Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh and FBI Agent Paul Wysopal PSYOP
Reporter: Are you the Oklahoma CityBomber?
Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh: Maybe.
Reporter What do you think of the attorney general, John Reno?
Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh: They say if you don’t have anything good to say about somebody, you don’t say it. So we’ll go on to the next person.
FBI Agent Paul Wysopal: Today, we recruit. You got to be somewhat computer savvy. Kids today, they’re tweeting and twitting and banging away on their Xbox 360. Stuff I never heard of when I was a kid wasn’t even available.
Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh: Maybe one of the benefits of me talking to you today is that you’ll see that maybe not everything is true that you’ve heard about me.
FBI Agent Paul Wysopal: Good morning. My name is Paul Weisepel. I’m the special agent in charge of the FBI’s field office here in Tampa, which includes the Orlando Resident Agency.
Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh: Well, am I am I pure evil? Am I the face of terror sitting here in front of you? Or am I able to talk to you man to man?
FBI Agent Paul Wysopal: The Murrah building in Oklahoma City was it was attacked in I believe it was 95. The downside to that was you had civilian casualties. The target is it was political, but you had children that were going to a daycare center that were hit.
Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh: I thought it was it was terrible that there were children in the building.
FBI Agent Paul Wysopal: If they were to attack or someone were to attack federal law enforcement, you don’t want to have that type of civilian casualties. So the goal was to move the bureau, FBI offices to a more secure facility where we’re isolated.
Reporter: The IRS,
Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh: I believe they’re an out of control agency.
Reporter: FBI
Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh: should be reined in.
FBI Agent Paul Wysopal: The big things for us, obviously, terrorism, number one priority, the FBI, the president, President Bush at the time, designated the FBI as the lead agency on terrorism investigations.
Reporter: Is there anything you would say to the families, for example?
Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh: There are things that I want to say. The timing is not right.
FBI Agent Paul Wysopal: I think one of the things that take away from this, these bad events such as this, as we learned in 9-11 brings the community together, including the law enforcement community. As you see, everybody represented here, we all work together from the get go. From the time at two o’clock in the morning when the shooting began, everybody rallied together to work the case as one force.
Reporter: In your high school yearbook, under future plans, you wrote, and I’m quoting here, take it as it comes, buy a Lamborghini, California girls.
Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh: Right. Well, I’m dreaming. I’m putting down my dreams. You know, if I could rub a genie in a bottle, that’s what I wish for, right?
FBI Agent Paul Wysopal: So a little bit of everything, actually. The way I would liken it is, you know, you see on the side of the police car, it says to protect and serve. I think of the federal system is very similar to that. We just answer to different violations.
Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh: Well, I’ve broken that question down over the years and analyzed it every way, you know, trying to come to peace with it myself.
FBI Agent Paul Wysopal: As of last night, within 24 hours, all the victims were removed from the Pulse bar lounge. Now we’re going to be processing it with the shooting reconstruction team to get as much forensic evidence as we possibly can at that point.
Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh: I went over there, hyped up, just like everyone else. Not only is Saddam evil, all Iraqis are evil. What I experienced, though, was an entirely different ballgame.
FBI Agent Paul Wysopal: At post 9-11, everybody knows that we don’t have enough resources in our own division, let alone the FBI as a whole, to work terrorism cases successfully. You need the state, local, and other federal partners.
Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh: I could say the use of what is no more or less snipers in a domestic non-wartime situation. Federal agents taking on the role of judge, jury, and executioner.
FBI Agent Paul Wysopal: As you know, post 9-11, no stone is unturned. And that’s the same today as it was then. Every terrorism case and investigation is going to be worked the same way. No stone will be left unturned. We’ll follow the leads wherever they take us. We’ll brief you as best we can when we can. You’ll have to bear with us on that and just trust our judgment. The FBI has been in existence for over 108 years now. We’ve earned the people’s trust by working cases hard and being straightforward with you. We don’t want to violate that trust by giving you bogus information that two hours later we got to come back out and tell you that information was wrong.
Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh: If government is the teacher, violence would be. An acceptable option.
FBI Agent Paul Wysopal: We’ve got to be successful 100% of the time. The terrorists only have to be successful once to get a splash in the news. One event for us could be a very bad day. So we have to be on our game at all times.
Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh: I was raised in an environment where men don’t cry. You hold it back. Obviously, there’s a different cultural phenomenon in America now with President Clinton and his whole tear act all the time. But for me, through coming into adulthood, it’s one of the things that a guy learns is how to hold back tears and not let it be shown.
FBI Agent Paul Wysopal: So with that, just ask you to bear with us as we move forward in the investigation. I want to do like everyone else did and commend the first responders. They actually saved lives by responding as quickly as they did.
Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh: I came to terms with my mortality in the Gulf War. After that, it’s not that hard to be, quote, prepared for death.
FBI Agent Paul Wysopal: So that’s the key. Get your four-year degree and focus on that. Because if you don’t get into the FBI, you don’t want to be miserable. What am I going to do with the rest of my life? Get the degree in something that makes you happy and that you enjoy and bring that to the table.
