Heartland Conspiracy

Nineteen months after Al-Hussaini sued in state court, he dropped his lawsuit. Davis said the legal pressure led KFOR to halt airing new material from her bombing investigation. In 1996, Palmer Communications sold the station to the New York Times Co., which was not interested in pursuing the story, Davis said. On March 3, 1997, she resigned.

In September 1997, Davis was subpoenaed by the Oklahoma County grand jury, which was looking into the possibility of conspirators in the bombing. Davis gave the jury all of her witness statements. The next day, Al-Hussaini refiled his libel suit in federal court, and two months later, it was dismissed. U.S. District Judge Tim Leonard said that Davis’ reports are either true or statements of opinion. Al-Hussaini appealed, and a hearing was held this month, but no ruling has been made.

For years, the FBI has refused to comment on Davis‘ report. This week, the response was no different when the agency was contacted by the L.A. Weekly. Davis has tried twice, with the permission of her sources, to deliver the 22 witness affidavits to the FBI office in Oklahoma City. In 1997, agents said her lawyers needed to first contact federal prosecutors. Her attorney, Tim McCoy, said federal prosecutors rejected the offer, saying they would have to release the documents to McVeigh’s and Nichols‘ defense teams if they accepted them. In 1999, Davis and another attorney who represented her, Dan Nelson, met with Agent Dan Vogel and got him to accept the documents. He, in turn, gave them to the FBI task force investigating the bombing. “However, I was told we gave the affidavits back to her because there was some question of ownership -- whether she or KFOR had legal rights to the material,” said Vogel, who has since retired. Asked whether he thought it was odd that the FBI would reject potential leads, Vogel would only say, “That was a decision made by people above me.”

Davis can’t figure out why the FBI refuses to examine her material. “They had hundreds of agents on this case,” Davis told Bill O‘Reilly. “Why wouldn’t they want to take information from a reporter who had sworn witness statements implicating . . . others in the Oklahoma City bombing?”