eMediaMillWorks
Thursday, May 24, 2001

Following is the transcript of Attorney General John Ashcroft's comments on any further delays of Timothy McVeigh's execution in the wake of additional FBI documents recently given to his lawyers.

SPEAKER: JOHN ASHCROFT, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL

Good afternoon.

Thirteen days ago, I directed the Bureau of Prisons to delay the scheduled execution of convicted mass murderer Timothy McVeigh. The delay was until June the 11th. I took this step because it is my responsibility as attorney general to promote and to protect the integrity of our system of justice.

Timothy McVeigh was convicted by a jury of bombing the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City on April the 19th, 1995, and was sentenced to death. He has admitted to executing this savage crime, the largest terrorist attack within the United States in our history.

Even today, he shows no remorse for killing 168 innocent people, including 19 children, injuring hundreds more, and shattering the lives of thousands of Americans.

His execution was not delayed because of any doubt that he is guilty of this heinous crime, but because we must have a system of justice that is above question. Our system of justice requires fidelity to the rule of law to protect every American's constitutional rights. We must protect and sustain public confidence in the administration of justice.

In this instance, protecting that system of justice required turning over approximately 3,100 pages of documents from the FBI that should have been produced to McVeigh's attorneys during the original discovery period.

Fair process dictated giving his attorneys a reasonable opportunity to review the documents and to consider their options. They have had those documents for almost two weeks, and there are still more than two weeks intervening between now and June the 11th.

On Friday, May 11, the same day I announced the one-month delay in the execution, I directed the Federal Bureau of Investigation to issue a worldwide alert to all their offices. This worldwide alert ordered every FBI office to identify and produce any and all documents required under the broad discovery agreement in the McVeigh case.

Even though 11 previous searches had been done, I wanted the FBI to make a final, thorough, conclusive search to identify and produce any other potentially relevant documents in this case.

Justice required that McVeigh's defense attorneys have an opportunity to review any documents that should have been produced, even though they do not affect the outcome of this case. Our system of justice demands nothing less.

Today, the Department of Justice completed a report that has been submitted to me documenting the FBI's comprehensive efforts over the last 13 days to identify any remaining documents. The report explains the content and the nature of newly produced documents, and outlines the efforts the department has made to allow McVeigh's attorneys a fair opportunity to review this material.

Today, I am releasing the complete report to the McVeigh attorneys and, consistent with the district court's protective orders, a redacted report to the American public. As this report explains, the American people can have confidence that all documents now have been identified and produced, and that nothing in any of these documents undermines McVeigh's admission of the murder of 168 of his fellow American citizens, or nothing in these documents undermines the justice of his sentence.

FBI Director Louis Freeh has certified to me that the FBI has completed its search and produced every relevant document in its possession. Further, also at my request, every special agent in charge of every FBI office has certified that all documents pertaining to the McVeigh case have been produced by that special agent's office.

Following the production of the new documents 13 days ago, and pursuant to Director Freeh's final worldwide alert, the FBI, working with federal prosecutors engaged in this methodical process designed to find and identify any documents that could have been, but were not, turned over during the extraordinarily broad discovery process. Each FBI office was searched exhaustively for any potentially relevant documents. When such documents were identified by an office, they were immediately sent to Oklahoma City for review.

There, an FBI team and attorneys conducted a two-step review process. First, the team determined whether any of the documents were covered by the unusually broad discovery agreement. Most of the documents were not.

Additionally, the smaller group of documents determined to be covered by the agreement were reviewed against the OKBomb computer databases. This review was undertaken to determine whether or not each document had already been produced or made available to the defense team during discovery.

Again, the overwhelming majority of documents reviewed had already been turned over during discovery.

Under this process, over the last nine days, we have identified and produced to the defense just under 898 additional pages of documents. These include 103 pages of Baltimore documents, produced on May 14, 327 pages of Denver documents produced on May 18, 405 pages of documents from various offices produced on May the 23rd and 63 pages of Oklahoma City documents produced today.

These items were sent to the Denver operation immediately upon discovery, where the prosecution team produced them to the defense counsel as they were processed. The defense team has had ample time to review these documents.

I would like to make two points. First, we're talking about a relatively small amount of information, particularly in comparison to the incredible volume of documents produced in this case.

This particular investigation produced millions of records, including millions of pages of hotel, motel or phone records, over 238,000 photographs, over 28,000 reports of interviews and more than 23,000 pieces of evidence. The new documents represent only a small fraction of 1 percent of the total number of produced documents in this case.

Second and more importantly, it is essential that people understand the substance of the material we are talking about. All of these newly produced documents have been reviewed by attorneys familiar with the case. This item-by-item review has revealed that none, none of these new documents raises any doubt about the proven and admitted guilt of Timothy McVeigh.

Indeed, the review reveals that most of the documents have little or no value and that much of the information was disclosed to the defense through other documents that were already produced in the discovery process.

While the court's protective order prevents us from publicly releasing the documents or describing them in detail, I thought it would be useful to share a few generalized descriptions of the types of documents that were belatedly produced.

For example, a lengthy collection of newspaper and magazine clippings, including photos from a swimsuit calendar received from a person under psychiatric care, received in one of our offices and not forwarded initially. Most of these clippings did not pertain to the bombing.

Another example is a long, handwritten letter offering unspecified information in return for an enormous cash reward in return for release of someone from prison and in return for a trip to Europe to meet with royalty.

Other documents include various letters involving information about non-physical beings and offers by psychics to contact the dead victims for information about the bombing.

Now, in addition to these kinds of documents, some of the new items involved nothing more than information about service of a subpoena or receipt of records, and are only discoverable because an agent happened to document the information in an FBI 302 interview report or insert, which by definition according to the trial agreement made it discoverable.

There are also photographs, fingerprint cards, criminal history reports involving persons who ultimately turned out to have no connection whatsoever to the case. Many documents concern investigations into whether other persons, in addition to or instead of McVeigh and Nichols, were involved in the bombing, a fact that McVeigh himself denies.

While thousands of leads were pursued in this endeavor, nothing in any of the documents links anyone else to this bombing.

Let me summarize this reports findings. No documents creates any doubt of McVeigh's guilt, let alone establishes his innocence, which is the legal standard an appeal must overcome. Most of the documents could not have qualified as evidence. Finally, the quantity of the documents is minuscule compared to the number of documents already provided to McVeigh's lawyers.

I delayed this execution by a month to give McVeigh's lawyers sufficient time to exercise his legal rights. I will not delay the sentence of a confessed, mass murderer. I will not delay his sentence further based on documents which cast no doubt about the surety of his guilt.

We reviewed these documents carefully.

We wrote a thorough report. And we are prepared to defend McVeigh's conviction and the sentence that has been imposed.

The lawyers in the Department of Justice have already had time to prepare to defend the interests of the United States in this case and have done so while reviewing large volumes of material that has been irrelevant.

We are prepared, we have had ample time to prepare, and we believe this demonstrates clearly that the defense team has had ample time to defend Mr. McVeigh.

The first delay in this case was necessary for this review by lawyers for the defense and the prosecution. A second delay in this case would ignore the evidence and the facts of the case.

We also need to be sensitive to the victims of this ruthless attack. Throughout this legal process, we have been keenly mindful of the pain that careful judicial proceedings sometimes cause victims to endure. I again extend my sympathy to the victims of this assault, an assault on America, and I will not add to their pain.

To have proceeded on the initial execution date would have discredited the fairness and completeness which due process demands and deserves. Failure to carry out the sentence after such thorough and careful compliance has been achieved would thwart justice and deny victims closure and would discredit our judicial system.

I'll be pleased to respond to you.

QUESTION: Attorney General, the latest filings by Terry Nichols' lawyers at the Supreme Court claims that some FBI agents purposely did not file 302s after interviews in order to supposedly keep information away from the defense and to keep information away from the prosecution. In your review, did you find any evidence that that was the case?

ASHCROFT: I'm not going to make comments about the Nichols case at this time. Nothing in this review in any way suggested the innocence of Timothy McVeigh, nor did anything in our review impair or cast any doubt upon his guilt.

QUESTION: In your many mentions of the fact that McVeigh's lawyers have had enough time to look at these documents, it sounds as if you're trying to perhaps head off any legal action that his lawyers might take. But wouldn't it really be up to the judge to decide whether his lawyers have had enough time?

ASHCROFT: Any filings that would be made on behalf of Mr. McVeigh to avoid the imposition of the sentence would be opposed vigorously by this department, and obviously, filings would be made in a court and subject to the decision of a judge.

QUESTION: You referred to this as a report. Are you filing this with Judge Matsch? And if not, why not?

ASHCROFT: This is a report that I asked be filed with me and be made to me by those who could develop the information so that I could make a judgment about how to proceed.

Initially, I felt that fairness demanded an opportunity for the information, which was unknown, uninventoried and substantial--we needed to give everyone time to see that.

We have now determined the universe of information. We have provided it on a timely basis to all of the parties. There has been adequate time to review the information, and we have, literally, reviewed it all ourselves. And it is reviewable and has been available for review by the defense team.

And with that in mind, I think it would be inappropriate for me to again seek to delay what justice demands. And as such, I am announcing today that it's my responsibility to carry forward with the order of execution. I will not delay it again. June the 11th is the date which has been specified, and it is the date upon which the execution will be carried out.

QUESTION: Are you filing a copy of the report with the judge as a standard matter for...

ASHCROFT: No, we have provided the report to the defense attorneys in its complete form. We're making the report available to the American public in a redacted form, out of respect for, obviously, the orders of the court--the protective orders regarding evidence here, and would be very pleased to make it available to the court.

But this is a report that I asked be made to me, so that I could make a decision about the conduct of the Justice Department. I made my first decision compelled by considerations of fairness, and that decision was to delay for one month.

Considerations of fairness and justice now lead me to a conclusion that no further delay would be appropriate. As a matter of fact, for a further delay to take place would be a denial of justice, not a way of providing for fairness.

QUESTION: Does this report shed any light on went wrong?

ASHCROFT: This is not the report of the inspector general. I have asked the inspector general to develop for me an understanding of why we would have 11 efforts that were treated in such a way as to provide for missing these documents.

Obviously, it was with rather substantial intensity, much of which was provided by your reporting, that I think give us the opportunity to have the assurances provided in the certifications of every one of the special agents in charge and of the FBI director.

Yes?

QUESTION: General Ashcroft, have you been in contact with any of the Oklahoma City bombing victims? What was their message to you after your first delay?

ASHCROFT: Well, frankly, these victims have endured great pain. My heart goes out to them. I've spoken with these victims. I've spoken to mothers who have lost daughters and granddaughters. I've spoken to children who lost parents. And I always want to be aware of their distress.

Fairness required that I delay the execution. Justice now requires that we carry it out.

ASHCROFT: And I think they understand that. But that doesn't mean that there wasn't additional pain and additional distress based on this situation.

Yes, sir?

QUESTION: Mr. Attorney General, do you have any reason to believe that there was anything more than a lack of management of these materials that caused these things to go unnoticed in the first place, as Director Freeh has let on to Congress in recent days?

ASHCROFT: I'm not in a position to make a judgment about that. I have asked the inspector general of the department, Inspector General Fein (ph), who is a talented individual, to look at this with a view toward avoiding any repetition of these kinds of circumstances. And it's with that in mind that I will await his report.

Yes, sir?

QUESTION: Mr. Attorney General, do you have any indication that the defense attorneys are planning to seek a second stay? Or have they expressed any interest to you in you delaying another time?

ASHCROFT: No.

QUESTION: Mr. Attorney General, is there anything in the report or in the documents that have surfaced where you could say that a competent defense attorney zealously seeking their client's interest would mount an appeal and prepare for that?

ASHCROFT: I'm not going to assume the role of defense attorney here. And I understand that I stepped aside from my role as prosecutor several weeks ago, and into a role of adjudicating, sort of, the fairness of this issue. I felt it was necessary, given the time situation.

But frankly, nothing in these documents provides a basis for believing the defendant to be innocent. Nothing undermines the conclusion or erodes the decision that he was guilty. Nothing, I think, would change or undermine a conviction or understanding of the appropriateness of this sentence.

It's my judgment, after considering these documents in conjunction with those who reviewed them, that these documents do not add to the case in any respect. But frankly, until we found that out, I felt that fairness dictated that we would provide a basis for the documents to be examined.

I thank you all.