This is Later with Lee Matthews the Lee Matthews Podcast. More of what you
hear weekday afternoon is on the Drive. You know Jeffrey Tuban as the former
CN and legal analyst. He's also a best selling author, True Crimes and
Misdemeanors, The Oath, the Nine, Too Close to Call, among some
of his creations. His newest piece is called Home Grown, Timothy McVeigh and
the Rise of right Wing Extremism. As you can imagine, Jeffrey, this
hits very close to home. You know, there's not much pleasure in writing
about the Oklahoma City bombing, but the chance to fall in love with your
state again was one of them, and just the opportunity to spend so much
time in Oklahoma was great. I had a lot of authentic Oklahoma experiences,
including getting caught in a speed track between Enid and Oklahoma City, which I
understand is a real right, which is apparently a real right of passage for
a lot of people in Oklahoma. But I did have a great time in
Oklahoma, even though ultimately this is a very sad story. Of course that
it is now contrary to what many in Congress would want us to believe,
January sixth was not the worst thing to ever happen to the United States since
the Civil War. No, indeed, and the Oklahoma City bombing, you
know, just to remind people, I mean, it's just a long time
ago. There's a generation of people in Oklahoma and everywhere else that has grown
up before since since it happened twenty eight years ago, one hundred and sixty
eight kills, including nineteen children. It's a haunting story. The Oklahoma City
Memorial in Oklahoma, in Oklahoma City, I think, is a really fine
institution that keeps the story alive. But my book was an effort to do
that as well. Well, let's go back to that end and look at
some of the common and least common denominators with Timothy McVeigh. We all know
what Timothy McVeigh did, But at what point did the seeds of all of
his rage begin to sew? Well, there's I guess I can enter that
in two ways. In one way, you know, this was an unhappy
life that that Timothy McVeigh led. You know, he grew up outside Buffalo,
New York, with a family that was falling apart, with his father
and grandfather having worked in a General Motors plant that was shrinking over the course
of his life. But there was nothing really extraordinary about his background. He
was not poor, he was not ill, he was not abused, so
there is nothing that suggested he would become the monster that he did. You
know, he really became radicalized after he flunked out of the Special Forces tryout
in the army. He wanted to be a Green Beret, didn't make it,
became alienated, and he became obsessed with hating the federal government of Bill
Clinton. You know, I think one of the one of the mistakes people
make about mcveighs to think he was some kind of loaner outside or lone wolf.
He was not. He was part of the anti Clinton movement of the
of the nineteen nineties. He obviously went much farther and did much more horrible
things than the vast majority of the people in that movement, but he was
part of that movement, and that's where he became radicalized. I think many
people remember that he was very angry about the FBI rate of ECO and he
timed the assault on the Murrah Building for the second anniversary April nineteen, nineteen
ninety five. But he was just as angry about the assault weapons fan that
Bill Clinton signed on September thirteenth, nineteen ninety four. So it wasn't just
Waco. It was a political agenda that was much broader than that. Jeffrey
Tuban is with us. You remember him as CNN's legal analyst. His book
is called Homegrown, Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right Wing Extremism. One
of the most common denominators between January sixth and the Mura Building bombing is a
man by the name of Merrick Garlands. True enough, Americ Garland was a
mid level of high mid level appointee in the Clinton Justice Department, and just
two days after the bombing was put in charge of the bombing investigation. He
you know, I think people sometimes have a hard time remembering the things that
were going on at the same time. In January of nineteen ninety five,
the OJ Simpson case, the criminal case started in Los Angeles, and Marrick
Garland was appalled by what he was seeing in Los Angeles with the OJ case
and made a very specific decision to make the Oklahoma City bombing prosecution a different
affair, much slower profile, no publicity for the prosecutors, and that aversion
to publicity that aversions to the pal the entertainment aspect of law enforcement is something
that we continue to see in Merrick Garland now that he's the Attorney in general.
He has been a low profile attorney general. He has not talked about
the Trump investigation, for example, in a way that he might have.
But I think the lessons for him of Oklahoma City was to keep prosecutors comments
inside the courtroom, not outside the courtroom, and for better for worse,
that's the way he's conducting the investigation well. And then it also seems like
that is what spawned many of the conspiracy theories. I mean, I had
a reporter working for me that had covered the bombing and he was working on
a book. He believed that the provocation of the actual bombing came from an
infiltration and sting operation by the FBI that went wrong, and that Timothy McVeigh
jumped the gun on all of that to get back of the FBI. For
what it's worth, I don't doubt. I mean, just can we just
say how wrong wrong that is? You know, I mean, the the
conspiracy theories. You know, it's interesting, um um, there are conspiracy
theories on both the left and right. You know, the conservatives have tried
to make Timmothy McVay somehow affiliated with U Islamic terrorists like Steps who was involved
in the first World Trade Center bombing. Totally false. People on the left
have tried to make this a broader right wing conspiracy involving perhaps people in Elohim
City, which was a compound UH in eastern Oklahoma, also not true.
You know, the facts are bad enough. But mc bay and Terry Nichols
acted alone in this bombing. They had some um, not assistance, but
at least knowledge by the friend Michael Fortier. But they were the only people
who knew who were involved in this conspiracy. And after spending a great deal
of time looking into this story, that's the conclusion I drew, and I'm
confident it's right. And you can hear and read that confidence in his new
creation, Homegrown Timothy McVeigh The Rise of Right Wing Extremism. Jeffrey Tuban,
New York Times bestselling author and CNN analyst. I thank you for joining us,
Thanks Lee, thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews the Lee Matthews
Podcast, and remember to listen to the Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to
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