Lawmaker mulls re-examination of Oklahoma City bombing
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher wants to probe rumors that federal officials were involved in the bombing; Oklahoma governor says such allegations make "absolutely no sense."
House International Relations Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., might open another investigation into the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred Murrah Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City.
Rohrabacher wants to look into long-standing allegations that Timothy McVeigh, who was executed for exploding the bomb, and Terry Nichols, who is serving a life sentence for helping him, were not alone in the plot and that federal officials participated in a cover-up.
Rohrabacher's spokeswoman would not give a time frame for hearings or an investigation, saying he is "looking at the evidence. If it warrants a hearing, he will go forward; if not, he won't."
Rohrabacher has discussed his plan with former Oklahoma GOP Gov. Frank Keating, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., and Keating and Istook discouraged him, the Tulsa World reported.
Keating said Rohrabacher told him he wanted to pursue a theory that McVeigh and Nichols were trained to make explosives by the FBI, and when they carried out the attack, the FBI covered up its involvement.
"I told him, 'With all due respect, I don't think you know how agents work,'" said Keating, a former FBI agent and top-ranking Justice Department official. "It makes absolutely no sense."
A spokeswoman for Istook confirmed he spoke with Rohrabacher and discouraged him from going ahead.