Democratic Rep. James A. Traficant Questions Waco Cover-Up

 

Message: Congressman Fears Police State, Says Waco Expert May Have Murdered Stephan Archer Tuesday, May 30, 2000 Democratic Rep. James A. Traficant says America is a virtual police state, and he worries that a leading forensic expert hired by Congress to investigate Waco may have been murdered. Late in April of this year NewsMax.com first broke nationally the story about the suspicious death of Carlos Ghigliotti. Ghigliotti was an expert FLIR (Forward-Looking InfraRed) videotape analyst hired by the House Government Reform Committee to analyze the flashes on infrared film taken by the FBI during its April 1993 Waco assault. Ghigliotti boldly said the FBI had lied when it claimed it had not fired into the compound. He confirmed that the infrared film showed gunfire coming from the assault weapons of FBI agents. Maryland police officials say the cause of Ghigliotti's death in April is officially a heart attack. His badly decomposed body was discovered in his office on April 28, after his building manager called the police telling them he hadn’t seen Ghigliotti for weeks. Traficant believes too many coincidences, including Ghigliotti’s death, have occurred during the Waco investigation and is now calling upon Congress to take action. The Ohio congressman is not buying official claims that Ghigliotti, age 42, died of a heart attack in his sleep. "Something stinks," he said. "Ghigliotti said the FBI lied, that they did fire automatic weapons into the burning [Branch Davidian] building," said the congressman. "But Vector Data Systems of England said the FBI did not lie. Two scientific groups totally disagree." "Vector gets hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts from the FBI," continued Traficant. "To boot, FBI audiotapes of the burning building are now lost. To boot, FBI autopsy reports confiscated of victims are now missing." Traficant also pointed out the FBI lodged an alleged or false child abuse charge against the Davidians. The FBI had also initially denied using combustible incendiary tear gas canisters, only to admit doing so later. Although Traficant is pushing for a congressional investigation, the Laurel City Police Department told NewsMax.com it was no longer investigating the case. "The investigation’s been closed on the basis of the report from the medical examiner’s office which showed that he died of a heart attack brought on by arteriosclerosis," said Mary Bulla, the administrative specialist at Laurel City Police Department. "They found no indication of foul play, and they put that it was a natural death, so that concludes our investigation." Police State Fears "We have developed a stone cold police state in America, believe me, from Waco, Ruby Ridge, to Miami, Florida," Traficant said. "Every American knows it, [but] no one is doing anything about it. There must be a full investigation into the death of Carlos Ghigliotti." In an effort to move forward an investigation of the Justice Department’s handling of the Waco tragedy, Traficant has sponsored H.R. 4105, a bill that would enact the Fair Justice Act of 2000. The act, if passed, would establish the Fair Justice Agency, a new federal agency that would independently have the power to investigate and prosecute alleged misconduct, criminal activity, corruption or fraud by an officer or employee of the Justice Department. The bill states that the president would appoint the director of the proposed FJA for a 10-year term subject to a Senate confirmation. Only inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office would be a cause for the director’s dismissal by the president. Under the bill, the FJA would have the same prosecutorial and investigative authority as the Justice Department. The agency would be authorized with $10 million for fiscal year 2001 with a $5 million increase each year for the next two years.

 

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