OKC bomber's attorney praises Biden's AG pick
ENID — The attorney who defended Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh at trial is praising Joe Biden's choice for attorney general.
Attorney Stephen Jones said Merrick Garland will become one of the great attorneys general of the United States.
“In all respects, Merrick is a top-notch professional, fair, reasonable, objective, discreet and reticent ,” Jones said Wednesday in a prepared statement. “All of us should have respect for him given his significant record of accomplishment.”
At the time of the bombing in 1995, Garland held one of the top position sat the U.S. Justice Department. He came to Oklahoma City to coordinate the investigation and then oversaw the prosecution efforts that l ed to McVeigh's conviction at trial in Denver in 1997.
Jones, a lifelong Republican, wrote Biden in December to urge him to pick Garland as his attorney general. Jones revealed in the letter that he had voted for Biden and told the president-elect “I was delighted that you won.”
He said his first interaction with Garland involved arranging a meeting with Attorney General J anet Reno.
“We actually had a meeting setup. I had Tim McVeigh's authority before the meeting,” he told The Oklahoman Wednesday .“At the last minute ... McVeigh revoked the authority. ... I was going to offer some information that I thought would be of assistance to them in return for their agreement not to seek the death penalty.”
He said the information was about John Doe No. 2, a bombing suspect the government eventually concluded didn't exist.
He said the last time they talked was when Garland thanked him for writing letters in support of Garland' s no mi nation to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“When he was nominated to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court by President Barack Obama, the Republican leadership in the Senate disgraced itself by denying him a hearing and a vote,” Jones said in the prepared statement. “The nomination of Merrick Garland now to be Attorney General is a reward that he should receive and appropriately given to him by the President-elect.”