("Quid coniuratio est?")
INTERVIEW WITH SHERMAN SKOLNICK -- MAY 1, 1995
On May 1, 1995, I interviewed, by telephone, Mr. Sherman Skolnick of the Citizens' Committee to Clean-up the Courts [CCCC]. The following is my summary of that interview. (Note that in the following, I neither necessarily agree nor disagree with either all or some of Mr. Skolnick's statements.)
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CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah. Another thing about the so-called "reporting" by the mass
media is that, two years ago during the Waco situation, the
media, every morning at 10 in the morning they'd go to the FBI
spokesman. And whatever the FBI spokesman told them, they would
report that; that was their idea of "reporting" what was going
on. {5}.
And the same thing's goin' on now, it seems to me. That the media is just going to the official sources, goin' to the FBI and all these people, being spoon-fed their version of things, and then "reporting" that.
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Right. Why don't they go to the head of the ATF, in Washington --
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms -- and ask him: "Can
you explain why it is that none of your people were in the
building at the time of the bombing? Can you explain why you had
exotic weapons parked in your office? Missile launchers and
things like that? Why was it necessary to have that in your
office? And did any of those devices explode when the building
blew up?"
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah. And the thing is... Okay, I was gonna ask you about that:
you're saying that there was no ATF present when the building
blew up?
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Right. That's been widely reported, and I think it is quite
correct.
We also know, from federal sources, that there were original documents, not replicated elsewhere, in that office in Oklahoma City, that related to the role of Janet Reno and Clinton in the massacre in Waco.
Beyond that, we have known a great deal about the violent background of the ATF. Because some years ago, through a series of circumstances, we obtained -- well, it fell into our possession (put it that way) -- all of the spiral notebooks of the chief investigator of the ATF in Chicago, who arranged for violence directed against the peace movement, violence against the Black Panthers, violence against civil rights activists, through his office, through people that they trained and put out on the streets -- paid provocateurs -- which he, again and again in his own handwriting, in his notebooks, refers to as "militant activists" -- "M.A.'s". And with that background -- the whole thing about the ATF not being in the office in Oklahoma City, and the building being bombed -- the ATF has got a strange, violent past of promoting government policy with violence and bombings when, in fact, the ATF is supposed to regulate explosives! But on occasion, to carry out government policy, they supply explosives to their own bombers to bomb, for example, a church in a Chicago suburb which was the site of anti-war meetings. And I was the first speaker at the church after they re-built it, so I know a great deal about it.
And since we have thousands and thousands of pages from the top official's notebooks -- I also interviewed him on the phone and he was flabbergasted to find out that I somehow had all of his notebooks. I got that on tape, and I can play that tape, for anybody that's skeptical.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
All right. But gettin' back to this thing about how there was no
ATF in the building when it blew up: number one, the explosion
was at about 9:02 a.m., so by then there should have been
some ATF. Ordinarily there should have been some ATF personnel
in the building.
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Right.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
And you say that that's been widely reported. I think the Los
Angeles Times was gonna be lookin' into that.
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Why didn't any of the media people pick up the phone and say,
"Look. This is NBC, this is CBS -- ATF chief, how come none of
your people were in the office? Explain." None of the media
people have picked up the phone and asked for an explanation from
the BATF! Why? What's stopping them? I mean, maybe lesser
journalists like myself -- free-lance journalists -- maybe we
don't have the clout to demand an answer from the head of the
BATF. But hey: if Ted Koppell or somebody from ABC News calls up,
the ATF is gonna have to answer. But the point is, none of those
high muckity-muck media people are bothering to ask routine
questions!
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.
Okay, I wanted to... I'm tryin' to cover some ground here, 'cuz I figured the best way to do this is, do it in half-hour installments, and keep gettin' back to you so -- partly because of the phone bill, and partly because of, it's just more manageable.
Okay. Going back to this 60 Minutes appearance by Clinton where, it seemed to me he was trying to ignite a mass hysteria -- and to an extent, he succeeded. There seems to be an attempt to -- you know, whether or not you like the G. Gordon Liddy Show -- there seems to be an ongoing attempt to create a "bandwagon effect" of, for example: almost immediately after the bombing, they said that some station out in California had "decided that they were gonna pull the G. Gordon Liddy Show". But then, it comes out later that this same station had previously decided that they were gonna be changing their format. You know, that it had nothing to do with controversial comments by Liddy.
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well I think the attack on Liddy is because he came up with an
apparent witness that was the first one to see [Vince] Foster's
body laying there in the park. And the witness claimed that there
was no gun in his [Foster's] hand. And since Liddy talked about
it on his show, I think that they're using the bombing criticism
as an excuse to try to squelch Liddy because he has caused the
White House so much trouble with his stories about the strange
death of White House aide Vincent Foster, jr.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
It's not only that. He's been really hammering on the Waco
incident and Ruby Ridge.
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Right.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
I mean, I listen to a lot of shows, you know, and I don't
necessarily endorse everything that Liddy says. But if you listen
to his show, he, it seems like every show, he goes into the ATF,
the Waco Massacre, and all this stuff.
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
He put on one very controversial show. He put on a probe -- he
had a gun dealer on. And the ATF broke into [the gun dealer's
house] and wrecked his house, killed his domestic pets, stole
his medicine that he needed for a serious illness -- did all kind
of horrors to him. And they now have some kind of civil action
against the ATF.
But the press [a.k.a. Pravda], generally, has not mentioned this terrible incident. And Liddy spent a good portion of a program one day having the one that this happened to talk about it on the radio show. And so I think Liddy has greatly antagonized the ATF. And since the ATF might be part of this bombing, in some way -- Liddy is bothering 'em, so they're trying to squelch him.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah. That's what it kind of seems to me, too.
You know, I was thinking also that, in Germany, in the '30s, a citizen could see what was going on, possibly, and at some point could decide, "Well. I'm gonna flee the country. I can see where it's goin', and I'm gonna get out of here. I'm gonna go to England; I'm gonna go to the United States."
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
I want you to know that that is quietly happening, by very
wealthy people. I know people who have wealthy friends, and they
are telling me that that is what's happening. But they're doing
it very quietly. They're trying to get passports from another
country, as if they're a resident of Germany or France or
England. In other words, they, in effect, want to give up their
U.S. citizenship in order to get their assets out of the United
States.
And of course there's a movement in Congress to tax those that do that, that give up their U.S. citizenship, in order that their wealth not be subject to taxes.
But I think that move has escalated since the bombing. In other words, they sense that there's something -- a sinister trend in the United States. Some people that are experts on history immediately think about the event in 1933 when Hitler had his own people burn down the German Parliament, the Reichstag, and blame it onto left-wing and communists. And that seems to be... In other words, the Oklahoma bombing seems to be the "Reichstag" of the present White House. In other words, they may have bombed it themselves, or somebody for the White House, and they're blaming it on others.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
But gettin' back to this thing about fleein' the country: I
even think like this. You know, I think like, at some point in
time, I'm just gonna get myself out of this country because it
just seems like... You know, I'm willin' to do what I can. But
I'm not gonna hang around for the bitter end, you know. But I
think: well where, what country do you go to? I'm tryin' to think
-- like Finland? Or...
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well one of the things that you gotta consider is that America,
as a major industrial power, is the only country that,
historically, has not had a genuine revolution. They do call it
"The American Revolutionary War", but it was mostly the
mercantile class here against the King of England. But there's
been no genuine revolution in the history of the United States.
And the way things are shaping up, the way they're mis-treating
middle-income people, the way they're causing a great anguish by
ordinary people -- somewhere down the road, America is gonna face
an armed revolution.
In other words, the militia is an indication of anguish, by ordinary people, many of 'em ex-soldiers, against the central government. And that anguish is gonna increase, because they now have a documented study, by McNamara, that we were led into a fraudulent war, causing the death of 56,000 ordinary Americans, for un-Constitutional purposes.
---------------------------<< Notes >>--------------------------- {5} This observation, as I recall, was originally made by Linda Thompson.
I encourage distribution of "Conspiracy Nation."
Coming to you from Illinois -- "The Land of Skolnick"