Word: waco
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Hell hath no fury like an attorney general misled. Janet Reno on Friday announced that she?s looking for an independent investigator to probe the Waco debacle, capping a week in which she?s done little to hide her displeasure at being left in a no-man?s-land by the FBI. On Wednesday Reno sent U.S. marshals across the road to seize evidence from FBI headquarters, in a high-profile slap-down of the bureau over its handling of Waco evidence. The New York Times reported Friday that tensions between the attorney general and FBI director Louis Freeh ?- which...
Janet Reno can't seem to stop stoking the fires of the Waco conspiracy theory. On one hand, she is reported to be pushing for an independent inquiry into the debacle; on the other, she appears to be trying to stop the facts from coming out. While the attorney general was reported Wednesday to be searching for a qualified outsider to lead an investigation, her department also filed a motion Tuesday challenging U.S. District Judge Walter Smith?s right to claim custody of all evidence relating to the siege collected at the Branch Davidian compound. Judge Smith, whose district...
...Texas Public Safety Commissioner Jim Francis wanted to end the catch-22 situation where anyone bringing a civil claim against the government over Waco was bounced back and forth between the Texas Rangers and the Justice Department, with neither apparently able to authorize access to the material," says TIME reporter Hilary Hylton. "He also made clear that he was concerned about aspects of the evidence that were ?problematic? for the official version of events as told by the FBI." With conspiracy theorists crying cover-up and Congressman Dan Burton (R-Ind.) threatening to go ballistic on Capitol Hill, Justice...
...more insidious than incompetent ?- do not thrive on paranoia alone. They require scraps ?- gaps in the narrative, a hitch or two in the official version of things, plenty of questions unanswered, and, of course, a tragic ending, hopefully brought about by a showy use of government force. Waco has all of these, and a built-in audience: the antigovernment militia types who consider their inalienable rights to be under constant siege from the same government that's supposedly sworn to protect them. Whether you call this contingent patriots or terrorists, conflagrations like Waco are their spiritual grist. And the feds...
...government trying to tell us something? Six years after the 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco ended in flames, former FBI agent Danny Coulson ?- founding commander of the agency?s hostage-rescue team, and, in retirement, one of its most prominent voices ?- pipes up to the Dallas Morning News. The message: Contrary to six years of official denials, agents on the scene actually did fire tear gas canisters into the compound, canisters that burn hot and could have set something ablaze. Except that they didn?t cause the conflagration, says Coulson ?- they were fired hours before...