[From an interview with Linda Thompson on the For the People radio show, Feb. 11, 1994. Host is Chuck Harder.]
CHUCK HARDER: Hello, hello. Hi, everybody! Hello there. Chuck Harder, For The People. Glad you are with us.
Today, by popular demand, attorney Linda Thompson is on with us. And she is the producer of the new tape, "Waco, the Big Lie Continues." We will be talking to her in just one second, uh... a couple of seconds, if you please.
We want to say "hello" to 2... no, make it 3 new stations that we have added today.
KURY, Brookings, Oregon. They run on our network 24 hours a day. And they are on.
And, we want to say "hello" to WTSJ. They're 1050 on the dial in Cincinnati, Ohio.
And WLSE, which is 1400 on the dial in Wallace, North Carolina.
All right? And we'll be saying "hello" to other stations that join us.
Now... to go to the phone here and talk to Linda Thompson. Linda, let's start out (for folks who did not hear our last broadcast): You are a Juris Doctor. Isn't that right?
LINDA THOMPSON: That's correct.
HARDER: That means "lawyer," folks.
THOMPSON: [Laughs] It means I have a doctoral degree in law.
HARDER: Right.
THOMPSON: Which actually means virtually nothing, 'cause they don't teach you anything in law school about the real law... but, anyway...
HARDER: O.K. Now... Uh, is this true?? That you're also a disabled Vietnam Conflict veteran?
THOMPSON: Yep.
HARDER: [Surprised] No kidding!
THOMPSON: No kidding.
HARDER: You got... what'd ya do? Get too close to a hand grenade?
THOMPSON: No. I wasn't in combat at all. No, I actually got injured in a training... during training exercise I hurt my back.
HARDER: Wow.
THOMPSON: ...couple things that ripped... All it really does effect-wise is, when I'm pregnant, I'm paralyzed.
HARDER: Oh my.
THOMPSON: But anyway, I've had 3 kids. They're healthy, fine. And it's just been fine.
HARDER: Now. Let me ask you a couple of questions here. First of all, let's explain that you got interested in the Waco matter, how? What caused you to get involved?
THOMPSON: It's a cumulation of 2 or 3 things. I think, predominantly, Randy Weaver's situation was my "battle cry." It was my "wake up call." Because I got involved in Randy Weaver's situation peripherally. We have a computer network, and our network was started because we were hearing things all over the country that were occurring that weren't being covered by the major television networks. And that appalled me. It was disturbing to me that horrible violations of people's Constitutional rights were not making the mainstream papers or networks. I began to be very suspicious of that.
Well with Weaver's situation, I called and talked to Chuck Stanloss(?) while it was going on. I got a copy of Randy Weaver's diary. And the cases that I have had -- my legal cases -- several of them have been what are called very "high profile," where you get international television coverage on the stories, and so forth. So I know a lot of these media people, and usually I can just pick up the phone and say, "Hey guys. We got a hot one here." And they would do a story "in a heartbeat." Well I couldn't get anybody to run Randy Weaver's diary! I couldn't get anybody to cover the Weaver story from any aspect except the "White Supremacist, Holed Up in Mountain Cabin, In Shoot-Out With the Feds." That was the version that they were telling... and it was not the truth!
HARDER: Yeah. You know why, don't you?
THOMPSON: Of course! But at the time I didn't.
HARDER: O.K. Why, do you feel, the reason is, today?
THOMPSON: The reason today is because our media is, our national broadcast media, is absolutely part and parcel of an overall plan to change America's law as we know it; to make us part of this "One World Government," "New World Order," business. And they're not going to tell the American public anything they need to know to stop it.
HARDER: O.K. What I see -- understand, I did work for NBC.
THOMPSON: Uh-hum. [Affirmative]
HARDER: And I did work for WMCA in New York. And I was in a deal, for awhile, where there was some big media money in it. And I learned very quickly what the "velvet hammer" was. And that's where you get the phone call from a director or some kind of a big "muckity-muck," and they say, "You know, we oughtta not be spending our time and energy on such-and-such a topic." Or, "Why would you want to give this guy a forum?" (Meaning, say, Ralph Nader.)
THOMPSON: Right.
HARDER: You know, "Can't we find something else to devote our energy to that's neutral?"
And you learn very quickly that giant corporations, that have the media outlets... And if you go to the Securities & Exchange Commission record, and you start looking at who owns the stock -- and I'm talking about enough big blocks of stock to have control -- you'll see that there's a roundtable. And at the roundtable sits David Rockefeller (the Chase [Bank]), Brown Brothers - Harriman, J.P. Morgan, and a number of other organizations like this... including General Electric. And of course they [General Electric] own NBC. And then you see the TCI money and the Liberty Media, and what have you. And it doesn't take too long to realize that "everybody owns everybody." That there's interlocking ownership.
THOMPSON: Yep.
HARDER: And interlocking boards of directors.
THOMPSON: And those same guys are the ones that control who gets picked for President...
HARDER: Right.
THOMPSON: ... many of the Congressional seats, and so forth. And yeah: When people say there's a global conspiracy -- they're right. This is exactly what you're describing.
HARDER: Well.
THOMPSON: Interlocking board of directors, and so forth, have a convergence of political views that has the effect of being a plan.
HARDER: All right, hang on. We'll be right back.
[...commercial break...]
CHUCK HARDER: Linda Thompson is our guest. She is an attorney.
And so, you got "cranked up" over this Waco thing because you realized that there was a press blackout. We realized that. As I said, from my personal experience I can tell you that right now, on national TV, here's what you see:
You see the Menendez trial. You hear the ongoings of the Lorena Bobbit, John Bobbit... You hear them get in a couple of shots at Ross Perot. You hear the Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding...
And the reason you hear, essentially, Menendez, Bobbit and Harding is that those are what they call "neutral stories." In other words, they have enough human interest to command an audience, and it will be perceived as news. It's actually "info-tainment," is what it's really called in the industry. And because it does not impinge or effect any large corporation and/or government entity, it is "neutral."
And that's what you'll see on the nightly news. Nothing else.
LINDA THOMPSON: Pablum.
HARDER: Pablum. Exactly.
THOMPSON: Well you do see a little "something else," and that is agendas...
HARDER: Oh yeah.
THOMPSON: ...are government agendas. Because NBC, for instance, ran a week-long series of anti-gun propaganda. {1}. While Waco was going on and even since Waco's been on, we see such programs as, for instance, the one "Prime Time," the other night, "Waco, the Untold Story," where they only interviewed people that are disgruntled former members of the Branch Davidians or people that were not Koresh supporters that still live there, to tell the same old story that we've heard over and over again that is absolutely not true. Yet that is what they base the entire raid on, was the former, disgruntled members' story.
HARDER: Well it's very easy to find disgruntled employees at any company. But let's put it this way: Let's pretend for a moment that all that's correct. Let's, just for a moment, let me use a hypothesis here. Let's pretend that Koresh was a nut and that everything, indeed, was wrong. O.K.? Now the first question you have is, number one, Why did they launch an assault? It was not to serve a warrant but instead to make "dramatic entries into the building." Why is it that they did not serve the warrant? They instead, really, just simply launched a raid that would not have stopped if they [the BDs after the raid had begun] had come to the front door and said, "Hi! Nice day. Come on in." That's number one. That's the first question.
The second question, I think, is this: Once that had failed and blood had been shed, Why did they refuse all of the local people who knew the folks inside, and why did they refuse the mediators like the Bo Gritzes, who, whether you agree or disagree with Bo Gritz and all those other types of mediators...
THOMPSON: Gritz did not make an offer to go down there.
HARDER: Well he said, he said to us...
THOMPSON: He absolutely did not. We have him on tape saying he didn't.
HARDER: O.K. But, he told us he did.
THOMPSON: Then he's lying.
HARDER: Well, O.K. But let's pretend that the local sheriff... uh, the local sheriff, apparently, wanted to get involved. And they told him to stand back. Is that not true?
THOMPSON: No, that's not true.
HARDER: Well, we have...
THOMPSON: The local sheriff was "in it" up to his eyeballs. We've got film footage of the local sheriff down there all the time involved in it. In the interior road blocks and so forth, in fact, he's one of the people that you can see in the background in the footage of the ATF beating the snot out of one of the reporters.
HARDER: Well, we have a number of stories. And apparently we have a different set of stories than what you're telling me about, and I'm not arguing with you -- I'm telling you -- that apparently, local people wanted to mediate.
THOMPSON: A lot of people did, yeah. There was plenty of volunteers, theologians, people from all over the country volunteered.
HARDER: All right. And the government said to these people, "This is our show. Stay out." Is that correct?
THOMPSON: Well absolutely. You could tell that from everything that went on. They determined who was going to be allowed to even report about it, much less come in and do anything.
HARDER: So that, the comment here would be, from a legal standpoint, the government made no attempt to mitigate damages. There was no attempt to stop the troubles. Is that correct?
THOMPSON: Well, [sighs] from a legal perspective, no. Because you don't use mitigation of damages in a criminal case.
The government exacerbated the problem and absolutely didn't use any reasonable standard in what they did do.
HARDER: They made it worse.
THOMPSON: Yeah. They made it worse. And they intentionally made it worse. I mean, a "reasonable man standard" would apply here. That, What would a reasonable person do? You would try to do anything to lessen the tension, lessen the problem, uh, facilitate negotiations. You wouldn't try to exacerbate the situation... which is what they did.
HARDER: Well, you know, certainly, if they did to the people... if they did to me, at my home... If I woke up tomorrow and my home was surrounded by these people in black stocking caps, and they had guns, and they had searchlights, and blaring noise, and what have you -- I mean, I must tell you: I certainly would not be inclined to go out the front door and put my hands up. 'Cause I would know for sure they would kill me.
THOMPSON: Well in the final report from the Department of Justice, they admit that when people did come out, they "flash- banged" them with grenades. They threw grenades at anybody that came out. And on March 24th, Bob Ricks [FBI Spokesman] announced at the press conference that anybody that came out would be shot.
And we weren't told these things. This is a very frustrating part of dealing with explaining Waco, 'cause first I have to explain to people, "What you heard was not true," and "Here's how I know it's not true." We spend a lot of time undoing the damage that the government did with its own propaganda. You know, convincing people of this false story that they presented, you know, that "The Branch Davidians won't negotiate and they won't come out." Well the fact is, the government wasn't trying to negotiate. And when they did try to come out, they did things to 'em. Horrible things.
HARDER: And we do, we have, or you have I should say, somehow on record, Bob Ricks saying he's going to shoot 'em?
THOMPSON: He announced that anyone -- this came out across the AP [Associated Press] wire services, and it was on the press conference -- he said that anyone who came out would be considered a threat to the agents and would be shot.
HARDER: Well then how would you end this thing peaceably, if...
THOMPSON: Exactly.
HARDER: ...if you won't let them come out, how do you end it peaceably?
THOMPSON: They weren't intending to. I don't believe the government had any intention of letting those people out peaceably. They were also telling the people inside that, initially, if they let the children out and then they came out themselves, that they would not be charged, they would not be arrested, their children wouldn't be put in foster homes. And yet the first people that came out were some of the children with two elderly ladies, Annette Richards and Catherine Madison. Both of those old women were arrested.
HARDER: ...and put in chains...
THOMPSON: And they were not charged. They were held as witnesses, and yet they were shackled hand and foot, put in the jail, transported back and forth like common criminals, and they held a secret arraignment of these women. They wouldn't allow 'em out of custody. That was unbelievable, to me. That was another in a series of unbelievable things that occurred in this.
HARDER: This is frightening stuff. Linda Thompson and I will be right back. Folks, listen carefully.
[...commercial break...]
CHUCK HARDER: Our guest is Linda Thompson.
So now Linda, where we're at here is... By the way, let me just mention again to the folks that the name of this tape is "Waco, the Big Lie Continues"?
LINDA THOMPSON: Uh-hum. [Affirmative] "Waco II" is the simplest way...
HARDER: Yeah.
THOMPSON: ...to call it. Everybody's calling it "Waco II."
HARDER: All right. And again, if you want to get a copy call 1- 800-888-9999. If busy, keep trying. It's $19.95 and shipping and handling.
Um, let's continue on here. And, and let's now go to... uh, Bob Ricks has said, "Anybody who comes out is going to be shot." Uh, I don't remember seeing that in the press. Of course, my life has been a blur. But, uh, did the press pick that up?
THOMPSON: Yeah. It came across the AP [Associated Press] wires. But it was not widely disseminated.
HARDER: O.K.
THOMPSON: You didn't hear it on ABC, CBS, CNN and so forth. And of course, we're listening with, you know, "jaded ears" at that point. We, we are specifically listening for things like that. So we caught it, we kept it, and yes, they said it. They can't get out of that.
And in the Department of Justice report they admit that they threw grenades at 'em if they came out. It says it very plainly in there. In fact, I think they admit, uh, the part about Bob Ricks saying that, in the report... But can't remember that one specifically. But I do remember, they admit "flash-bang" grenades being thrown at the people.
Uh, they admit that they were... basically, they've admitted -- in the Department of Justice and ATF reports -- they've admitted everything in "Waco I" except for the flame-throwing tank. And they lied to try to explain that one. They do not try to claim that the tank that you see in "Waco I" with the flames coming out of it is not real. They did have an expert from the University of Maryland analyze it, and one at Fort Harrison. We've had an FBI forensics expert analyze it. No one has tried to claim that we altered the tape, or that it's not flame {2}. They've tried to explain it away by saying they don't know what it is. And they said... Janet Reno stood up and said, [mimicking Reno] "Well we had CEV-I and CEV-II out there." (Now she's referring to the tanks: "Combat Engineer Vehicle," that's what CEV stands for.) [mimicking Reno] "We had CEV-I and CEV-II out there. And the investigators have inspected those. And they don't have any equipment to shoot flames. And there's no charring on them." As if that's an explanation.
Well on page 49 of the Department of Justice report it says CEV- II broke down and the tank crew got another tank that was not equipped to inject tear gas. She also does not mention the other, almost dozen, tanks that were out there besides CEV-I and II.
So these are the kinds of things that they do. And the reason that they're... when you see these public officials on TV, they are telling you truth in what they say because they're afraid of voice stress analysis. So when Janet Reno stood up and talked about "CEV-I and II," that much of it is true. But she's creating a false impression in your mind that she's addressing the tank that you see in our tape -- and she's not!
HARDER: In other words, it is an "error by omission" or a "lie by omission."
THOMPSON: Yeah. Smoke and mirrors.
HARDER: O.K.
THOMPSON: They're very good at it.
HARDER: All right. Now, what's going on with the trial right now? We don't see anything on the national press. Yes, we get wire services here. We do have some informants at the trial.
But we're gonna take a quick half-hour break here -- you know, break at the half-hour for our local stations for 3 minutes -- but when we come back, I'd like you to give us an idea of the following (and maybe if we just make a little note here): Number 1, What has come out? What has the government admitted, number 1, so far at the trial? O.K.? What has the government admitted. Uh, we know already that they've admitted that had David Koresh met them at the front door and said, "Hi. Nice day, isn't it? What do ya got for me?", that the rest of the team still would have busted in. We know that, correct?
THOMPSON: That's absolutely right.
HARDER: O.K. So let's go over, when we come back, What has the government admitted? (Number 1.) And number 2, What's going on from your perspective? And what do you think will happen to this trial? And then, What's next?
Stay with us, everybody. We'll be right back with Linda Thompson.
[...commercial break...]
CHUCK HARDER: We're back. We're talking to Linda Thompson. She's an attorney. She is the producer of what we call "Waco II", "Waco, the Big Lie Continues".
Uh, now, what has the government admitted, Linda? What have they admitted in trial that you have solid evidence of that has not been out in the press?
LINDA THOMPSON: Well, we need to cover some of the background on the trial first to understand what's going on.
HARDER: O.K. Sure.
THOMPSON: Walter Smith is the judge. And this is going on in federal district court, which means it's a federal court as distinguished from Randy Weaver's situation.
Walter Smith was the judge in Waco. Now Dennis Greene is his magistrate. Now magistrates do not have the full power of a judge. They're usually picked by a judge; the judge picks his own magistrate.
Dennis Greene is the man who signed the search warrant originally, and has been working hand in hand with Bill Johnstone, who is the U.S. attorney there. Between them, they have a long record of having some of the highest rates of gun prosecutions of anyplace in the country, right in Waco, between Dennis Greene and Bill Johnstone.
Now Walter Smith, then, is the judge that sealed the search warrant originally. He is the man who had secret arraignments of the Branch Davidians (which is illegal. That's like the "star chamber" back in England.) When these people were brought in and arraigned, he held it in secret.
Walter Smith, in his first 7 orders about the Branch Davidians, back in March last year [i.e. in March 1993], called them criminals! Himself, in his order, he referred to these people as criminals. Now that is, by itself (as a defense attorney), was basis to get rid of Walter Smith as the judge in this case. So it's very, very odd that no one got him off this case with motions and arguments and so forth.
HARDER: Hang on a minute. Could it be that he put that in there so that if this thing goes one way or another, somebody can call for a mistrial or what have you?
THOMPSON: Possibly. But you've got a problem when the defense doesn't challenge it, it's not the basis for an appeal. Unless another attorney comes in and tries to use the fact that the attorneys themselves didn't challenge it. But anyway, it would [unclear] if somebody would have challenged it and lost, they could appeal it. But secondly, what else he did, he is the man... most of these Davidians have appointed attorneys... court- appointed attorneys that are paid by the government.
HARDER: Yeah?
THOMPSON: Yeah. And Walter Smith hand picked every one of those attorneys. So all of the attorneys have been picked by the judge. Then he cut their salaries in half. Now I can tell you: The appointed jobs do not pay very well. Very few successful attorneys, anymore, take appointed cases -- for no reason other than the fact that you lose money taking those cases because you've got to keep your office open while you're being paid this pittance of money to do a very complex case. So, by cutting the salaries in half, any of the attorneys that were inclined to be good and do their job couldn't.
Now then he transferred the case to San Antonio. That happens to be where the government's special prosecutor is from. And it also happens to be where the government's chief witness for the FBI, Jeff Jamar, is from. So that makes it very convenient for the government, less expensive, less hassle. And it causes a lot of trouble for the defense attorneys, who have to commute and essentially set up an office in San Antonio. Now they're going to have to fund their own expenses for all of that at the time that they're being paid virtually nothing!
Now doing any kind of defense on a case this complex is going to be extremely expensive because you've gotta pay a lot of people. You've gotta take depositions of a lot of witnesses. That costs about $400 to $1,000 apiece. There's a lot of time involved. You need a lot of assistants to do it. They don't have that available to 'em. They can't do a good job. Even if they want to, they can't.
HARDER: Well where's the American Civil Liberties Union in this?
THOMPSON: Well... That's another story. We'll get to them in a minute...
HARDER: All right.
THOMPSON: ...get down to San Antonio to do this trial and you've got seven... You've got the attorneys that were all picked by Walter Smith. Walter Smith is still on the case, even though he's transferred it to San Antonio, he is still the judge.
We get to trial. He picked the jury pool and he hand picked all the jurors. And then he kept the jurors anonymous. You can't know the identities of each of the jurors. No one can.
Then he put a gag order on all of the attorneys and he hand picked the press that would be allowed in to cover the story. He's only allowed 5 members of the press into the trial to cover the story. We know that 2 of those 5 are government. Three of them we don't know anything about, but we're not hearing anything so we can presume that they were picked for that reason -- you know, that they would not provide good [press] coverage, they would not talk this up, and they wouldn't reveal what's going on in the trial.
So before we even get to trial, what people should understand is this: This thing is fixed. It's rigged.
Now looking at it you could reasonably think, "Well it's rigged so they're sure to get a conviction." But that's not true either. Some of the people who are on trial are not Branch Davidians. They are government plants; they're agents that were already in Mount Carmel before the raid. You might remember some of the comments that were made afterwards by Ann Richards and Janet Reno, uh, that we should have agencies working together so we don't have a problem with one agency running up on another agency's undercover operation. This is what happened in Waco. You had agencies attacking Mount Carmel that didn't know the other agencies were already working undercover there.
HARDER: Um-hum. [Indicates he understands]
THOMPSON: So some of the people that were brought out, for instance, the day of the fire, were not Branch Davidians. They were, in fact, one agency's undercover operatives. That... Those people are on trial anyway because they can't afford to tell you, tell the American public, "These are agents." All right? They don't want their identity revealed.
Now what happens if you have a government agent and you put 'em on -- you know, an undercover agent like that -- you put 'em on trial. They're charged with a crime. They have the same protection as any defendant. They've got the 5th amendment right not to testify. They never have to admit they're agents. They never have to testify. And they're fine, as long as they're acquitted, right?
HARDER: Right.
THOMPSON: Now what we're seeing in this trial, that I think is very, very interesting, is the government is throwing the trial. For now, the only side of the story that has been presented has been the prosecution's case. You will not see a... Realize: The U.S. attorney has no surprises. There are... He does not put a witness on the stand he has not interviewed. He's going to know exactly what that witnesses testimony is going to be.
HARDER: Um-hum. [Indicates he understands]
THOMPSON: Now if you have one brain [cell] in your head, you do not put a witness on the stand that's gonna hurt your side. That's the other side's job. All right? You don't go lining up witnesses that get on the stand and tell things that are bad for you. And you certainly don't elicit that testimony yourself. And yet that's exactly what the government has done. They have put up witness after witness, of their own, that has said things like, "Well, yeah, we did shoot our own agents," "Yeah, well, we were gonna make this dynamic entry," "Yeah, we did lose the element of surprise."
Now. There's 2 reasons this is happening: (1) The government is throwing the trial. But (2) the only story that comes out that way is exactly the same story that we've got in the ATF final report and what we've heard in the media all along. It is damage control. Even though they appear to be making all these great admissions, they're not admitting anything more than they've already admitted. And they're making sure that the story stays the same in the process of the trial. And they're throwing the trial.
They're probably going to get convictions of the real Branch Davidians. The people that are acquitted are suspect. But I don't believe we're going to see convictions of the government agents in this trial. And I think that's the purpose of what's going on here and why there has been such extreme control.
HARDER: [Pause.... ] Wow!
Linda Thompson is a lawyer. She is with us. She's talking to us about what she knows about the Waco trial. She has provided... She has produced, I should say, a new videotape which is now [Feb. 11, 1994] just in the duplication stage, called "Waco, the Big Lie Continues," or "Waco II," if you please. It's available through us, if you want to call up 1-800-888-9999. We'll be right back.
[...commercial break...]
CHUCK HARDER: We are back. We're talking to Linda Thompson. She is an attorney. And she has been studying the Waco matter. She has produced a masterful videotape. (I saw the first one. The second one, I understand, is just a real, real eye-popper.)
Now Linda, you're telling me that the government is throwing the trial. What do you mean by "throwing" the trial? What will the outcome be?
LINDA THOMPSON: The outcome will be... The only damaging testimony has been against 2 people, Brad Branch and Livingstone Fagan, thus far. There has not been any damaging testimony against most of the other Branch Davidians. I think we're going to see acquittals of the majority of the Branch Davidians. And that is because the government is putting on witnesses that hurt the government, at least in the eyes of the jury.
HARDER: Uh-huh. [Indicates he understands]
THOMPSON: Because the government has been able to completely control the evidence available to the defense attorneys, for instance. There's nobody that's going to challenge, effectively, what is being presented. For instance, one glaring example of this, at the trial the other day... One of the ATF agents testified that they had moved the day of the raid up a day because the Waco Herald-Tribune was gonna come out with their articles on Saturday. And they moved the raid up to Sunday. And that they had planned to do the raid, originally, on Monday.
That's not true. The [search] warrant was applied for on the 24th. It expired on the 28th, which was Sunday. And that is the day the raid was done, was the 28th. They could not have had any other plan to do it on Monday because the warrant would have already been expired on Monday.
Now this is an example of a little bit of nonsense that they have come up with to help bolster their story. You know, that they "lost the element of surprise." The claim of losing the element of surprise is in itself a lie. But it's being told, not for the purpose of admitting that the government is a bunch of bumbling boobs, but to reinforce the idea that the Branch Davidians were waiting for them. When you say you "lost the element of surprise," what are you essentially saying -- the Branch Davidians had an opportunity to prepare. And that's what they're claiming. That is their story: "The Branch Davidians were waiting on us. Yes, our guys screwed up. They lost the element of surprise." That's the government's official story. And this is the kind of evidence that they're putting on, with a series of these little "admissions": "Yes, we probably shot our own guys," "Yes, we lost the element of surprise," and so forth.
And that is what they're doing at trial, is presenting this preconceived story, all of which is a lie. But they're making sure that just that version comes out. There's nobody there to effectively challenge it. It's going to go straight down the way they've told it in the ATF final report. And at the same time, the government is making sure that they release just enough bad information against themselves that there will be acquittals. And you would not do that... I mean, the prosecution does not put on witnesses that hurt their case, unless they're throwing the trial -- and that's what they're doing.
HARDER: All right. Why would they want acquittals?
THOMPSON: Because some of these people on trial are government agents. They're not Branch Davidians.
And they're caught in a crack. They cannot reveal to the American public that they've got government agents that are on trial. Because those were undercover agents. They were plants. They were people that you're not supposed to know are not Branch Davidians.
HARDER: So they're in a "catch-22".
THOMPSON: Well it's not really a "catch-22". It's really pretty clever because they can use these same people to convict the ones they need to convict, and yet use their own testimony of agents that get up on the stand to give away just enough information to acquit the ones they want acquitted. For instance, if you've got somebody on the stand says, "Well I didn't see this guy with a gun," and "He didn't do anything," while you've got another one getting on the stand pointing a finger at a specific one, you can tell who they're targeting. They're intending to get convictions of a few of them and acquittals of others by the direct testimony. They're manipulating this trial very effectively.
HARDER: I'm surprised that nobody moved to sever any of these people. [CN -- By this, "sever", I think is meant to move for a separate trial for a particular defendant.]
THOMPSON: Well I think they did, actually. There was one attorney (that is not appointed) and he did move to sever. And the motion was denied. That would be the basis for an appeal.
But there's a lot of things that I would have expected to see from the defense attorneys that has not occurred. Such as endless fights over the evidence. For instance, they should have been entitled to all... All this stuff is filmed; every bit of it was filmed...
HARDER: Right.
THOMPSON: ...top to bottom, inside-out. They should have been entitled to those videos. They haven't been able to get 'em. And rather than allow it to proceed to trial without that evidence, my personal preference would have been to go on and appeal it right then. You can get what's called an "interlocutory appeal," demand that you get this evidence. Because you're entitled to it. By law you are entitled to anything that tends to prove that your client is not guilty. We know from one of the pictures that is available and has been shown at trial -- in fact it's in our video... It's a picture of the front door. That is absolutely good for the Branch Davidians because it shows that the ATF is standing there shooting at the front door. There's no one at any of the front windows. This is a dead-on picture. You'll see it in "Waco II". It's not in "Waco I". But it's a picture of the front door; no one at any of the windows. The front door is cracked open; it opens inward. And the ATF has said, "The Branch Davidians were at all the windows. They shot out through the front door with such force that it bowed the door." You can't bow a door that's open. You know, if it opens inward, the force of bullets coming from inside would have slammed the door shut...
HARDER: Right.
THOMPSON: ...before it bowed the door.
Well the door's open, there's a lot of bullet holes in it. They're all from the outside. There's not a single Branch Davidian at any of the windows. And there's only one window that's even broken -- and that's the window that ATF is shooting into.
But the most damning pieces of evidence is that there's a little child out front, as all this is going on, and then we've got video footage that shows them taking another child, in a little black body bag, to an ambulance. So they killed kids that first day.
Now we've got proof that the first shots were fired by the overhead helicopter; not by the Branch Davidians and not by ATF, but by the helicopter that flew over and fired into the roof where the women and children were. And they killed kids in there too!
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[CN Editor -- Now seems like a good time to insert the following section from the Report of the Committee for Waco Justice. Excerpts only.]
ALLEGATIONS AGENTS SHOT INDISCRIMINATELY AND FROM HELICOPTERS (Section 13, BATF-Treasury section of report)
The Treasury report states that BATF agents "returned fire when possible, but conserved their ammunition. They also fired only when they saw an individual engage in a threatening action, such as pointing a weapon." (TDR:101) However, Branch Davidians claim BATF agents fired indiscriminately, including through walls, and that helicopters sprayed the building with bullets. News video tapes clearly show agents exercising little control over their firing as they fire over vehicles with little or no view of what they were shooting at. Both BATF Director Higgins at an April 2nd Congressional hearing and Treasury Secretary Bentsen during the September 1993 Treasury Department press conference denied allegations that agents fired indiscriminately. {3}.
(a) Bullet Evidence in Doors, Walls and Roof Branch Davidians, and attorneys Dick DeGuerin and Jack Zimmerman who visited Mount Carmel during the siege, insist that there was extensive evidence that BATF agents shot indiscriminately through Mount Carmel Center's front door, walls and roof. They were very concerned with preserving this evidence of an out-of-control assault.
The New York Times reported, "both lawyers clearly believed that helicopters flying over the compound during the raid had fired into upper floors of the main building from above." {4}. Except for half the front door, all this evidence was destroyed by the April 19 tank rammings, the fire, and the bulldozing of still burning walls into the rubble.
(b) Wayne Martin Allegations on 911 Tape Wayne Martin and an unidentified Branch Davidian complain frantically to Lieutenant Lynch 15 minutes after the start of the raid about the continuing gun fire from BATF agents, even as they themselves withhold fire. Nearly continuous gunfire can be heard in the background of the tape.
MARTIN: Another chopper with more people; more guns
going off. They're firing. That's them, not us.
UNIDENTIFIED DAVIDIAN: There's a chopper with more of
them.
LYNCH: What!?
DAVIDIAN: Another chopper with more people and more guns
going off. Here they come!
(d) Catherine Matteson Allegation
"I seen (sic) those trailers drive up. I was downstairs. I
thought it strange, but I figured they were delivering firewood
or something. I picked up the Sunday paper and went upstairs to
my room, and started reading. When next, bullets came through the
roof. I could hear the helicopters overhead, I got under my bed."
{5}.
(e) Children's Pictures of Bullets Through Roof A story about psychologist Bruce D. Perry's interviews with Branch Davidian children who left Mount Carmel after the raid mentions, "Still another child created a picture of a house beneath a rainbow. When Perry asked, 'Is there anything else?' the child calmly added bullet holes in the roof. That was an allusion to the Feb. 28 shootout with federal agents that marked the beginning of a 51-day standoff and left the compound near Waco scarred with bullet holes." {6}. A May 19, 1993 Newsweek story shows this picture with the caption, "A girl drew her home's dotted roof. 'Bullets,' she said."
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HARDER: We're talking about helicopter gunships firing against American citizens. [CN Editor -- Yes, and indiscriminately and at children.]
THOMPSON: Yeah, absolutely. And the thing is, in the ATF report, they do very deceitful things. They say that... [music signalling a break begins to be audible]... oh, sorry.
HARDER: All right. Let's do a short break here. This almost sounds like George Orwell stuff. We'll be right back.
[...commercial break...]
CHUCK HARDER: Linda Thompson is with us. And we're talking about the Waco trial. So what we've got right now is the government not looking so good.
Go ahead, where we left off.
LINDA THOMPSON: Well we were with them throwing the trial, I think.
HARDER: Yep.
THOMPSON: What we have got, and what should have been available to the defense, is a whole lot of things that are absolute proof that when the government says that they "lost the element of surprise," that is a lie within a lie. Because they're not... They give you the impression that they're admitting something by saying that and admitting their guys are boobs. But what they're doing is they're saying, "Well, yeah, we're incompetent, we're stupid, we screwed up." There's a big difference between making an honest mistake and intentional murder. And that's what they're doing. They're getting out of intentional murder by appearing to admit to stupidity.
But what they did was intentional murder. There's not anything in their plan that had any provision for somebody to go up to that front door and knock on the front door. There's no provision in the battle plan, originally, at all. None. And they pretty much have admitted that in court, too.
But they... And they also admitted that David Koresh did come to the front door, he did open the door, he did say, "What's goin' on?" -- and they began firing at him! Now they've admitted these things.
HARDER: Now, has it been admitted in court that the helicopter gunships fired first?
THOMPSON: No. That has not and I doubt it will be, because, you see, this is what they're covering up.
HARDER: All right. How can that be proven?
THOMPSON: That can be proven by several things. First of all, in the ATF final report, the investigators (of that final report) do several deceitful things. One is that they criticize the ATF for not using customs helicopters that would have had firepower. Now that creates the impression that ATF had helicopters that didn't have firepower, right? And that's the purpose of the "critique," is to give you the impression they did not have firepower in those helicopters. Fact is, they did. We have a picture of one of the helicopters that has a .308 machine gun mounted in it. And that is going to be... that is in "Waco II." It's a close-up of the helicopter with the .308 machine gun in it.
Twelve of the rounds that were recovered from the upstairs room, where two of the agents were killed, were .308 rounds, just like the caliber of that weapon in the helicopter.
In the footage that we have -- and some of that is in "Waco I" -- when you see edits in the film, we didn't make those edits. They were made before they were released to the public. We found footage by getting it through sources such as England, where they got 'em before the government had time to do as much editing as they did later. You can hear the original machine gun fire sound. And that footage is in "Waco II," too. When those guys are running up the ladder, there's a lot of machine gun fire. When they're on the roof, you can hear the helicopter very close by -- then there's that glitch. What they edited out was the sound of the machine gun in the helicopter firing down into the roof.
Dick DeGuerin, the attorney that they let go in and out, said he saw the roof. It looked like swiss cheese.
Of the children that were allowed out, one of the kids drew a picture of a house, her house, and dotted it with bullet holes in the roof and explained to the psychiatrist that this was bullet holes in the roof. We've got footage of that.
Um, and the lady, Annetta Richards, that was in there with the children and came out with the children, was one of the people that said that helicopters fired in on 'em, into the roof.
On the 911 tapes, when the Branch Davidians called the police... Now that's another little bit of proof, all by itself. The fact that they were not firing for 20 minutes into that tape. They called the police and said, "There's a bunch of guys out here climbing in our windows and they're shooting at us!" They called the police. And in that tape, we've got all of the 911 tapes now and we've had the first seven transcribed...
HARDER: All right, hang on... Linda Thompson... You'll stay another hour?
THOMPSON: Sure.
HARDER: O.K. Ladies and gentlemen, we're gonna continue this conversation.
Linda Thompson is an attorney. [Harder gives info on how to get "Waco II."]
Thanks everybody. All the best. May God bless.
---------------------------<< Notes >>--------------------------- {1} It's not just a "week-long" series of anti-gun propaganda. The media has been giving us a barrage of anti-gun propaganda. For instance, constant stories about persons in various cities turning in their guns in exchange for sports tickets, cash, etc. Over and over, hoping perhaps to create a "bandwagon effect," we are seeing "responsible" citizens eagerly lined up at various gun reclamation centers.
One hopeful sign in this is, the very fact that we are being deluged with propaganda of this type is a sign of a certain desperation on the part of the Establishment. It is as if they are in a hurry to get as many guns turned in as possible before... before... what? Before economic collapse? Before too many people wake up? -- CfD Editor.
{2} CfD Editor -- Linda Thompson's video showing a flame-throwing tank at the Branch Davidian compound has never been formally refuted -- not to my satisfaction. Yes, there has been scuttlebutt about some editing that was supposedly done wherein the flame-throwing tank footage is cut at a key juncture. However this scuttlebutt is not a satisfactory rebuttal in my opinion. It may be that the scuttlebutt was actually published somewhere -- somewhere that a CfD Editor could get a hold of same and read it.
Anyhoo... Question: If the flame-throwing tank footage has been shown to be something other than it appears to be, then why hasn't the establishment press jumped all over this? What a story that would make! Bring in Tom Brokaw to do a hatchet job on the NBC Nightly News. Headline: Linda Thompson Under Investigation for False Waco Claims. The story: "There have been many wild claims made by 'conservatives' and 'the religious right' about the Waco tragedy. None has been wilder than one made by Linda Thompson, an attorney with a group calling itself the 'American Justice Federation.' (Blah, blah, blah). But it turns out that this is not what it seems! It turns out that Linda Thompson purposely cut the tape at a key juncture! Now, the Department of Justice is looking into the possibility of bringing an indictment against Thompson for mail fraud. etc. etc." If it has been refuted, why isn't this story being jumped on?
Furthermore: I would want to hear what Linda Thompson had to say before I made any final judgement. Yes, Linda Thompson made a bad call on the "March on Washington" idea. However, it is distressing to see how quickly and unquestioningly she has been abandoned by her "supporters," for no other reason than (gasp!) she is not infallible.
{3} "Sect's Lawyers Dispute Gunfight Details," New York Times, April 5, 1993, A10 and transcript of September 30, 1993 Treasury Department press conference.
{4} New York Times, April 5, 1993, A10.
{5} Interview with Catherine Matteson, August 30, 1993, on file at Gun Owners of America.
{6} Sue Anne Pressley, May 5, 1993, A17. [New York Times(??)]
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The Massacre of the Branch Davidians. Report of the Committee for Waco Justice. Committee for Waco Justice, PO Box 33037, Washington, DC 20033. Phone: 202/986-1847 & 202/797-9877
"Justice" = "Just us" = "History is written by the assassins."