APRIL 19, 1998: Jack DeVault, The Waco Whitewash
 

Engelman: We have a few speakers today. All of them have, been involved one way or another with, what took place here. Written books, produced movies, were very outspoken about everything that, that happened- know what happened. Know whose fault it was. And I'd like to introduce the first speaker today. And that would be, an author. A retired Air Force major, he wrote the book, The Waco Whitewash. Mr. Jack DeVault. Jack. [applause]

How long am I scheduled for? [Engelman: "Um, anytime between now and noon."] (laughter) [Doyle:"As long as they're prepared to stay ??"]

A privilege to be here. Uh, to, do three things. First of all, we want to honor the, the dead, that were sacrificed here- they really were sacrificed for us- Uh, I think we also need to, draw attention, to the fact that, there are, prisoners still, being held- political prisoners- and I would like to solicit your help, in, uh, solving at least part of their problems. Uh, I didn't, uh, I didn't bri-, bring one of my books up here, but that there are a hundred of them in the trunk of the car. And I just spoke to Clive Doyle, and he agreed to this. It's a 335-page book, uh, that recounts, basically, the, goings on at the trial, and preceding the trial, uh, of the, Branch Davidians. Uh, we've managed to sell a few thousand for 16.95, uh, and 3.95 postage, when, when they, when they mail orders. Today, I've brought these books up and, if you want to contribute to the, Survivors Fund, the Prisoners and Survivors Fund that Clive Doyle, uh, keeps for the Branch Davidians- all of those books, are available, and all of the money, will go to anyone that buys one for ten bucks, and uh, who, uh, who's willing, to. write a letter, to a prisoner, or send birthday cards. I have here also, a list of the prisoners' addresses, and, uh, I, I will provide those for you, and, I think we have a duty to them. And, uh, I would appreciate your coop-, cooperation on that. Uh, I, I would like to get these books into, into circulation. That's one of the reasons for doing this. I don't, I, I've already lost the, the investment I made in the books, so that's not the point anymore, I've written that off. What I'd like to do is have the information of the injustice, in the hands of, everyone.

Now I have a few notes here, for about a three-hour speech, that's why I asked them how long I could speak! Uh, if I, ad-lib the whole thing, it would take three hours. If I read it, it would take about an hour and 20 minutes. However, what I'm going to do is, read to you parts of it. Because that will condense it, uh, a little bit. But, uh, I'd like us to, consider, why we've come here. Those three things, we've mentioned only two of them. To remember those that were killed here, and to love, and sympathize, and support, uh, the survivors, and to remember the survivors that are in prison. And the third thing is probably what I'm going to spend the most time on, and that is to, renew our determination, that our government must obey, the rules that it has in the Constitution. [applause]

At the end of the Book of Ecclesiastes, which was the wisdom of Solomon, it says, "To fear God, and keep His commandments; This is the whole duty of man." Those we have come to honor here today, and to remember, did fear God. There is no question but that they wished to keep His commandments. They gave up their possessions and lost their lives in the quest of that duty to fulfill their, their, the whole duty of man. They did not want their children, to be molded by schools, that were run by the survivors of Sodom and Gomorrah. Their purpose was to follow the Biblical injunction to "come out from among them and be separate." They did not seek to impose their beliefs on us- or on the rest of society. Yet our president continues to, uh, impose his fictional beliefs on us- that is, that they committed suicide- Uh, that they started the fire- A great number of, of fictions that, the government has, attempted to perpetuate- by, the most important people in that government, Bill Clinton and Janet Reno.

Jesus said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul and with all your strength". He said, "That's the first Commandment". Those who died here seemed to understood that pretty well- But then Jesus said, "And the second Commandment is not much different: Love your neighbor as yourself.". The Lord Jesus Christ said that there was not much difference between loving God, The Father, the Creator, of all mankind, and loving your neighbor. So that's really the first reason why we're here, even though I'm not going to spend a good deal of time on it: to love our neighbors who have lost loved ones.

We, the people, are responsible for this government that we have. Because of that, we all share its guilt. We are shamed and saddened, by what happened here, but our coming here today is not to tell our government that we're ready to revolt- Our forefathers' Declaration of Independence, uh, pronounced to King George the IV, did an adequate job of that, and it still stands. And they should be reading it.

We have a common bond with those who died here, and with those who remain. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that we were endowed by our Creator"- Who, the Bible tells us, created man, us, in His own image- "with certain inalienable rights; that among those rights, are the God-given rights, are Life, the right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." As these innocent men and women are now in eternity, and committed to the God who created them, let us give meaning to their deaths by pledging our own lives and sacred honor; let us honor their sacrifice with our own vow that such an injustice, will never again be imposed, by our disobedient servant, the federal government, on any person, while we have the breath to stop it. [applause M:"Yeah!"] Let this pledge be our tribute to the dead we honor and to the friends here today that we would console.[aborted clapping]

Now, secondly, let us do what, uh, is left for us to do. Let us honor those who even now are suffering persecution for righteousness sake. The prisoners whose lives have been taken from them and from their families. Let me call the roll of those who remain in prison:
 

Renos Avraam

Brad Branch

Jaime Castillo

Graeme Craddock

Livingston Fagan

Paul Fatta

and Kevin Whitecliff!
 

On August 4, last year, the federal court, in Waco, Texas, right here- chaired, presided over by Judge Walter S. Smith, Jr.- who was also the judge at the San Antonio trial, in, uh, 19, um, 95- proved himself to be a master- of course, that was in 1994- proved himself to be a master of the whitewash, and prosecutor William Johnston continued his crusade against the Branch, Branch Davidian prisoners.

On that day, uh, US Marshals swarmed all over the courthouse. And a number of attorneys and federal agents were here- how many of you were, were at that- hearing? Anybody here? It was very interesting. Uh, the, uh, federal agent guests were invited in first, and they filled all the best seats, and, and then, uh, those of us who were allowed and remained were, were allowed to come in just before the proceedings started. Uh, William Johnston, who was the lead prosecutor in the trial, uh, then made some pronouncements. He had some findings, that were not found by the jury. The jury in San Antonio, didn't find a number of the things that he asserted were the truth.

Uh, the prisoners at this, hearing, were Renos Avraam, Brad Branch, Jaime Castillo, Graeme Craddock, and, uh, Kevin Whitecliff, they were shackled- They were in the courtroom, shackled with one wrist chained to their waists, and they were bound with leg irons. They were attired in khaki colored pajama bottoms, of prisoners, and in their T-shirts. All of them appeared to have aged more than the three years since I had last seen them. Uh, Kevin Whitcliff had written to me that he was growing fat and flabby from working in the kitchen. On that day he seemed reasonably thin, trim and thin and, and healthy.

Uh-the, Branch Davidian appeals team was made up mostly of the same attorneys who had represented them since before San Antonio. Uh, San Antonio trial. One new lawyer was Steven, uh, Hal-, Holbrook from South Carolina, who represented, Brad Branch.

The hearing commenced promptly at 9:00 a.m., with a short statement by William Johnston. He alleged that the defendants all used enhanced weapons of some sort, and that the sentence originally imposed, should be upheld. That was not a jury finding!

Each of the defense attorneys rose in turn and asked what, that, asked? his client's sentence be reduced to five years. That was pretty much standard. The primary arguments in each case, uh, were that, uh, no evidence had been introduced that proved that their particular man had been involved in a crime, of which they were committed with any enhanced weapon or explosive device. Furthermore, count three of the indictment, and instructions to the jury, did not have the instruction which required the finding of conspiracy, hence, the jury did not find any conspiracy. Only count one, the murder count, of the jury instruc-, instructions, allowed for a finding of conspiracy. And since no conspiracy was found there, the defendants were, not found guilty of that count, and there was consequently no conspiracy found by the jury. [M: "That's right."]

The judge, however, found that by a preponderance of the evidence- now do you know what this preponderance of the evidence is? That's what he thinks! That's what he judged to be the truth! Uh, the jury didn't make these findings at all! [baby crying] He, he said that, that the, preponderance of the evidence had been that a, there was a conspiracy, and that, uh, each of the sentence, each of the prisoners should be re-sentenced, to the very same sentence, uh, which he had originally given them.

Now there was an interesting portion to this, and that was the allocution, uh, portion. That's where the prisoners get to respond and say to the judge what's on their mind. Uh, this provided a few fireworks and a little food for thought. As, uh, Brad Branch, Kevin Whitecliff, and Kevin, and, uh, Jaime Castillo chose not to attempt any allocution. But Graeme Craddock, was by far the most peaceful, pacific, laid-back person that you ever saw. And he wanted simply to correct the evidence, uh, that had been misused against him, which was absolutely, patently untrue. Uh, and he spent a good time trying to convince the judge that, they had bad evidence against him.

When Craddock finished, it was Renos Avraam's turn for allocution. And Renos was not intimidated by the judge. He spoke for about 15 minutes, repeatedly accusing Judge Smith of acting on his personal feelings, and, uh, the, uh, just simply ignoring the law. He said, "This nation is supposed to run under laws, not personal feelings. When you ignore the law, you sow the seeds of terrorism. Why wasn't the law applied? Because you didn't want to apply it. You are busy protecting this government by tiptoeing around the law. You apply it only when it works for you, and you ignore it when it works for us." Those are pretty strong words! [M: "Yeah!" applause]

His, uh, soliloquy was finally interrupted by his attorney, who stepped up and, and thought that he might offend the court- Uh, but he had clearly made the judge uneasy. Uh, the judge kept fiddling with a ball-point pen, turning it around and around in his hand. And immediately after Avraam sat down, prosecutor William Johnston rose, and was outraged at the very idea that Avraam had suggested that terrorism might be caused by the government's injustice! [laughter]

After a couple of hours of this proceeding, why, the court was recessed, and, the judge reaffirmed his original sentence- everybody went back to the sentence that had been originally given, uh, a couple of years, three years before in San Antonio. [M: "?? sucks?!"]

I would like to take now just a few minutes to examine, the pack of lies, that has been, perpetuated by, our government ,fed, to this nation, by its leaders- How many of you were here two years after, three years ago, in, in November- rather, on April 19, 1995- when we met over there and everybody was- it was a little bit of mist. We were worried, we were hearing, Ron had mentioned, uh, as a matter of fact, that somebody had reported on the radio that there had been an explosion, in Oklahoma City. Do you remember that? That was, that was a very tense time for all of us I think.

Well, I have to take us back to that general era, and you know, I had watched "60 Minutes" on the following Sunday, but on April 22 of 1995, following the tragic bombing in Oklahoma City, Lesley Stahl, questioned President Bill Clinton, Clinton on CBS's "60 Minutes." The following exchange took place. Now this is a transcript. I have the videotape of the "60 Minutes" program, and I transcribed it, and this is, verbatim what was said.

Lesley Stahl says, "Mr. President, uh, what I kept hearing from the militiamen there- and I gather this is true among all these so-called patriots- is the Waco incident. It seems to be their battle cry- it's their cause. They say that the feds went into a religious compound to take peoples' guns away; they say no federal officer was ever punished- no one was ever brought to trial. I'm just wondering, if you have any second thoughts about the way that raid was carried out."

Bill Clinton clears his throat and says, (attempting Clinton accent) "Uh, let me remind you what happened at Wac-" I, I'm not going to try that, I, I- [laughter] "Let me remind you what happened at Waco, and before the raid was carried out. Before that raid was carried out those people murdered a bunch of innocent law enforcement officials who work for the federal government. Before there was any raid there were dead federal law enforcement officials on the ground, and when that raid occurred it was the people who ran their cult compound, at Waco, who murdered, their own children- not the federal officials. They made the decision to destroy all those children that were there. I think that to make those people heroes after what they did, killing our innocent federal officials, and then killing their own children, is evidence of what is wrong." ["Liar!" F: "Liar, liar!" M:" Liar!" "Liar!"]

He goes on, and says, "People should not be able to violate the law and then say that if the federal law enforcement officials come on my land to arrest me for violating the law, or because I'm suspected of a crime, I have a right to kill them and then turn around and kill the people who live there. I cannot believe that any serious patriotic American, believes, that the conduct, conduct of these people at Waco justifies, the kind of outrageous behavior, we've seen here at Oklahoma City, or the kind of inflammatory rhetoric-" that you're hearing today- " that we've been hearing all across this country today. It's wrong!" Now that is our President, setting the attitude. ["??" M: "Not our President." F: "Their President!"] Their President! All right!

On the very next Sunday, on August, April 30, 1995, one week after the President's lies, Attorney General Janet Reno, was Tim Russert's guest on NBC's "Meet, Meet the Press." She repeated the same old lies and deceptions, as follows:

Five minutes? OK, I'm running out of time and space here! Uh, Russert says, "Let me talk about some of the rhetoric that has been used over the last couple of months about your agency. The head of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre), who will be our guest, later in the program, has said the following:

"'You can see it when the jack-booted government thugs wearing black arm-, wearing black, armed to the teeth, break down the door, open fire with an automatic weapon, and kill or maim law-abiding citizens. In Clinton's administration, if you have a badge, you have the government's go-ahead to harass, intimidate, even murder, law-abiding citizens.' What is your reaction?" ??, uh, Tim Russert said.

Reno says, "I think the best reaction is to say, give us the specifics; let us look at it, because what we want to do is make sure that law enforcement holds people accountable, when they commit a crime- when they have engaged in violent acts. But we want to do so according to the Constitution!" [laughter, derision] My time is running out, and I, I still got two hours and 40 minutes worth of speech here for you- But, uh, I just want to say that we have a responsibility. We can't just come here and say, we're sorry it happened. We have to, uh, find, some way, somehow, to say that this cannot happen again. And that may involve, uh- talking to our Congressmen. I, I, I have a big section in here that I'd like to tell you about, but, I was up to Washington for the hearings on this matter. And it was revolting! The results were, that they found that a great number of, errors were made, and nobody was ever held accountable for those mistakes! [M: "That's right!"] And, uh, we have to hold our Congressmen's feet to the fire- If they, if we are the government, and we are- and they are our representatives- and they haven't been- then we've got to get at them. We've got to make sure that they do what's right.

I hope that that- got a bunch of volunteers, I'll go get those, those books and, uh, get them in Clive's hand, and he's going to sell 'em, and every cent that you pay for them is going to, uh, go towards the prisoners and survivors fund for the Branch Davidians. ?? I thank you very much for your time. [applause]

Engelman: Thanks, Jack. Great job...

Link to undelivered portion of #written speech
Link to full written speech

NEXT SPEAKER: Jesse Enloe


Back to 1998 Anniversary

Back to Home Page

wacocult@yahoo.***