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CNN Saturday Morning News

Reporter's Notebook: The Latest Developments in the McVeigh Case

Aired May 12, 2001 - 09:32   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It is time once again for our "Reporter's Notebook," and your e-mail questions and comments about the McVeigh execution delay. To help us with answers and insight, we are joined by CNN national correspondent Bob Franken in Terre Haute, Indiana, Susan Candiotti, Denver, Colorado, Michael Gerhardt, constitutional law professor in Washington, D.C.

Thank you all for being with us, good to see you, all three.

And let's go right to the e-mail, shall we? This one comes from Tim and Sue Carr. I'm not going to say where they're from because they'll probably be audited for the remainder of their lives. They have a new acronym for FBI, Fumbling Bumbling Idiots, is what they're saying.

In any case, let's move on. That's -- reflects a lot of sentiment this morning. Bruce in Pine, Arizona, has this. "Is there any possibility the delay is a ruse to control or manipulate McVeigh's possible disclosure of the unknown accomplice from either being named or buried by the FBI? After all, this is still an unanswered question."

Susan, you want to take that one?

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the FBI continues to insist that during the course of their investigation, they looked at everybody and everything and all these millions of documents and could find no evidence of a wider conspiracy.

In addition to that, Timothy McVeigh himself continues to insist that he acted largely alone. And one of the things authorities point out to us, for example, the calling card that they looked at, and Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were calling mostly themselves or places where they could acquire bomb ingredients.

So they say, where are these other people? That's what the authorities say.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's go to Dale Friesen, who has this, and a related question from Lenny Feldsott. "I think it was 3,000 pages, not documents that were found," Lenny responding to our reporting earlier, we'll have to clarify that. And then Dale has this, "Will it likely take the full month of the stay granted by the attorney general for the defense to read the new material and respond?"

Mr. Gerhardt, want to take that one?

PROF. MICHAEL GERHARDT, COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY: Well, it's my understanding that there's something in the neighborhood of 3,100 pages of documents. I'm not sure specifically how many separate documents there are. And as for -- as far as the time is concerned, I suspect that 30 days could be sufficient for all the parties to review the documents, particularly if they have multimember teams for each of the parties reviewing the documents.

But 30 days is still not a heck of a lot of time, because you want to review the documents and then assess their legal significance.

O'BRIEN: All right. The phone lines have filled up. And Kyra, have you got one for us?

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, Steven from Florida has a question. Bob, this is for you. Go ahead, Steven.

CALLER: Good morning. Basically, a dual question. One is, what is the nature of those documents? Do we have any details on that? And the other is, I've heard that (AUDIO GAP) the Gulf War records, medical records, from people who were in that building. Is there any truth to that that you know about?

BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Actually, I don't know, I don't know the latter one. It's entirely possible, of course, and of course you're making a connection with the fact that Timothy McVeigh was a veteran of the Gulf War.

As for the nature of the documents, many of them are what they call 302s, which are FBI summaries of interrogations. And there are just questions about whether these documents include material which could be material to the case, which could, in fact, be used to open up some sort of appeal, and secondly, of course, material which could help Timothy McVeigh. Those are the analyses that are going to have to be done.

And Michael was talking a moment ago about going through the documents. Quite frankly, so much of the documentation in any particular case is material that you can speed-read, but the lawyers have to go over this word by word to see if somehow one turn of phrase is something that could have been important to the defense.

O'BRIEN: All right. We'll get an e-mail which is sort of a follow-up to that, and maybe we'll send this over to Susan. This comes from somebody with the handle JavaBoy. "What information could these documents possibly hold that would be cause to eliminate the sentence of death for McVeigh?"

CANDIOTTI: Well, that's unclear. That's unclear because no one knows precisely what kind of information is in these documents. We do know, for example, it contains information about John Doe 2 sightings. We do know that this information could probably help Terry Nichols, at least lawyers say, more so than Timothy McVeigh, because while McVeigh has said, I did it, I admit to the bombing, Terry Nichols has maintained all along, I didn't do it, you've got the wrong person.

So if they can turn up additional information about a John Doe 2, that could be helpful to Terry Nichols.

O'BRIEN: All right. Let's -- as a matter of fact, there's a good question here about this from June Cook. She offers this on the e-mail. "If Terry Nichols' lawyers request McVeigh's presence at a new appeal due to newly discovered documents, could it -- could that delay McVeigh's execution?" Michael Gerhardt, you want to take that one?

GERHARDT: I don't think so. I think that McVeigh's execution, obviously, is set by the government right now, and it will be controlled ultimately by the Justice Department and perhaps with the further participation of a judge. But I don't think that Nichols' request for McVeigh to appear as a witness will have any influence on the date of his execution.

O'BRIEN: OK, even if they felt it was -- the defense for Mr. Nichols would claim that that was a crucial witness and crucial testimony?

GERHARDT: No, even if they thought it was crucial, I suspect one thing they could probably do is videotape it, or have called him before and questioned him to the effect that they want to question him now. But I don't -- they're fully aware of the deadline with respect to his death penalty, and they can act accordingly.

PHILLIPS: All right, we're going to take another phone call. Jerry's on the line from New York. Go ahead, Jerry.

CALLER: Yes, my question lies -- is, if he, McVeigh, were perhaps African-American, would those 3,000 pages have been found some 30 years from now, and he be executed as planned?

CANDIOTTI: Well, I'll tell you...

FRANKEN: Well, you know, there's...

CANDIOTTI: ... if I could jump in on that one -- you know, Timothy McVeigh has said, has told his lawyers that he thought for sure, given his feelings about the FBI and how McVeigh thinks the FBI operates, that he thought for sure that these documents would show up after the execution. They didn't. The FBI, you could argue, to its credit did stand up and say, Here they are, even if it was shortly before the date of the execution.

O'BRIEN: All right, that FBI issue came up quite a bit in our e- mail. Here's a couple of samplings. "Mr. Freeh, you are the weakest link. Goodbye." That's Dennis in St. Johns, Antigua. "Did the FBI spend too much time investigating the Clinton and Lewinsky scandal?" asks Lester Johnson, tongue firmly in cheek, we assume. "Do you believe the past FBI director, Louis Freeh" -- he's not past just yet, but on his way out -- "knew something about the misplaced Oklahoma City bombing documents and stepped down just in time before Congress had his head on a platter?" Anybody want to take that one? I think we've been reporting that he apparently did not know, the FBI didn't know within its own bureaucracy. Susan?

CANDIOTTI: He didn't know, Miles, from all indications, and from all the people I've talked about this with within the FBI. They admit this was a blunder among their field offices and that people simply didn't do the jobs they were supposed to do in turning over all the information. Louis Freeh found out when the bosses who headed up this investigation found out. That seems to be the indication that we have. I've heard no information to the contrary.

FRANKEN: Well, and Miles, also, I think that the FBI has got a real PR problem. This is not the first blunder that the FBI has had to deal with. There's the spy case, the Hanssen case, there's been a series of problems that has tarnished the FBI's image for years, particularly under J. Edgar Hoover. The FBI was considered almost a super-police force, where everybody was an outstanding practitioner of law enforcement. And what has happened over a period of time is that image has really deteriorated.

So among other things, it's got to work on, A, improving its image, and many people would feel it has to work on improving its performance.

O'BRIEN: Wow.

CANDIOTTI: And in this case, time and again, the FBI kept telling the trial judge, Your honor, we have turned over everything, we've given you everything, and it's not the first time it's happened in this case, and now for this to happen so close to the execution, it doesn't make the agency look good.

PHILLIPS: All right, guys, we're going to take another phone call. Michael, maybe you can answer this one. We were talking about it earlier in the hour. Linda's on the phone from Canada. Go ahead, Linda.

CALLER: Morning.

PHILLIPS: Good morning. What's your question?

CALLER: I'd like to know if Timothy McVeigh can still insist on his execution taking place. And also, will the FBI down there be...

PHILLIPS: Go ahead, Michael.

CALLER: ... investigated?

GERHARDT: In answer to the first question, he can still insist on being executed, but I don't think he's going to have the final word on that issue. It's not clear, first of all, whether his lawyers will completely want to comply with his wishes regarding being put to death. That's number one. And number two, as the attorney general pointed out, this is really no longer just about Timothy McVeigh, it's about the integrity of the justice system and the judicial process. And that's what the primary actors in this circumstance are trying to protect.

And that's why the FBI, I think, certainly deserves further investigation. There needs to be an internal audit of what happened here. And as Bob points out, this isn't the first big mistake that's happened in recent years. And in fact, it appears as if the FBI hasn't learned from its own mistakes, and that's cause for further concern.

O'BRIEN: Correspondents Susan Candiotti, Bob Franken, counselor Michael Gerhardt, thank you all three for being with us on CNN SATURDAY MORNING. And thanks to all of you for some really good e- mail questions and phone calls this morning. We always appreciate your input on our program.

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