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The Death of Paul Wellstone Part Two: Unreliable Sources · Conspiracy! The Show

0:10
Speaker 1: Wait true In truth, I'm a cheap there is. Hey, everybody,
0:31
Speaker 1: welcome to Conspiracy The Show. I'm your host Adam Todd
0:35
Speaker 1: Brown joining me as co host this week once again.
0:38
Speaker 1: No co host, my favorite co host of all. It's
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Speaker 1: just me and you and the strange death of Paul Wellstone,
0:46
Speaker 1: which is what we're talking about again, Who me you,
0:50
Speaker 1: that's who us. I swear I'll have a co host
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Speaker 1: on one of these episodes soon maybe, But until then,
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Speaker 1: let's get back into it. When we left off, Senator
1:00
Speaker 1: Paul Wellstone had been killed in a plane crash that
1:04
Speaker 1: also took the lives of his wife, Sheila, their daughter,
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Speaker 1: three of his staffers, and the two pilots of the plane.
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Speaker 1: The FBI showed up shockingly fast and started acting weird
1:16
Speaker 1: almost immediately, and the NTSB showed up slow as shit
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Speaker 1: and also started acting weird almost immediately, And things didn't
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Speaker 1: get any more normal when the NTSB finally issued their
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Speaker 1: official report on the crash, or in the thirteen months
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Speaker 1: that it took for that to finally happen. The report
1:34
Speaker 1: was released on November eighteenth, two thousand and three, and
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Speaker 1: one thing to know right off the bat, all that
1:40
Speaker 1: weather stuff ignore it all. Turns out none of that mattered.
1:44
Speaker 1: Despite intense speculation for days and weeks after the crash
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Speaker 1: that the pilots were flying in terrible weather, the NTSB
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Speaker 1: decided whether wasn't a factor in the crash. And I
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Speaker 1: don't know. Again, I'm not a crash scene investigator, but
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Speaker 1: it seems like that would have been the easiest possibility
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Speaker 1: to eliminate, Like right away, it's the weather. People track
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Speaker 1: that they document it, especially at airports where there are
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Speaker 1: instruments recording weather conditions at all times out of necessity.
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Speaker 1: Instruments that at Eveleth Airport at the time of the
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Speaker 1: crash showed the weather wasn't that bad. Nevertheless, speculation about
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Speaker 1: weather maybe being the culprit, even from the NTSB who
2:27
Speaker 1: aren't supposed to speculate, abounded in the days after the crash.
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Speaker 1: And sure, sometimes people get things wrong. Human error is
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Speaker 1: a thing. But the ramifications of this go beyond just
2:39
Speaker 1: getting the details wrong. Remember this was two thousand and two,
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Speaker 1: well before social media feeds, if any existed at all,
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Speaker 1: were littered with news stories unless you were in the
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Speaker 1: Minnesota area or otherwise had a reason to be invested
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Speaker 1: in Minnesota politics. Those early news reports were likely to
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Speaker 1: be the only news reports that you would have paid
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Speaker 1: attention to at the time. I'm certainly not gonna do it,
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Speaker 1: but I suspect that if you were to survey people
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Speaker 1: who do remember Wellstone's death, a lot of them would
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Speaker 1: still tell you his plane went down in bad weather.
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Speaker 1: But Nope, after thirteen months, the NTSB came back with
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Speaker 1: a whole new explanation. This time around, they very definitively
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Speaker 1: concluded that they weren't quite sure what happened, but maybe
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Speaker 1: it was pilot error. Now, again, if you were closely
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Speaker 1: following this story at the time, you probably would have
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Speaker 1: seen that pilot error thing coming from a mile away,
3:35
Speaker 1: because months before the NTSB report was released, the NTSB
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Speaker 1: released a bunch of information about the pilots, and most
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Speaker 1: of it was not good. Now, before we get into
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Speaker 1: that information, let's talk about the fact that this information
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Speaker 1: was released at all. Remember, there was no public hearing
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Speaker 1: held for this crash. That's literally the final line of
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Speaker 1: the NTSB report. Quote no public hearing was held for
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Speaker 1: this accident end quote. They only hold public hearings for
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Speaker 1: high profile cases with significant public interest, So this crash
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Speaker 1: wasn't high profile or interesting enough for a public hearing.
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Speaker 1: But it was interesting and high profile enough that they'd
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Speaker 1: released dirt on two dead pilots to the public before
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Speaker 1: the investigation is even finished. Does that sound right? Why
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Speaker 1: would you leak information in advance of the final report
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Speaker 1: to the press for a case you've deemed too unimportant
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Speaker 1: to warrant a public hearing. It makes no sense, but
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Speaker 1: that's exactly what happened. In February two thousand and three,
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Speaker 1: the NTSB released files from their still in progress investigation
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Speaker 1: that raised a lot of questions about the pilots of
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Speaker 1: Wellstone's ill fated flight. For example, February twenty six, two
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Speaker 1: thousand and three, New York Times article that carried the
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Speaker 1: headline inquiry on Wellstone crash finds ease about pilot. It
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Speaker 1: featured all sorts of salacious details about one of the pilots.
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Speaker 1: Keep in mind there were two, but in this case
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Speaker 1: they were mostly talking about Richard Conrie and the things
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Speaker 1: he got up to people. He claimed to have logged
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Speaker 1: five hundred and fourteen hours of flight time while working
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Speaker 1: at American Eagle, but a separate log book he maintained
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Speaker 1: claimed it was only fourteen point four hours or how
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Speaker 1: in the weeks before the crash, he and this is
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Speaker 1: a quote from the article, committed such errors as misidentifying
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Speaker 1: his aircraft type to air traffic controllers and mistaking a
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Speaker 1: switch that turned on the autopilot for a switch that
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Speaker 1: activated a system to keep the plane pointed straight. There
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Speaker 1: was also an LA Times article the same day about
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Speaker 1: how Conrie almost canceled the flight because of bad weather,
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Speaker 1: which is presented as if it's something scandalous, as opposed
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Speaker 1: to proof that the weather actually cleared up enough for
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Speaker 1: Conrie to be comfortable flying shortly thereafter. But there was
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Speaker 1: another revelation, one so shocking I haven't even mentioned it
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Speaker 1: up to this point for dramatic reasons. Get this. In
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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety, Richard Conry was convicted of mail fraud. What
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Speaker 1: these articles and the eventual NTSB report both failed to
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Speaker 1: mention is what any of this has to do with
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Speaker 1: the crash that killed Paul Wellstone. The report spends a
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Speaker 1: lot of time implying or suggesting that these pilots were incompetent,
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Speaker 1: but at no point does it ever say exactly what
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Speaker 1: mistakes they made that led to the crash. It does
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Speaker 1: mention that at ten eighteen am, all seemed to be normal,
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Speaker 1: and then like sixty seconds later, it was not. Go
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Speaker 1: watch any documentary about airline disasters. Crash is caused by
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Speaker 1: pilot error typically involve a series of mistakes, and in
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Speaker 1: this case, did they even have time to make a
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Speaker 1: series of mistakes between ten eighteen am when things were
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Speaker 1: normal and ten nineteen am when everything seemed to go awry?
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Speaker 1: The speed at which things go from normal to deadly
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Speaker 1: implies something a little more dramatic than a simple switch
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Speaker 1: flip oopsie occurred. The book American Assassination goes into a
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Speaker 1: lot of detail, shooting holes in the NTSB conclusion presented
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Speaker 1: in this report, and guess what it's filled with, All
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Speaker 1: sorts of technical jargon and things of the like, and
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Speaker 1: what honestly make for a boring stretch of podcast. If
7:25
Speaker 1: you're able to find a copy of the book, I
7:27
Speaker 1: encourage you to read what they have to say about
7:29
Speaker 1: it in its entirety. But I want to focus on
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Speaker 1: the most important, finding the probable cause, finding the money shot.
7:37
Speaker 1: Here's what it says. The National Transportation Safety Board determines
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Speaker 1: that the probable cause of this accident was the flight
7:44
Speaker 1: cruise failure to maintain adequate air speed, which led to
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Speaker 1: an aerodynamic stall from which they did not recover. Now,
7:52
Speaker 1: a couple things about that conclusion. One, they never actually
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Speaker 1: prove it in that report, nor do they even pretend to.
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Speaker 1: They never say how the pilots missed the various warning
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Speaker 1: signs of their impending doom, or why they didn't make
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Speaker 1: any adjustments to fix it, or, to quote NTSB board
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Speaker 1: member Richard Healing's comments on the conclusion, we don't know why.
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Speaker 1: It's quite speculative. But there's something else that makes their
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Speaker 1: conclusion even more suspect. In an effort to prove how
8:22
Speaker 1: right they were, the NTSB used flight simulators to recreate
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Speaker 1: the crash based on their conclusion that insufficient air speed
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Speaker 1: led to a stall. Except here's the problem. They couldn't
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Speaker 1: do it. In those simulations. The planes never stalled, even
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Speaker 1: when they slowed to the air speed the NTSB claimed
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Speaker 1: Wellstone's flight was traveling at when the crash happened. I mean,
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Speaker 1: I'm not a scientist, but I think being able to
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Speaker 1: prove your hypothesis is a pretty important part of the
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Speaker 1: scientific process, and that never happens here, which makes them
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Speaker 1: leaking that info about the pilots ahead of time, all
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Speaker 1: the more sus to me. It feels like that thing
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Speaker 1: cops do where they decide someone is guilty and conduct
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Speaker 1: their investigation accordingly, just looking for only the evidence that
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Speaker 1: supports their hunch. This feels like the NTSB planned to
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Speaker 1: call this pilot error from the beginning and immediately set
9:18
Speaker 1: about finding evidence in air quotes to back that up,
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Speaker 1: even though none really exists. So, if you're keeping score
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Speaker 1: at home, here's what's happened so far. Paul Wellstone's plane
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Speaker 1: crash just days before an election he was probably gonna win.
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Speaker 1: The FBI showed up immediately and said terrorism wasn't involved
9:35
Speaker 1: on day one from the scene of the crash, even
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Speaker 1: though they weren't supposed to be there. The NTSB immediately
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Speaker 1: speculated on the cause of the crash, even though they
9:44
Speaker 1: don't speculate on cause, And then a few months later
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Speaker 1: they released character damaging information about both pilots, but especially
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Speaker 1: Richard Conry, despite the crash having been determined to not
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Speaker 1: be of public interest. Then later that year, the NTSB
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Speaker 1: issued a final report with an unproven hypothesis for a conclusion,
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Speaker 1: and that doesn't even list the FBI as having participated
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Speaker 1: in the investigation. So yeah, of course people think something
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Speaker 1: nefarious was afoot here. Character flaws don't speak to a
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Speaker 1: person's ability to fly an airplane, but as pointed out
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Speaker 1: by the authors of American Assassination, they could speak to
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Speaker 1: another possibility that the NTSB never considered. What if one
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Speaker 1: or both of the pilots were coerced into unwittingly participating
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Speaker 1: in the sabotage of this plane. We'll never know, because
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Speaker 1: once the FBI decided there was no terrorism involved, sabotage
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Speaker 1: or foul play of any sort not only weren't considered
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Speaker 1: as possibilities by the NTSB, but they couldn't be considered
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Speaker 1: as possibilities. And Richard Conry reportedly had some financial stress
10:53
Speaker 1: in his life, but nothing too extreme. That said, there
10:56
Speaker 1: were reports that he sounded a little off when making
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Speaker 1: those calls to confirm the WEB before the flight, to
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Speaker 1: the point that the person he spoke to wondered if
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Speaker 1: he'd been forced or at least encouraged to make the
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Speaker 1: flight even though he didn't want to. And the authors
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Speaker 1: of this book aren't suggesting that Conrie or co pilot
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Speaker 1: Michael Guess knowingly acted as suicide pilots or anything, just
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Speaker 1: that maybe all those character flaws made them more susceptible
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Speaker 1: to maybe taking part in a scheme that was something
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Speaker 1: more than they realized, Like, hey, would you mind sneaking
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Speaker 1: these drugs on board that plane with you? And then oops,
11:31
Speaker 1: turns out it's a small bomb. Who among us hasn't
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Speaker 1: been there? That said, I have no idea who would
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Speaker 1: be trafficking drugs to Eveleth, Minnesota. However, while all the
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Speaker 1: speculation of pilot error focused mostly on Richard Conriy, it
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Speaker 1: was co pilot Michael Guests who had the crazy backstory,
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Speaker 1: the short version that guy was tied to nine to eleven.
11:51
Speaker 1: Remember Zacharias Mussawi, aka the nine to eleven hijacker that
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Speaker 1: didn't get away. He was arrested on August sixteenth, two
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Speaker 1: thousand and one, after his actions as a student at
12:03
Speaker 1: PanAm International Flight Academy in Egan, Minnesota aroused some suspicions
12:09
Speaker 1: he was seeking instruction on how to fly a Boeing
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Speaker 1: seven forty seven, despite not even being trained to fly
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Speaker 1: small planes yet. He also didn't want to learn how
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Speaker 1: to take off or land. He just wanted to know
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Speaker 1: how to fly, and he was evasive about his personal
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Speaker 1: details and background and paid the sixty three hundred dollars
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Speaker 1: fee for his training in cash, and later his instructor
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Speaker 1: and the vice president of the flight school would both
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Speaker 1: go on to brief Democratic congressman about how it took
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Speaker 1: them six calls to the FBI and an outburst on
12:43
Speaker 1: one of those calls about how a seven forty seven
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Speaker 1: can be used as a bomb before they could even
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Speaker 1: get someone to look into it. For the record, one
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Speaker 1: of the congressmen they briefed was a guy named James Oberstarr.
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Speaker 1: His name will come up again. Toss it in that
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Speaker 1: memory palace anyway. Musawi was eventually arrested and had to
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Speaker 1: watch Nine to eleven from a jail cell. So the
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Speaker 1: FOMO had to be killing him if nothing else but
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Speaker 1: get this. Michael Guess, the co pilot of the Wellstone plane,
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Speaker 1: earned a degree in aeronautics at the University of North Dakota.
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Speaker 1: Musawi applied for a short course in learning how to
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Speaker 1: fly a crop dusting plane at the University of Minnesota's
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Speaker 1: Crookston Campus, which is affiliated with the University of North
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Speaker 1: Dakota's flying program, and at one point while Musawi was
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Speaker 1: attending Egan Flight School. Michael Guess was also working there
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Speaker 1: as a flight instructor. Weird right, even weirder. An ex
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Speaker 1: manager at Egan told reporters at one point that Michael
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Speaker 1: Guess had placed a CD ROM containing seven forty seven
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Speaker 1: simulator software at a workstation in advance of one of
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Speaker 1: Massawi's training sessions prior to his instructor arriving. After Massawi
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Speaker 1: was arrested, the FBI found this simulator program copied onto
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Speaker 1: his laptop. Again, this is all pointed out by the book,
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Speaker 1: So get mad at them if you're bothered by it.
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Speaker 1: But Michael Guess had been the victim of layoffs at
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Speaker 1: his previous job, so chances are pretty good he needed
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Speaker 1: money and Musawi obviously needed that software. So you do
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Speaker 1: the math. And again this is just suggestion on the
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Speaker 1: part of these authors. But what lengths would you go
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Speaker 1: to in order to keep that kind of information about
14:27
Speaker 1: your past work history from becoming mainstream news? Who knows? Again,
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Speaker 1: this is all meaningless speculation. Now. The point is the
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Speaker 1: NTSB never even considered the possibility of sabotage or wrongdoing,
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Speaker 1: and it's hard to trust the conclusion of an investigation
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Speaker 1: that didn't even bother investigating all the possibilities, and hey,
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Speaker 1: trust makes a good segue into the next thing I
14:53
Speaker 1: want to talk about in regards to the death of
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Speaker 1: Paul Wellstone, which is unreliable sources because this story is
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Speaker 1: littered with him. Take the authors of the book American Assassination,
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Speaker 1: for example. On the one hand, there's a guy named
15:06
Speaker 1: Donald Trent Jacobs aka Four Arrows. He's a Native American
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Speaker 1: college professor, writer, activist. His background and work since this
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Speaker 1: book all seem pretty legitimate and unalarming. But it also
15:20
Speaker 1: seems like maybe he's the guy who just kind of
15:22
Speaker 1: helped turn this theory into a book because the other author,
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Speaker 1: a guy named Jim Fetzer, is the one you'll see
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Speaker 1: in YouTube videos sharing this theory on the lecture circuit
15:33
Speaker 1: and whatnot. And oh man, Jim Fetzer brings up some
15:37
Speaker 1: troubling results if you run his name through your Google machine.
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Speaker 1: The first four results are normal his Wikipedia, his Amazon page,
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Speaker 1: his Audible page, stuff like that. Then there's the fifth result,
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Speaker 1: a Rolling Stone article titled Sandy hook Father awarded four
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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand dollars in conspiracy theorists suit and
15:57
Speaker 1: if you've listened to this podcast before, you know, Oh,
16:00
Speaker 1: I'm not too keen on the Sandy Hook theory. If
16:02
Speaker 1: you didn't know that, go listen to the episode about
16:05
Speaker 1: it to find out why I don't want to get
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Speaker 1: into it again. Well, it turns out Jim Fetzer is
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Speaker 1: also the author of a book called Nobody Died at
16:13
Speaker 1: Sandy Hook, and among his claims was that Leonard Posner,
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Speaker 1: the father of six year old Noah Posner, the youngest
16:21
Speaker 1: Sandy Hook victim, forged his son's death certificate. He was
16:24
Speaker 1: sued over that claim, and, as the title of the
16:27
Speaker 1: article implies, he was ordered to pay four hundred and
16:30
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars in damages. And in looking at some
16:33
Speaker 1: of the titles he's put out since, it seems like
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Speaker 1: Jim Fetzer has joined an increasingly long line of people
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Speaker 1: who have flipped from anti government activist to vehement supporter
16:44
Speaker 1: of the government since Trump was elected, which is a bummer.
16:48
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. None of that makes the death
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Speaker 1: of Paul Wellstone any less strange. It doesn't change the
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Speaker 1: NTSB response, it doesn't change the FBI response, both of
16:58
Speaker 1: which are reported in official documents from both agencies. It
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Speaker 1: doesn't make the NTSB report anymore thorough. It has as
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Speaker 1: much to do with the events of this crash as
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Speaker 1: Richard Connery's mail fraud conviction does, which is nothing at all.
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Speaker 1: But still, I figured I should at least acknowledge that
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Speaker 1: I am aware of Jim Fetzer's sketchy work history in
17:19
Speaker 1: the year since this book came out. But also, he
17:22
Speaker 1: wasn't the only one pushing this theory. I already mentioned
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Speaker 1: that his co author seems to be a pretty reasonable guy. Also,
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Speaker 1: this book quotes a lot of articles that were published
17:31
Speaker 1: on a blog called from the Wilderness dot com. If
17:34
Speaker 1: you look at it through a twenty twenty lens, a
17:37
Speaker 1: conspiracy blog from two thousand and two as a shaky source.
17:40
Speaker 1: But that's just because the Internet has changed so much.
17:43
Speaker 1: Back in my day, there was no Facebook or YouTube
17:46
Speaker 1: where everyone could centralize their collective content so as to
17:50
Speaker 1: make it easier to be censored. In the early two thousand,
17:53
Speaker 1: starting website is what you did as a writer, especially
17:56
Speaker 1: if you wanted to write about stuff that mainstream outlets
17:58
Speaker 1: didn't want to talk about. The guy who ran from
18:01
Speaker 1: the Wilderness dot com, which was basically a government corruption
18:04
Speaker 1: watchdog site, and one of the first outlets to question
18:08
Speaker 1: this crash was named Michael Rupert. He has a very
18:11
Speaker 1: interesting background. He joined the LAPD in nineteen seventy three.
18:16
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy six, he claimed to have discovered evidence
18:19
Speaker 1: that the CIA was trafficking drugs in south central LA
18:24
Speaker 1: and was forced to resign after bringing up those concerns.
18:28
Speaker 1: And since then we've heard lots and lots about the
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Speaker 1: CIA trafficking and narcotics in LA, so it seems like
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Speaker 1: he might have been onto something there. He very famously
18:37
Speaker 1: confronted then CIA director John Deutsch about those allegations at
18:42
Speaker 1: a town hall meeting at an LA High school in
18:44
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six. He spent most of his post cop
18:48
Speaker 1: life working as an investigative journalist, which is how the
18:51
Speaker 1: From the Wilderness site came to be. In two thousand
18:54
Speaker 1: and five, he predicted the US financial crash would happen,
18:58
Speaker 1: which it did three years later later in two thousand
19:00
Speaker 1: and eight. He was the subject of two documentaries in
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Speaker 1: his life, one in two thousand and nine called Collapse,
19:06
Speaker 1: which was about his investigative work into the peak oil theory,
19:11
Speaker 1: which is a scary one, and in twenty fourteen, WECE
19:14
Speaker 1: released a six part documentary about Rupert called Apocalypse Man.
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Speaker 1: That's also the same year he committed suicide, or so
19:22
Speaker 1: we've been told. So if you read this book and
19:25
Speaker 1: find yourself put off by all the references to a
19:28
Speaker 1: decade's old blog you've never heard of, don't be The
19:30
Speaker 1: guy behind it did good work, and he also believed
19:33
Speaker 1: there was more to Wellstone's crash than the government was
19:36
Speaker 1: letting on. Also, if we're talking about sources, you have
19:39
Speaker 1: to consider who's on the other side and what their
19:41
Speaker 1: track records are. Like. Take Carol Krmady for example, She's
19:45
Speaker 1: never been head of the NTSB, only vice chairman. Nevertheless,
19:49
Speaker 1: she was conveniently acting director of the NTSB during some
19:53
Speaker 1: of the weirdest and most suspicious plane crashes from that era.
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Speaker 1: For example, United Flight nine ninety three, the nine to
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Speaker 1: eleven plane that didn't make it. The official version of
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Speaker 1: events is that the passengers rallied and took the plane down,
20:07
Speaker 1: but also there are some weird holes in that fuselage
20:10
Speaker 1: that seemed to indicate otherwise, As does that time. Donald
20:13
Speaker 1: Rumsfeld literally slipped up and said United ninety three was
20:17
Speaker 1: shot down just a Freudian slip of the tongue. I'm
20:20
Speaker 1: sure she was also on the case when American Flight
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Speaker 1: five eighty seven crashed in Rockaway Beach, Queens, shortly after
20:27
Speaker 1: departing JFK Airport. That happened a few weeks after nine
20:30
Speaker 1: to eleven, so you're definitely forgiven if you don't remember it.
20:33
Speaker 1: Eyewitnesses reported that the plane was already on fire and
20:37
Speaker 1: spewing debris when it was on the way down, which
20:40
Speaker 1: would indicate an explosion of some sort. The New York
20:43
Speaker 1: Times even reported that the NTSB was ignoring these eyewitness
20:48
Speaker 1: accounts at the time. Go figure, does that sound familiar?
20:51
Speaker 1: But again, it was Carol Carmody who was the one
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Speaker 1: who assured the public almost immediately, in way less time
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Speaker 1: than it would usually take the conduct a thorough investigation,
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Speaker 1: if nothing else, that there was nothing untoward about the crash,
21:05
Speaker 1: just silly, plain stuff. And sure, a plane just losing
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Speaker 1: its tail is a very rare thing to happen without
21:12
Speaker 1: some outside forces involved, but whatever, And she was involved
21:15
Speaker 1: in a couple more highly suspicious crashes that we'll talk
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Speaker 1: about on a later episode. Until then, cared to venture
21:21
Speaker 1: A guests as to what Carol Carmody did. Before embarking
21:24
Speaker 1: on a career in the aviation industry, she worked for
21:27
Speaker 1: the CIA. There's a name you cannot trust speaking of
21:31
Speaker 1: unreliable sources, especially when it comes to weird moments in
21:35
Speaker 1: American history. Somehow their name always comes up. And then
21:39
Speaker 1: who else do we have fighting out of the same
21:41
Speaker 1: corner as Carol Carmody and the NTSB. That's right, the FBI.
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Speaker 1: Have they ever been involved in any shady activities directed
21:48
Speaker 1: at American citizens in an effort to maintain the status quo?
21:52
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe you should ask literally any black
21:55
Speaker 1: activists from all of American history they might have some
21:58
Speaker 1: thoughts on that. And since were fresh off of talking
22:01
Speaker 1: about one strange set of documents pertaining to the Wellstone crash,
22:05
Speaker 1: those being the NTSB report, let's talk about another. As
22:08
Speaker 1: I mentioned on the first episode, the FBI finally released
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Speaker 1: their files on Paul Wellstone in twenty ten in response
22:16
Speaker 1: to a Freedom of Information Act request, And honestly, they
22:20
Speaker 1: just make everything seem more suspicious because, first of all,
22:24
Speaker 1: remember the NTSB report doesn't even mention the FBI being
22:27
Speaker 1: involved in the investigation. Meanwhile, you know what I found
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Speaker 1: in the FBI Files a letter from Robert Mueller to
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Speaker 1: Carol Carmody thanking her for thanking the FBI for assisting
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Speaker 1: in the investigation. Also, as mentioned on the first episode,
22:43
Speaker 1: the FBI Files show Wellstone was being followed by the
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Speaker 1: FBI since way back in nineteen seventy one, when he
22:51
Speaker 1: was just a twenty somethingter college professor who hated the
22:55
Speaker 1: Vietnam War. It also shows that they investigated the death
22:58
Speaker 1: threats made against well Stone after he voted against the
23:01
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one Iraq War Resolution, or, as Minnesota Public
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Speaker 1: Radio put it, the FBI became his protector, which that
23:10
Speaker 1: seems like a bit of a stretch to me. Stuff
23:13
Speaker 1: like that is their actual job after all. That same
23:17
Speaker 1: MPR piece about the FBI Files also makes a big
23:21
Speaker 1: deal out of the fact that, and this is a quote,
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Speaker 1: the FBI pursued several criminal leads in the first two
23:27
Speaker 1: days of the investigation. That's important for a couple of reasons. One,
23:31
Speaker 1: if they were still investigating leads on day two, how
23:35
Speaker 1: are they so sure on day one at the scene
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Speaker 1: that terrorism or sabotage wasn't involved, Because that's when Paul
23:42
Speaker 1: McCabe made that statement on the scene on the day
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Speaker 1: of the crash, most likely before the NTSB even arrived.
23:49
Speaker 1: Speaking of Paul McCabe and who arrived when. Remember that
23:53
Speaker 1: thing he said about the FBI not showing up until
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Speaker 1: three pm, which contradicted the accounts of witnesses at the scene. Well, now,
24:00
Speaker 1: the FBI files claimed two agents from the satellite office
24:04
Speaker 1: in Duluth responded immediately, but still no specifics on what
24:08
Speaker 1: time they arrived. When the authors of American Assassination asked,
24:12
Speaker 1: they were told no agents from Duluth were sent. But
24:15
Speaker 1: here we are eight years later, twenty ten, and the
24:18
Speaker 1: claim is agents were sent from Duluth, but we aren't
24:22
Speaker 1: sure when they arrived, which is very convenient because it
24:25
Speaker 1: sure as shit wouldn't have been three pm if they
24:28
Speaker 1: were coming from Duluth, which is when the FBI first
24:31
Speaker 1: claimed they got there. One especially weird thing that I
24:34
Speaker 1: found in the files, which apparently didn't raise any alarm
24:37
Speaker 1: at Minnesota Public Radio, are two different reports that both
24:42
Speaker 1: kind of make it seem like the FBI didn't even
24:44
Speaker 1: have access to the actual crash scene until the next day,
24:48
Speaker 1: which reminder, would be a full day after they assured
24:52
Speaker 1: the world that no foul play was involved. The two reports,
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Speaker 1: one dated November fifth, two thousand and two, from the
24:59
Speaker 1: Minneapolis Evident Response Team and another dated October thirtieth, two
25:03
Speaker 1: thousand and two from the Minneapolis Squad four Slash Duluth
25:07
Speaker 1: resident agents. Both of those reports mentioned an initial briefing
25:11
Speaker 1: with the NTSB that happened at ten pm the night
25:15
Speaker 1: of the crash, and then they both go on to
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Speaker 1: mention a body recovery process that started the next morning.
25:22
Speaker 1: This quote from the Evidence Response Team report is especially interesting.
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Speaker 1: Here goes, by Saturday morning, a custom built vehicle called
25:31
Speaker 1: the Brute, specifically designed for use in this type of terrain,
25:35
Speaker 1: and a tracked piece of firefighting equipment had been brought
25:39
Speaker 1: to the scene to shuttle personnel from the paved road
25:43
Speaker 1: to the crash site. Minneapolis Evidence Response Team initially assisted
25:48
Speaker 1: the NTSB in searching the wooded area around the crash
25:52
Speaker 1: site to locate and flag the flight data recorder, aircraft parts,
25:57
Speaker 1: and signs of prop shear in the trees. First of all,
26:01
Speaker 1: I'm going to file a Freedom of Information Act request
26:04
Speaker 1: to get some pictures at the Brute. That thing sounds neat,
26:07
Speaker 1: but also am I crazy? Am I reading that wrong.
26:09
Speaker 1: That statement makes it seem like the investigation didn't even
26:13
Speaker 1: really start until well after the FBI said it wasn't terrorism,
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Speaker 1: and how was their involvement overlooked in the final NTSB report.
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Speaker 1: The woman who was ultimately responsible for that report sent
26:26
Speaker 1: Robert Mueller a letter thanking him for his agency's involvement.
26:31
Speaker 1: Also want to know why they're not being A public
26:33
Speaker 1: hearing is so important because it means eyewitness testimony didn't
26:37
Speaker 1: have to be added to the official record, like the
26:39
Speaker 1: witness report in the FBI file about a guy who
26:42
Speaker 1: heard gunshots in the area around the time of the crash,
26:45
Speaker 1: or the reports of residents in the area whose descriptions
26:48
Speaker 1: of the plane flying overhead aren't really consistent with the
26:51
Speaker 1: slowdown install theory, or the Army photographer who emailed the
26:55
Speaker 1: FBI to tell them that, based on his history of
26:58
Speaker 1: photograph and crash scenes, the Wellstone site wasn't consistent with
27:02
Speaker 1: an accident. All of that gets to be ignored in
27:04
Speaker 1: the final report because no public hearing. How convenient. But
27:09
Speaker 1: to me, the absolute weirdest thing in those FBI files
27:13
Speaker 1: is something that seems pretty normal at first. A lot
27:16
Speaker 1: of these files I've mentioned so far are buried in
27:19
Speaker 1: between pages and pages of newspaper and magazine articles about
27:25
Speaker 1: this crash, mainstream news outlets, conspiracy websites, articles from the
27:30
Speaker 1: authors of American assassination, just so many articles about the
27:35
Speaker 1: Paul Wellstone crash. And here's a question, why why did
27:40
Speaker 1: they need to collect so many articles about a plane
27:43
Speaker 1: crash they quickly decided wasn't a crime. We know serial
27:46
Speaker 1: killers do that kind of thing to remember and celebrate
27:49
Speaker 1: their victims. It's not likely that's what the FBI was
27:52
Speaker 1: up to. But hear me out on this. I know
27:55
Speaker 1: it's the thing I can't prove and no one can prove,
27:57
Speaker 1: so feel free to take this idea with a grain
27:59
Speaker 1: of salt. But what if they were trying to figure
28:02
Speaker 1: out what bases they'd need to cover when they were
28:05
Speaker 1: eventually forced to release these files, Because it does seem
28:08
Speaker 1: like the FBI files answer a lot of questions conspiracy
28:12
Speaker 1: types had about their arrival and whatnot, but they do
28:16
Speaker 1: nothing to explain why those answers are so inconsistent with
28:21
Speaker 1: what they said about their arrival at the time. Also,
28:24
Speaker 1: the Minnesota Public Radio piece on the FBI files makes
28:27
Speaker 1: a big deal of them investigating those criminal leads. But
28:32
Speaker 1: there are a couple of leads that were sent their
28:34
Speaker 1: way that it appears they for sure did not investigate.
28:38
Speaker 1: In a few different emails contained in the FBI files,
28:42
Speaker 1: concerned citizens whose names have since been redacted from history
28:46
Speaker 1: bring up an important point, which is, Hey, you know who,
28:50
Speaker 1: more than anyone else would have wanted Paul Wellstone dead
28:54
Speaker 1: the Bush administration. I know that a team of war
28:57
Speaker 1: criminals who invaded an entire country on false pretenses, costing
29:02
Speaker 1: countless innocent Iraqis their lives, would also kill one dude.
29:07
Speaker 1: Is an insane suggestion, but it's a suggestion a lot
29:10
Speaker 1: of people were concerned about at the time. And you
29:13
Speaker 1: know what, it's not as crazy of an idea as
29:15
Speaker 1: it seems. I mean, it's crazy, the details are batshit insane,
29:19
Speaker 1: but the idea that they do it people make a
29:22
Speaker 1: perfectly reasonable case if you ask me. And that's what
29:25
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about on the next episode. And
29:28
Speaker 1: that's only provided we still have the necessary national infrastructure
29:33
Speaker 1: to post podcasts by next week. This is going up
29:36
Speaker 1: on election Day, after all. So till then, stay safe, America,
29:41
Speaker 1: and thanks, we love you. About the stop and about
30:02
Speaker 1: the