Fascinating Interview about OKC Bombing

Was Timothy McVeigh groomed by the FBI in the same way it groomed Jerry Drake Varnell to participate in a plot to blow up the BancFirst building in Oklahoma City?

Tucker Carlson just interviewed investigative journalist Margaret Roberts about her exhaustive investigation of the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995. Ms. Roberts tells an extraordinarily gripping story that raises dozens of intriguing questions.

Listening to it, I was reminded of the FBI’s grooming of Jerry Drake Varnell in 2017, encouraging him to blow up the BancFirst building in downtown Oklahoma City in 2017.

I started researching FBI grooming when I learned about an undercover FBI agent’s involvement in the 2015 plot to attack a convention at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas (see my post "Tear Up Texas": FBI Encouraged a 2015 Shooting & Did Nothing to Stop It).

Later I learned about the remarkable case of a 23-year-old diagnosed schizophrenic named Jerry Drake Varnell who—with the encouragement and assistance of an undercover FBI agent in 2017—participated in what he believed was a plot to blow up the BancFirst building in downtown Oklahoma City. He was found guilty in 2019. In 2020 he was sentenced to 25 years in prison “for attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction at BancFirst in downtown Oklahoma City.”

According to the US Attorney’s Office press release on the conviction:

At trial, the jury heard testimony from an informant who made recordings of his conversations with Varnell. It also heard from the undercover FBI agent who helped Varnell build what he thought was a bomb, an FBI bomb technician, and others. It listened to numerous recordings in which Varnell planned the attack and reviewed numerous written electronic communications that corroborated his intent. Furthermore, it heard the testimony of a defense expert concerning Varnell’s mental health. Through its verdicts, the jury concluded any mental health problems did not prevent Varnell from forming the intent required for conviction. It also determined the FBI did not entrap him.

To me, what is most striking about this case—apart from the fact that the offender was a diagnosed schizophrenic—is how he drew the attention of federal law enforcement. As reported by KGOU (an Oklahoma NPR station):

Government witnesses said they deemed Varnell a threat based on his online activity such as “liking” anti-government groups on Facebook and messages referencing Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and Tyler Durden, a split personality character from the 1999 film “Fight Club.” Agents also said Varnell claimed he had built homemade explosives during conversations with undercover FBI agent Williams and an FBI informant named Brent Elisens.

As was repeatedly pointed out by Varnell’s defense attorney:

Varnell is a diagnosed schizophrenic. He told federal agents that his anti-government sentiments started around age 16, the same age his parents say his schizophrenic episodes began.

Defense attorneys asked FBI agents if they knew of Varnell’s paranoid schizophrenia. Retired FBI agent Jennifer Schmidtz, who testified Wednesday, said she knew of “allegations” in a Custer County case involving Varnell and self-reported mental health issues in Varnell’s college transcripts. In a 2017 statement, Varnell's parents claimed he has been institutionalized on multiple occasions.

The defense has team also focused on an FBI report from Dec. 2016 that stated, “Varnell does not have a job or a vehicle. The threat has not been repeated. Varnell does not have the means to commit the act at this time.”

By August 2017, the defense pointed out, Varnell was still unemployed and without a car. …

Varnell’s property was searched the day of his arrest, and Schmidtz, who supervised the search, testified there was no physical evidence showing Varnell experimented with chemicals capable of causing an explosion. The search did uncover a speech written by Varnell laiden with conspiracy theories about developing psychotropic drugs, the Clintons and Timothy McVeigh.

During cross examinations the defense continued to point out that Varnell never followed through on pieces of the plan he was responsible for, like choosing a time and place and supplying barrels. Varnell came up with a list of locations after encouragement from undercover agent Williams, and he settled on the on the BancFirst location after Williams took him to scout the location on July 13. He suggested Nov. 5 as an attack date, but Williams said it was too far away. And Varnell never supplied barrels, so Williams provided them.

In other words, “undercover agent Williams” was the chief planner and executor of the apparent plot. Jerry Varnell participated in this plot with the encouragement of undercover agent Williams and under the direction of undercover agent Williams.

Listening to Margaret Roberts’s story, I wondered if the FBI groomed Timothy McVeigh in a similar manner.

Whatever the case may be, it seems clear that We the People can’t trust the FBI, which also somehow failed to detain 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta and his fellow plotters despite the following:

• An FBI informant spotted Atta and an al-Qaeda fugitive at a mosque in Miami in early 2001, but the FBI focused on other stings instead of investigating Atta further.

• The FAA did not investigate Atta and another hijacker after they abandoned a small plane on a taxiway in Miami in December 2000.

• An immigration officer noticed Atta's tourist visa had expired in 2000 and he had violated its terms by taking flight lessons in early 2001, yet he was granted an extension and allowed to re-enter the country multiple times.

• The CIA knew the Atta was a member of the so-called Hamburg Cell of radicals. Did the FBI really not ask the CIA if it had any intel on Atta?

• The FBI had advance intelligence that Atta’s fellow hijackers, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, had ties to Al-Qaeda.

After failing to detain the hijackers—despite innumerable indications they were Islamic terrorists who were plotting something terrible—the FBI’s power and budget were greatly expanded after 9/11.