THE O'REILLY FACTOR
Was Osama Bin Laden Involved in the Oklahoma City Bombing?
March 20, 2001

BILL O’REILLY: Tonight, shocking testimony at the pretrial hearing of
Oklahoma City bomber Terry Nichols, who has been convicted in a federal
court and now is facing state proceedings.

Investigative reporter Jayna Davis, who worked for the NBC affiliate
in Oklahoma City, uncovered evidence that Nichols had ties to the terrorist
Osama bin Laden before the bombing that killed 168 people. Timothy McVeigh has also been convicted in the case and will be put to death on May 16th.  And Ms. Davis says there were other people involved beside him and Nichols.  But when she took her information to the FBI, she says, well, here's what she told me.

O'REILLY: Jayna, it seems the Department of Justice all along wanted
to make the Oklahoma City bombing and investigation simply a domestic
terrorist incident. But your information is different. Tell us about it.

JAYNA DAVIS, FORMER KFOR INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Well, back in spring of 1995, I was working for the NBC affiliate in Oklahoma City and I was assigned to look into people responsible for the bombing. And what we discovered, an intelligence source at one of the highest levels in the federal government later confirmed, was a Middle Eastern terrorist cell living and operating in the heart of Oklahoma City just a few miles from the Alfred P. Murrah Building.

And through the course of our investigation, we located several
witnesses that we deemed very credible at the station and they testified
and told us that they identified an Iraqi national, a former member of
Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard through his own admission later, as being in the company with Timothy McVeigh the day of the bombing, prior to the bombing in Oklahoma City, in the Ryder truck, in the passenger seat of the Ryder truck, stepping out of the truck in front of the Murrah Building just moments before the blast and speeding away from downtown in a brown Chevrolet pickup that was identified by the FBI as a possible getaway vehicle and an official all points bulletin that was identified the day of the bombing.

O'REILLY: All right, let me stop you then. But the Justice Department has never caught anybody there, never brought anybody in or told the press that there was this man, correct?

DAVIS: Yes, that is correct. From what has been publicly stated, they said that they did not believe that there was a foreign connection to the bombing.

O'REILLY: Right, now, you do believe there is?

DAVIS: Yes, I do.

O'REILLY: Do you have any other evidence?

DAVIS: Yes. We have 24 sworn witness affidavits that ties seven to eight Arab men to various stages of the bombing plot from the beginning all the way to the day in which the plot was executed. I have several police records, court records, public court documents that I've amassed, hundreds of documents. I've spoken to law enforcement officials. I've spoken to intelligence experts, terrorism experts, all who confirm various aspects, the most crucial aspects of the witness testimonies.

O'REILLY: Who is behind, then, the bombing, in your opinion? Not
McVeigh and Nichols?

DAVIS: Yes. The evidence that we have gathered definitely incriminates McVeigh and Nichols. Let me make that clear. They were in it up to their eyeballs, according to the evidence we were able to look into.

However, it really is a foreign conspiracy masterminded and funded by
Osama bin Laden, according to my intelligence sources.

O'REILLY: Do you have any other information other than, you know,
anonymous sources to back up that bin Laden was behind McVeigh and Nichols doing this?

DAVIS: I have what has been published on the court record the writ of
mandamus that was filed just prior to McVeigh's trial by his defense team,
that a witness in the Philippines, a member of Abu Sayyef (ph), a terrorist
group that has been identified as being funded by Osama bin Laden,
identified Terry Nichols in the presence of Ramzi Yousef, the convicted
mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing, and several of his
coconspirators in that bombing, and that they were discussing bombing
activities prior to the Oklahoma City bombing. That is on the court record.

O'REILLY: Do we know that Terry Nichols was, indeed, in the Philippines?

DAVIS: Yes, he was. He had a mail-order bride. And I did an undercover hidden camera interview with his ex-wife, Lana Padia (ph), in which she admitted to me ver openly that she felt as if his travels to and from the Philippines, his cover story was having a mail-order bride. But he would go down there by himself on many occasions without his bride.

O'REILLY: So now let me recap. You found out that there was a Republican Guard from Iraq accompanying Nichols and McVeigh on the day of the bombing. You found out that Nichols met with terrorists in the
Philippines, terrorists associated with Osama bin Laden, and you found out
that the conspiracy was funded by bin Laden.

You took this information to the FBI, you told me. What happened?

DAVIS: Well, what happened was they turned me away and refused to take it.

O'REILLY: Really?

DAVIS: Yes. I even took a notary with me and an affidavit and asked the FBI to sign that statement to confirm I tried to turn this information over, because I had had problems in the past. And the agent looked it over and he said fine, we don't have a problem acknowledging you're turning over this information. Let me check with our legal department.

He comes back about 20 minutes later and he says I'm sorry, the legal department has to call the U.S. attorney's office in Denver that's now handling the bombing case in the trial of Timothy McVeigh -- I mean, I'm sorry, Terry Nichols. It was in September of 1997 and it was just prior to...

O'REILLY: All right, so let me stop you. You tried to give information to the FBI in Oklahoma City?

DAVIS: Yes, I did.

O'REILLY: All right, they said I've got to call my superiors in Denver. They came back 20 minutes later, we're not going to take this information from you, which is very unusual, is it not?

DAVIS: Well, I was flabbergasted. I couldn't even speculate why they wouldn't take this information. They had hundreds of agents on this case.  They had millions of dollars of property damage. They had 171 victims.  Why wouldn't they want to take information from a reporter who had sworn witness statements implicating others unknown in the Oklahoma City bombing?

I can't even speculate to what would be their motive. It was absurd.  They outright refused to take the information and that information implicated a Middle Eastern terrorist cell funded by Osama bin Laden as assisting Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols in executing the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building.

Their reasons, their motivations, that's a question for the Department of Justice and the former attorney general.

O'REILLY: All right, Ms. Davis, thank you very much.

Of course, the former attorney general is Janet Reno. Ms. Davis did testify. We called the FBI and they refused to comment, as usual.

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