In a 19-page affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City, convicted Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Lynn Nichols alleges that the bombing plot was actually under the supervision of top FBI officials. According to a February 21 report in Salt Lake City's Deseret News, the Nichols affidavit charges that Timothy McVeigh, who was executed for his role in the bombing, was actually working under Larry Potts, the controversial FBI official who was forced to resign under a cloud for his roles in two other major FBI scandals: the deadly FBI assaults on Ruby Ridge in 1992 and Waco in 1993. Terry Nichols is not a terribly credible witness: he's a mass murderer and he lied consistently through the OKC investigation, but his claims should not be dismissed outright.

As the assistant director in charge of criminal investigations at FBI headquarters, Larry Potts was the Washington-based manager of the 1992 operation against the Randy Weaver family near Ruby Ridge in remote northern Idaho. In that incredible and tragic operation, Randy Weaver's wife Vicki was shot in the head and killed by an FBI sniper, while holding her infant child. The Weavers' 14-year-old son Sammy was also killed, shot in the back by federal agents. Larry Potts was the FBI official who approved the illegal "license to kill" order that resulted in those deaths.

The FBI's infamous assault on the Branch Davidian church complex near Waco, Texas, left more than 80 people dead, including 22 children. Potts, again, played a key role, both in authorizing the use of deadly force against innocent civilians, and, later, in the campaign of lies and coverups aimed at thwarting congressional investigations into the deadly fiasco.

Larry Potts was also the FBI's man charged with overall supervisory responsibility for the Oklahoma City bombing investigation in 1995. Together with Attorney General Janet Reno, FBI Director Louis Freeh, and Bob Ricks, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Oklahoma City office, Potts helped misdirect the OKC investigation, purposely steering investigators away from individuals who should have been considered top suspects as McVeigh's co-conspirators in the bombing plot.

One of the primary suspects who benefited from this misdirection was Andreas Strassmeir, a German national who was in the United States illegally and was serving as chief of security at the white separatist compound known as "Elohim City," in rural eastern Oklahoma. McVeigh's phone records show he called the compound on the same day that he called the Ryder truck agency to rent the vehicle used for the truck bomb.

According to the FBI's own documents, the witness at Elohim City who took the call said McVeigh was calling for Strassmeir. Elohim City was well-known as a hangout and hideout for the notorious Aryan Republican Army bank robbers, several of whom have turned out to be federal informants or agents provocateur.

Rather than arresting and questioning Strassmeir, the FBI allowed him to wander freely for eight months and then slip into Mexico before fleeing back to Germany. Andreas Strassmeir and McVeigh's connections to Elohim City have been subject of numerous reports in The New American's extensive and ongoing investigation into the Oklahoma City bombing. (See, for example, "Elohim, Terror, and Truth" and "Undercover: The Howe Revelations." The latter title refers to Carol Howe, an ATF informant who provided federal agents prior knowledge of the Oklahoma City bombing.)

After Louis Freeh promoted Potts to be his top assistant, he was forced to demote and suspend him when congressional and Justice Department investigations revealed Potts' illegal activities in the Ruby Ridge and Waco operations. Was Potts "running" Strassmeir, McVeigh, and other OKC bombing suspects who were listed in the original federal indictment as "others unknown"? The answer to that question may be revealed when other sealed FBI documents on Elohim City, McVeigh, and Strassmeir are released.

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