Michael Griffith

One of the silliest arguments I've heard is that Billy Grammer should have been one of the prosecution's star witnesses against Ruby. WC apologists repeat this dubious, illogical argument every time Grammer's account is discussed. If Grammer had been allowed to testify at Ruby's trial, his account would have raised all sorts of troubling questions. Thinking journalists and other logical observers would have asked, "Wait a minute, how did Ruby obtain inside information about Oswald's tranfser? Why was Ruby trying to get the police to change the transfer arrangements? Doesn't Ruby's phone call suggest that he was being coerced into shooting Oswald and was trying to give himself a way to avoid doing it?" In addition, Grammer's account would have destroyed Ruby's story that he shot Oswald on the spur of the moment in a spontaneous emotional reaction based on his alleged desire to spare the Kennedy women a trial. This, in turn, would have proved that Ruby's trip to the nearby Western Union office was a ruse designed to make his hit seem like an unplanned action. Grammer's account would have also indicated that someone inside the DPD was feeding Ruby information about Oswald's transfer, and it would have logically suggested that Ruby was being pressured to silence Oswald and was trying to get out of having to do it. And, again, why did not Ruby go to the Western Union office in Oak Cliff if he was in such a rush to wire money to Karen Carlin? Why did he go all the way downtown to the Western Union office that--by an amazing, cosmic "coincidence"--was across the street from the Dallas police HQ building?

I ask again, Why did Ruby go to the Western Union office near the Dallas police HQ building when there was a Western Union office much closer to him, right there in Oak Cliff, at 206 South Zangs Blvd., Oak Cliff? Why? If he was really in such a rush to wire money to Karen Carlin, why did he drive all the way downtown when there was a Western Union office much closer to his residence in Oak Cliff? Why? Obviously, because he was trying to make his Mob-ordered hit on Oswald look like a spontaneous, spur-of-the-moment action driven by his alleged desire to spare Jackie and Caroline a trial. WC apologists' attacks on Billy Grammer and his account are a sad sight to behold. Here we have a police officer who had no conceivable motive to fabricate an account of a phone call from Ruby, who had a good record as a policeman, and who gave a consistent version of the account every time he was interviewed. But, since his account indicates conspiracy, WC apologists grasp for any lame excuse to reject it. If Grammer had known Oswald and if Grammer had consistently reported that Oswald called him the night before the assassination and warned that he would shoot JFK if they didn't change the motorcade route, WC apologists would be falling all over themselves to trumpet this account as evidence of Oswald's guilt. They would cite Grammer's good record as a police officer. They would note that Grammer immediately reported the phone call to his superior. Etc., etc., etc.

Yes, Grammer did mention Ruby in this interview with Hurt. He said he believed Ruby was the man who called. I take it you don't have a copy of Hurt's book?

Wow. You guys robotically repeat the argument that "someone would have talked if there had been a conspiracy," but every time a witness comes forward with evidence of conspiracy, you guys look for any excuse to discredit the person and their evidence. Now, why would Grammer have lied about this? Why would he continue to insist that the phone call happened and that the man sounded like Ruby? Why? It seems your only reason for rejecting Grammer's account is that it doesn't fit your see-no-evil-here narrative. By the way, in 2018, Grammer repeated his account of the call and stood by it: Retired Dallas officer Billy Grammer remembers the call that could've stopped killing of JFK's assassin | Hometown Patriot | ktbs.com

Sigh. . . . You must be kidding. You simply must be kidding. Ruby was scared to death at that point, as anyone can readily see from his WC testimony. You omitted the fact that in that same WC interview, Ruby begged, literally begged, to be taken to DC to be questioned, and expressed his fear that he wouldn't be around long after Warren and Ford left, and that this was one reason they had to take him to DC. You and Lance Payette always ignore evidence that doesn't fit your minority view of the assassination. Rather than fit your theory to the facts, you dismiss all facts that contradict your theory. You always insist on finding an innocent explanation for damning evidence, no matter how clearly that evidence points to guilt and crime. You won't admit that Ruby did a flimsy job of trying to make his hit on Oswald appear to be a spontaneous, grief-driven, spur-of-the-moment action to spare Jackie and Caroline an Oswald trial, even though Ruby later admitted in writing that his professed desire to spare the Kennedys a trial was phony. Why did Ruby go to the Western Union office near the DPD HQ when there was a Western Union office much closer to him, right there in Oak Cliff, at 206 South Zangs Blvd., Oak Cliff? This fact alone reveals the fraud, deception, and criminal intent in Ruby's actions. And let's repeat the other evidence that belies Ruby's obviously phony spontaneity alibi: his lying about how he entered the basement, his interest in learning the time of Oswald's transfer the day before, the call that police dispatcher Billy Grammer received the night before from a man who "sounded like Ruby" and who warned the police to change the transfer plans, Ruby's apparent failing of the polygraph question about conspiracy, his numerous calls to Mafia contacts all over the country in the weeks before the assassination, his suspicious armed appearance at Wade's press conference where he revealed his knowledge of Oswald's involvement in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, the credible report of Ruby's presence in a truck from which a man was seen departing with a rifle case and heading toward the grassy knoll earlier in the day, the considerable credible evidence that Ruby knew Oswald, and his video-taped admission shortly before he died that there had been a conspiracy.

How is it rational and logical to ignore evidence that plainly and clearly points to premeditation and deception? I find your arguments irrational and disingenuous. I notice you simply brushed aside with a smug summary dismissal evidence that you can't explain: Ruby's waiting outside the Western Union office, his asking about Oswald's transfer, his lying about how he got into the basement, his numerous calls to Mafia contacts in the weeks before the assassination, his written admission that his alleged motive was phony, his apparent (it's pretty clear) failing of the polygraph question about conspiracy, etc. Once again, you resort to theory and speculation in dismissing evidence you can't explain. You can't imagine, or claim you can't imagine, that the Mafia would use a guy like Ruby to hit Oswald. Yet, organized crime experts have noted that Ruby is exactly the kind of guy that the Mafia liked to use. "Dull speculating about the autopsy photos." There's no "speculating" involved. The evidence is open and shut.

Your capacity for ignoring evidence and making vacuous, obtuse arguments is once again evident. You ignore the fact that Ruby was overheard the previous day asking about when Oswald would be transferred. (Now, gee, why did he do that?) You ignore the fact that the officer on dispatch duty the night before, Billy Grammer, said that a man who sounded like Ruby called the DPD, that the man knew about the actual time that Oswald would be transferred, and that the man warned that the police needed to change the transfer plan or else Oswald would be killed. You ignore the fact Ruby made a slew of calls to Mafia contacts in the weeks leading up to the assassination. You ignore the fact that Ruby waited awhile in front of the Western Union office before entering to buy the money order. (Gee, why?) You ignore the fact that Ruby had many close contacts inside the DPD. You ignore the fact that the HSCA destroyed the myth that Ruby entered the basement via the Main Street ramp. (Gee, why did Ruby lie about that?) You ignore the fact that the HSCA determined that analysis of Ruby's polygraph examination suggested that he actually failed the question about involvement in a conspiracy. You ignore the fact that it was later revealed that Ruby admitted, in writing, to his second attorney that his alleged motive for killing Oswald was phony. You ignore the fact that Ruby himself later said there was a conspiracy (and he seemed perfectly lucid when he said it).

The prosecution did not buy your innocent explanation of Ruby's phone call. You left out the fact that Ken Dowe said that Ruby asked him when Oswald would be transferred: Ken Dowe, a KLIF announcer, to whom Ruby made at least two telephone calls within a short span of time Saturday afternoon, confirmed that he was probably the person to whom Hallmark and Brown overheard Ruby speaking. In one call to Dowe, Ruby asked whether the station knew when Oswald would be moved. . . . (WCR, p. 346) Now, gee, why was Ruby asking about the time of Oswald's transfer? Shall we talk about Ruby's numerous calls to Mafia figures in the weeks before the assassination? Or how about the fact that we learned in 1967, from a note written by Ruby himself, that Ruby's professed motive for shooting Oswald was really just a legal ploy suggested by his first attorney (HSCA Report, p. 158)? And, yes, the phone call was in the afternoon, not the evening. I notice you said nothing about the HSCA's demolition of the myth that Ruby entered the basement via the Main Street ramp.

This is a sad and rather shameful exploitation of a simple, sincere old man who clearly knows little about the case. I wonder why the interviewer didn't ask Hargis how a shot from behind could have blasted blood and brain matter backward toward him with such force that he thought he himself had been hit. Hargis actually said this in one of his early statements: "I thought at first I might have been hit." His full statement is even more revealing: "Then I felt something hit me. It could have been concrete or something, but I thought at first I might have been hit." Thus, the particulate matter that hit him struck him hard enough to make him guess that it might have been concrete. Hargis's windshield and part of his uniform were splattered with blood. The two lone-gunman theories to explain the backward head movement and the backward spray of blood, brain, and skull are silly, preposterous, and physically impossible. By the way, it's worth noting that the extant Zapruder film does not show a large amount of blood and brain being blown backward--in fact, it doesn't show any such matter being blown backward. Instead, it shows a blast of particulate matter blowing toward the camera, and then it magically disappears, all in less than two frames. Yet, we know, and no one denies, that a large amount of particulate matter from JFK's head was blown backward, and that a good portion of it slammed into Hargis's windshield and body. Again, it hit Hargis hard enough that at first he feared he himself had been hit.

I agree that McVeigh was guilty, that he was not a patsy. I also agree that others were involved besides McVeigh and Nichols. I did a little research into the OKC bombing back in the early 2000s. I suspect that Middle Eastern extremists were involved and manipulated McVeigh and Nichols' violent anti-government feelings to bring about an attack on a federal building.

I tend to agree with Lisa Pease that Lowenstein's death had the earmarks of a hit carried out by a hypno-programmed killer. She discusses Lowenstein and his death in her book A Lie Too Big to Fail.

Oswald's use of the word "patsy" is revealing. He could have expressed his innocence in several other ways, but he chose to use the word "patsy," which indicated he was aware he had been set up. When I began to study the JFK case, Oswald's vehement assertion of his innocence and use of the word "patsy" jumped out at me. I thought to myself, "If Oswald killed JFK to satisfy his alleged craving for fame, to strike back at society for his perceived mistreatment, and/or to go down in history as a courageous revolutionary, surely he would have proudly and loudly taken credit for his deed."

Oswald's "deserved death"? No need for the formality of due process under the Constitution, right? I'm guessing you also believe the fairy tale that Jack Ruby strolled down the Main Street ramp and shot Oswald in a spontaneous fit of grief in order to prevent Jackie Kennedy from having to endure the spectacle of a trial? One of the most outstanding pieces of work done by the HSCA was their thorough demolition of the myth that Ruby used the Main Street ramp to enter the basement. And WC apologists almost never talk about the fact that at Jack Ruby's trial, the prosecution established that the night before Oswald's transfer, Ruby was monitoring DPD plans for the transfer and was overheard to say in a conversation about the transfer during a phone call at the Nichols Parking Garage, "you know I'll be there." The person who heard him say this was Garnett Hallmark, the general manager of the parking garage.

Why would this have been "unduly risky"? At worst, they would have the word of a low-level civil servant that the second person who claimed to be Oswald looked different from the first one. Plus, they could always count on people like you to dismiss all such evidence because it doesn't fit your unrealistic, disingenuous concept of a conspiracy. Again, using your logic, law enforcement would never expose any conspiracies unless one of the conspirators came forward and confessed. Yet, if you were doing the investigating, you would reject the whistleblowing conspirator if he held any views on other issues that you viewed as suspect. Your paradigm is one giant circular stew. You insist that any JFK assassination conspiracy would have been a flawless one, and then you reject all evidence of conspiracy, no matter how compelling it is, with the argument that the conspiracy you are willing to envision would not have left behind such evidence. How do you suppose dozens of people, some of them very intelligent and successful, are convicted of conspiracy every year in the U.S.? They make mistakes; they overlook certain things; etc., etc. Ah, and you attack Kittrell because she doubted the Warren Report and may have been interested in UFOs, never mind that she lived a successful life, never got into any trouble, and worked for the state government of Texas. President Jimmy Carter believed in UFOs--he even claimed he saw one. Vice President Al Gore said he rejected the single-bullet theory. Congressman and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich said he saw a UFO. Most of the members of the House Select Committee on Assassinations believed JFK was killed by a conspiracy. The HSCA chief counsel, Notre Dame law professor G. Robert Blakey, said it was a "historical fact" that the Mafia killed JFK. Senator Richard Schweiker called the Warren Report "a house of cards" and said Oswald had intelligence links. Gallup and Pew Research polling shows that about 2/3 of Americans believe there is life on other planets. And on and on we could go. Ms. Kittrell was in pretty good company.

Are you aware that the FBI found evidence that the DPD story that Oswald tried to fire his revolver at the police in the theater was false? The DPD claimed that in the theater Oswald pulled his revolver on the police and tried to shoot but that the gun misfired. However, the FBI test-fired the revolver over 100 times and not once did it misfire (3 H 463). On the other hand, the FBI crime lab reported that Oswald's revolver was defective because the firing pin did not work (McKnight, Breach of Trust: How the Warren Commission Failed the Nation and Why, University Press of Kansas, 2013, p. 146). Although this report lends credence to the DPD claim about Oswald's actions in the theater, it also, at the bare minimum, raises serious doubts about the charge that Oswald shot Tippit with that revolver. Did it ever occur to you that the police officers lied about how Oswald reacted when they arrested him?

If any nation and people on Earth deserved to have nuclear weapons to defend themselves, it was the Jewish state of Israel. JFK was shortsighted and morally wrong for trying to deny Israel this self-defense option. Given the Hitler-admiring, vicious nature of the leaders of Egypt, Syria, and Iraq at the time, and given the horror that the Jewish people had just experienced in the Holocaust, Israel had every rational, moral right to want to acquire a nuclear self-defense capability, the same capability we had allowed France and England to acquire. Notice that I excluded Jordan's King Hussein from the list of vicious Arab leaders. However, when Hussein believed that Israel was about to collapse during the Six-Day War, he joined the war against Israel, thinking he would get to share in the spoils and "glory." But, his move backfired when Israeli forces drove Jordanian troops out of the West Bank and captured Jerusalem in the process. If Hussein had not joined the war against Israel, Jordan would still control the West Bank and Jerusalem. Yes, the Israelis used signals intelligence deception to fool the Jordanians into thinking that Israel was on the verge of defeat in the Six-Day War, but nobody forced King Hussein to order the Jordanian attack on Israel. Hussein could have displayed real statesmanship and honor if he had refused to join the apparently successful Arab war effort, but he chose to join it and lost the West Bank and Jerusalem as a result.

I just found out that a few months ago a major TWA 800 lawsuit was filed by the Boston law firm of Bailey and Glasser against several federal agencies on behalf of numerous family members of those killed on the flight. Bailey Glasser is a large law firm with offices in 14 states. The firm includes 27 Ivy League and/or Top 20 law school grads, one Rhodes Scholar, one Fulbright Scholar, and one Truman Scholar, and 80% of the firm's attorneys received education honors. Thus, this is no fledgling law firm taking on a dubious case to get publicity. Here's an article about the lawsuit: Could the TWA 800 Cover-Up Finally Come Undone?

Except that the witness specified that neither man resembled Oswald. When Mrs. Roberts looked out the window a few minutes after Oswald had left the boarding house, she saw him standing near the street. There is evidence that Oswald was in the Texas Theater several minutes before Tippit was shot. Two witnesses said they saw Oswald enter the theater a few minutes after 1:00.

The Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center (EMRTC) in New Mexico conducted an experiment with a center fuel tank in an attempt to validate the FBI-NTSB theory that a spark from faulty wiring ignited vapors in TWA 800’s center fuel tank, caused the fuel tank to explode, and blew up the airliner. The experiment actually provided powerful evidence against the theory, even though defenders of the government version claimed the opposite. In the EMRTC experiment, the engineers were eventually able to get the fuel tank to explode from a spark they generated inside the tank. Defenders of the FBI-NTSB theory hailed the experiment as proof of the theory. However, even a cursory analysis of the video of the experiment proves it strongly refuted the FBI-NTSB theory. Consider the following facts: -- The center fuel tank in the EMRTC experiment was from a Boeing 737, not a Boeing 747, and it was only one-fourth the size of TWA 800’s center fuel tank, as the chief engineer admits in the video. -- The EMRTC experiment heated the fuel tank to 112 degrees because the FBI-NTSB theory is that running the A/C units under TWA 800’s center fuel tank while the plane was delayed caused the tank to heat up to average temperature of 112 degrees, which in turn produced enough explosive vapors to cause the alleged spark-induced explosion. However, we see in the video that it took the EMRTC engineers nearly three hours to heat the undersized center fuel tank to 112 degrees, even though they were using a high-powered industrial heater. However, TWA 800 was on the ground with two A/C packs runnings for right around 134 minutes. Since it took nearly three hours to heat the smaller fuel tank to 112 degrees, this proves that operating the A/C units under TWA 800’s center fuel tank for 134 minutes could not have heated the tank to 112 degrees. In fact, in the video, the chief engineer says, “we've been heating this now for about three hours and we're finally approaching the temperature that we need for testing.” In other words, even after about three hours of heating the fuel tank with an industrial-grade heater, the fuel tank was only “approaching” the needed temperature of 112 degrees. -- The video narrator says that the engineers sought to set the conditions “to mimic that hot summer day in 1996.” “Hot summer day”? TWA 800 took off at 8:19 p.m. When TWA 800’s delay began at 7:00 p.m., the temperature at JFK International Airport was 74 degrees (https://www.wunderground.com/history/daily/us/ny/new-york-city/KJFK/date/1996-7-13). This was hardly sweltering heat. As William Donaldson, a retired U.S. Navy Commander said, The NTSB would have you believe that Jet A fuel vapors are a virtual bomb waiting to go off, yet every day hundreds of 747s are sitting on hot runways in places like Saudi Arabia, India, etc., with empty center tanks and none have ever exploded. Every day aircraft with empty fuel tanks are hit by lightning, a spark thousands of times greater than necessary to ignite this vapor, yet these aircraft do not explode. (https://twa800.com/pages/fuel.htm) -- The EMRTC engineers had to increase the electrical spark to 75 millijoules to get the tank to explode. They started with 4 millijoules, then 8, then 32, then 50. No explosion. The undersized fuel tank did not explode until they increased the charge to 75 millijoules. This was at the upper end of the range theorized by the NTSB, which was 5 to 100 millijoules. Furthermore, a key point to note is that in the EMRTC test, the charge was not introduced through faulty wiring but from a charging probe placed in the fuel tank. The NTSB theorized that a short circuit outside the tank caused electrical energy to enter the tank through faulty wires connected to the fuel quantity indication system (FQIS). The NTSB was unable to duplicate this alleged energy transfer mechanism. In fact, when the center fuel tank's FQIS was recovered and tested, not one of the parts failed due to an electrical stress. The Boeing report on TWA 800 noted that "there was no evidence of electrical stress or arcing found on any of the FQIS indicators, probes, or wiring" (p. A-10). Boeing engineers designed their tanks with the assumption that the vapors were always flammable; therefore, they took steps to prevent any energy from entering the tank through wiring to ignite these vapors. To do this, they added extra protection to fuel gauge wiring by adding a nylon sheath; they also included proper surge protection. Although only 120 volts were available on a Boeing plane to short into these wires, Boeing engineers tested their wiring up to 3,000 volts on new airplanes; they also did wiring testing after the crash of TWA 800 on many older airplanes still in service. No electricity ever escaped from the wiring in fuel tanks in any of these tests. Perhaps this is why there was never an in-flight fuel tank explosion from an internal cause in any Boeing airliner before TWA 800 and why there has never been one since. The EMRTC experiment is powerful evidence that TWA 800’s center fuel tank did not explode from a spark from faulty wiring. -- The EMRTC test made no effort to simulate the cooling effect that would have been produced when TWA 800 took off, increased speed, and gained altitude. As many experts have pointed out, when an airliner climbs, the air temperature outside the plane decreases. The higher the altitude, the colder the air gets. Plus, the effect of cool air blowing rapidly under the center fuel tank would have helped to decrease the tank’s temperature. In short, TWA 800’s center fuel tank would have experienced substantial cooling as the plane increased speed and gained altitude in the 12 minutes between takeoff and destruction.

I've had a casual interest in the case of TWA Flight 800 since the late 1990s, since a few years after it occurred in July 1996, but recently I began to seriously study the case. Of all the flimsy government explanations for controversial incidents, the government version of TWA 800's crash may be the most absurd of all. I've created a website on the subject: https://sites.google.com/view/twa800/home The website includes lots of video links, and also links to articles and other websites on the case. I make no money from the website, nor do I get any royalties when someone uses a link on my website to go to a site where they can rent or buy documentaries or books on the subject. I've created the website only to provide information on the case because I think it's important that we understand the enormous government cover-up that followed TWA 800's destruction. Over 100 credible witnesses saw an object with an exhaust trail streaking upward toward TWA 800 before it exploded and crashed into the sea off the coast of Long Island. These witnesses were located on boats at sea, in aircraft near the explosion, and on land. A number of them were ex-military personnel. The FBI-NTSB-CIA claimed that the streaking object that over 100 witnesses saw heading upward toward TWA 800 was really just the burning fuselage flying upward after it separated from the nose of the plane. Not only does this theory defy the laws of physics, but it is refuted by the radar data, which show that the aircraft did not fly 1,500 to 3,000 feet upward. The radar data show that the fuselage did not even fly 300 feet upward, much less 3,000 feet. Instead, the radar data show that the plane traveled a very short distance, then began to turn, and then literally dropped out of the sky, which is also what the witnesses described seeing. The FBI and the NTSB claimed that the explosive residue that was detected inside and outside the plane was residue left over from a training exercise six weeks earlier in which explosive packages were placed in the plane to train bomb-sniffing dogs in St. Louis. This explanation was proved false. Private researchers interviewed the police officer who conducted the training and learned that he did the training on a different plane. They also learned that the TWA 800 plane was boarding passengers in preparation for a flight at the same time the bomb-sniffing training was being conducted, so on that basis alone the training could not have been done on the TWA 800 aircraft. Government investigators claimed that the red residue that was visible in a distinct horizontal pattern on some of the seats in the plane was just 3M glue, but when Dr. C. W. Bassett at NASA tested the residue, he found that the residue was not 3M glue. When one of the TWA investigators gave a sample of the red residue to a journalist to have it tested, the testing, done by a recognized lab in California, found that the residue contained a high concentration of metals, indicating that it was residue from explosive material.

I don't think Lance Payette is interested in serious discussion. I think he is here to spread his poorly researched version of the assassination, and nothing more. I think it is a waste of time to try to reason with him.

The refusal of WC apologists to deal logically and objectively with the evidence of conspiracy reminds me of the refusal of a small band of Nixon diehards who still refuse to admit that the 18-minute gap in the 6/20/72 Watergate tape resulted from a deliberate criminal act. When people don't want to admit the occurrence of a criminal act, virtually no amount of evidence will cause them to change their minds. As long as the innocent explanation is theoretically possible, they will cling to it, no matter how wildly improbable and ridiculous it is. It is theoretically possible that Rose Mary Woods accidentally erased 18.5 minutes of the 6/20/72 Watergate tape by mistakenly pushing the "record" button and then holding her foot on the recording machine's pedal while allegedly talking on the phone. Nearly everyone then and now rejects this explanation because experts determined that the tape had been erased in five distinct places, that the erasure consisted of five separate segments, and because Ms. Woods herself said she could not have erased more than 5 minutes of the tape. However, Nixon diehards can argue that perhaps Ms. Woods was telling a white lie when she said she could not have erased more than 5 minutes of the tape. After all, maybe she didn't want to admit that she had gabbed on the phone for over 18.5 minutes. The fact that the erasure was not continuous but was split into five segments is compelling evidence to logical people, to virtually everyone in this case, that the erasure was not accidental. However, someone determined to reject the sinister explanation could say that Ms. Woods took her foot off the machine's pedal several times and that this is why the erasure consisted of five segments. The explanations offered by WC apologists to explain the 6.5 mm object on the AP x-ray, for example, are even more strained and unbelievable than the tale that Ms. Woods accidentally caused the 18.5-minute gap on the 6/20/72 tape. At least the Woods story includes a possible method by which the 18.5 minutes could have been erased--it's very unlikely that this method occurred, but it could have happened.

Mr Rankin : Do you know whether your husband carried any package with him when he left the house on November 22nd? Mrs Oswald : I think that he had a package with his lunch. But a small package. (1 H 73)

Cadigan testified that he examined the bag with a magnifying glass specifically looking for traces of gun oil, so one would assume that he did the same with the blanket. Cadigan said he found no physical evidence on the blanket that linked it to the rifle, so one would logically assume that Cadigan, or someone else in the lab, checked the blanket for oil traces, given that the rifle had supposedly been stored in the blanket for months. If they checked the bag for oil traces, surely they also checked the blanket for such traces.

You ignore the fact that, according to the lone-gunman theory, the rifle was disassembled before being placed and carried in the bag. So, according to you, you have the several parts of the disassembled well-oiled rifle wrapped and carried in a bag for at least half an hour, yet not one speck of oil was found inside or outside the bag. Anyone who has any experience with guns knows this is an extremely far-fetched scenario. I'm guessing you don't handle guns much, or else you'd know that after you oil a gun, some oil--not a lot, but some--will sometimes seep out to the gun's exterior, especially at/around the trigger, the magazine assembly, the bolt, and the ejection port. Plus, when you oil a rifle, you often get some oil on the rifle's exterior. In the Army, I learned early on that I needed to wipe off my rifle after I oiled it because in most cases at least a little bit of oil got onto the exterior. Thus, I find it odd that not one trace of oil was found on/in the blanket in which the rifle was supposedly stored for months. We both know that if gun oil had been found on the bag and on the blanket, you would be citing this as evidence that the rifle was carried in the bag and stored in the blanket.