compound.
  One suggestion, for example, is that McVeigh helped finance some of 
his activities by getting money from some of the bank robbers who 
operated in and out of Elohim City. In fact, there were 22 bank 
robberies that were committed at that time by people who, as I say, 
were in and out of Elohim City and McVeigh's and Terry Nichols' 
relatives, their sisters have suggested that some of that bank robbery 
money was used by McVeigh and Nichols to further their goals. That 
connection, however, again needs to be examined.
  What was the connection between McVeigh and Nichols and the monsters, 
the racists and the Nazis and the bank robbers there at Elohim City? 
One thing is certain, this potential terrorist camp did not escape the 
attention of authorities. There was at least one paid informant there 
and probably more, other informants from other government agencies who 
probably did not know about each other.
  Carol Howe, the informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and 
Firearms, reported extensively from Elohim City. What she described was 
the preparation for an armed attack on

[[Page H2146]]

the U.S. Government. She warned of assassinations and of bombings, and 
she told that the extremists there in Elohim City were capable of 
violence and capable of using weapons.
  Federal authorities of course turned on Carol Howe later on after she 
made these reports. They actually brought charges of conspiracy and 
bomb making against her, even though she had been, obviously, an 
informant.
  Let us note that the jury system works. A jury found her not guilty. 
I have seen many of her reports firsthand and found them to be very 
provocative and alarming as to what was going on there in Elohim City.
  One of the most curious characters there was an Andreas Strassmeir. 
He was, as widely reported, in charge of security at the compound. He 
wore a gun and taught paramilitary tactics and operations. He was a 
young man who came from one of Germany's prominent families.
  So think about this. Here is the guy who is in charge of security. He 
was training people in tactics. He was training people in guerilla 
warfare tactics and operations. And here he was, a young man whose 
father was the chief of staff of Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Helmut Kohl 
was the Chancellor of Germany. This is the equivalent of the son of 
Andy Card being charged with this type, of being a Ku Klux Klanner. In 
fact, Andy Card may have a little less social prestige here than 
Andreas Strassmeir's father had in Germany because they did have a 
very, very prominent family.
  Andreas graduated from an elite military school, and then 
inexplicably he turned down a commission in the German Army; and a 
short time later he popped up in Elohim City. And there he was, as 
described by informant Howe and others as trying to provoke violent 
attacks on the United States Government which he referred to as a 
Zionist-controlled government.
  Well, Timothy McVeigh had Strassmeir's card in his wallet when he was 
arrested after the bombing. Strassmeir and McVeigh claimed to have met 
only once at a gun show long before the bombing.
  Well, who the hell is Strassmeir?
  He is either a neo-Nazi, a virulent racist who pushed American 
extremists into violent acts, or tried to anyway, or he was, which 
would be logical to assume that he might be an informant for some 
agency of some government.
  Well, if he was an informant, he was ill trained and improperly 
handled because instead of being an informant, he eventually became, if 
the reports are correct that we hear from Carol Howe and others, he 
eventually became a provocateur. The FBI has stated categorically to me 
that Strassmeir was not an FBI informant and never a source of 
information for the bureau.
  Okay. So if he was not an informant and the FBI did not think he was 
an informant, why then was Strassmeir only briefly interviewed over the 
telephone by the FBI and then permitted to leave the country after it 
was clear that he had such connections to Elohim City? If nothing else, 
they knew that bank robberies were taking place by people who were in 
and out of Elohim City. If nothing more than the bank robberies, Mr. 
Strassmeir should have faced a much more serious interrogation instead 
of being given just a few minutes on the telephone and then being 
permitted to leave.
  If he was not an informant, would not his role there in Elohim City 
and what he was doing with bank robbers and racists and Klan members 
and then of course with the possible tie-in with McVeigh, would these 
things not just call out for a thorough investigation and a close look 
by the FBI? And if nothing else, should not his connection or possible 
connection with McVeigh, who was after all the murderer of 168 
Americans, was not the possible connection worth a more thorough 
investigation? How much of an investigation was done into Strassmeir?

                              {time}  2215

  Yes, there are serious questions that need to be answered, and there 
are loose ends that need to be explained and taken care of.
  In the next few weeks, I will seek answers, and so far, the FBI has 
been more than cooperative. They are doing their best to see that I am 
satisfied with the conclusions they reached after a long and hard 
effort on the part of FBI professionals. They may well have answers 
that are very satisfying to me and to the issues that I have raised, 
and there may be no need for a hearing if this level of cooperation is 
successful, and I certainly hope it is.
  However, let us begin to answer some of these questions. We can start 
with the surveillance tapes and work our way through. In the end, the 
public needs to be satisfied that the facts are known and that every 
lead has been followed and that all of us in the government are 
committed to keeping the American people safe from internal, as well as 
external, terrorism, and when crimes occur, like the one committed 
against our people in Oklahoma City 10 years ago today, the American 
people should be able to rest assured that their government will never 
give up, never close the case until it is certain that everyone with a 
hand in such a crime has been brought to justice and that those of us 
who work for government feel a special bond to the people of the United 
States to make sure they know all of the information and are satisfied 
with the investigations that we are involved so they can rest assured 
that we are doing our job just as all of the American people go about 
their business every day doing their job as professionally as they can.
  The United States of America is a wondrous land, but we are also a 
very vulnerable country. By the very nature of our free system and our 
free country, there are people who commit heinous crimes against us. We 
saw that in 9/11. 9/11, let us admit, it was a failure of our 
intelligence systems, including the FBI, that permitted 9/11 to happen.
  I still remember that some FBI agents were calling from the field, 
pleading with their superiors to let them have a further investigation 
into these pilots, these foreign pilots that were being trained in the 
flight schools in different parts of the United States but these pilots 
who have might connection to foreign terrorists. We have heard these 
stories, and how heartbreaking it is that these FBI agents out in the 
field were turned down and they were diverted and prevented from doing 
their job by a mindset that existed.
  Well, sometimes these mindsets happen and sometimes just leads are 
ignored because everybody believes that we should be going this way 
instead of that way, and thus, if anybody else has evidence of the 
other direction, it may not get the attention that it deserves.
  We have to make sure that kind of mindset did not happen in Oklahoma 
City. We did not have to make sure of that, and by making sure that 
those people who seem to be credible witnesses, especially with tying 
Timothy McVeigh to a John Doe, we have to make sure this is thoroughly 
investigated. We have to make sure that if there was a connection 
between the bank robbers and Timothy McVeigh, that we understand that 
that possible connection has been thoroughly investigated and that 
people who are involved in those bank robberies have been interrogated 
about any meeting with Timothy McVeigh or Terry Nichols.
  We have got to understand and ask where Terry Nichols and Timothy 
McVeigh did get their money and where they got their training. If there 
is a foreign connection to the Oklahoma City bombing, and it is evident 
that these questions have not been answered, then a hearing by my 
subcommittee on the Committee on International Relations, the 
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, would certainly be 
justified.
  I will come back here in several weeks and report to the people of 
the United States what I have found and whether or not I have 
recommended to the gentleman from Illinois (Chairman Hyde), the 
Chairman of the Committee on International Relations, who has been very 
cooperative and offered me great guidance on this, I will let the 
public know whether or not I have recommended that there will be a 
hearing or not be a hearing.
  So, with this said, let me just end with this note. The FBI is filled 
with wonderful people, and our intelligence people and the CIA are 
dedicated human beings who are professional. We know there were some 
problems with 9/11, but we also know that the vast majority of agents 
and government employees and these law enforcement agencies and the 
intelligence agencies

[[Page H2147]]

are very dedicated to protecting our country.
  So nothing that I say or do should make anyone feel that this is 
implying anything but applauding the good work and applauding the 
patriotism of those people in these law enforcement agencies and 
intelligence agencies who protect us.

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