Posted by:
Fraudism
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Date: September 12, 2013 11:59AM
I'm sure most posters here have heard about the Mark Hoffmann affair. The guy was a very talented nut job who on discovering that the LDS Church was a fraud decided to perpetrate his own fraud on the Church and murdered people in an attempt to cover his tracks.
I found it interesting to learn how much this implicated Gordon B. Hinckley though who was involved in purchasing items from Hoffmann and vouched for him when police realized that it was Hoffmann who was responsible for creating embarrassing documents from Church history and then selling them to the Church.
What I recently learned from reading up on different boards is how Hinckley influenced the police investigation to avoid having to appear in court himself.
"...The real villain was President Gordon B. Hinckley. He saw no chagrin on Hinckley's broad, implacable face. No repentance. No apologies. No admission of wrongdoing. Just arrogance--plain unbridled arrogance. As far as he was concerned, Hinckley had fallen for Mark Hofmann's blackmail, bought up damaging documents and hidden them away in his private vault, and in so doing, indirectly contributed to the deaths of two innocent people.
"And then lied about it...Hinckley had lied outright by saying he had met with Mark Hofmann only casually and with Steve Christensen (first bomb victim) only once; he had lied indirectly by allowing Church spokesmen to deny that the Church owned documents he had bought."
***
"'How is it that you felt comfortable relying on Mr. Hofmann as a sole basis for purchasing these documents?'
"Hinckley looked him in the eye. 'We relied on Mark Hofmann's integrity.' he said gravely. 'If we were deceived, then it's to his eternal detriment.'
"Wow, thought Biggs (county attorney). Heavy stuff. But hardly responsive.
"They tried another approach. As per Joseph Smith's instruction, every good Mormon is supposed to keep a detailed daily diary of his or her activities. Over the years, the Church's leaders had been extraordinarily conscientious in obeying that injunction. So they asked to see Hinckley's diary entries for his meetings with Mark Hofmann. 'I don't keep a diary,' Hinckley responded quickly, as if he were prepared for the question.
"After another hour of evasions, memory lapses, and sermonettes, Biggs lost his patience. 'President Hinckley. This has been in the news---people have died---isn't there any way we can get some information about your meetings with Hofmann?'
"Hinckley couldn't contain his indignation. 'This is the least of my concerns,' he huffed. 'I am an extremely busy man. I have worldwide concerns. Mr. Hofmann is a postscript...' he reached for the rest of the phrase, '...in the walk of life.'
"You wish, thought David Biggs.
"When Bob Stott (devout Mormon; head county prosecutor) finally worked up the courage to talk about Hinckley's testimony at the upcoming preliminary hearing Wilford Kirton (Church attorney) jumped in.
"'President Hinckley doesn't wish to testify at the hearing. We think it would be in everyone's best interests to not have him testify.'
"Someone suggested that he would have to testify at trial.
"You don't understand, said Kirton imperiously. President Hinckley does not wish to testify at the hearing, at the trial, at anything.
"Even Stott had to be outraged. This was putting him, as a devout member of the Church, under wholly unacceptable pressure.
"Hinckley had obviously wanted to stay out of this discussion, but it was clear from the prosecutors' reaction that nothing less than his personal intervention would calm the furor that Kirton's comments had unleashed. So he decided to give another sermonette, this one on the subject of 'priorities.' He sat down with Stott as a father would sit down with a wayward son.
"'This isn't that significant, as it relates to Church matters,' he said softly. 'It's the Church that matters. You have to consider the Church first. I don't wish to testify.'
"This time Stott said nothing.
"But that wasn't all Hinckley wanted. 'I think it would be in the best interests of the Church,' he added in the same mellow voice, 'if you simply dismissed the charge.'"
I didn't know that Hinckley actually made a call to CBS and killed a four our TV mini-series that was going to be made about the "Mormon Murders". As detailed in an article I recently read,
When word hit Salt Lake that CBS was committed to tell the Mormon Murders story as a four-hour mini-series, it is said that LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley called CBS founder and chief William S. Paley and asked, "How would you like some outsiders doing a vicious four hour attack on your Jews?"
Paley, who hadn't been Jewish for more than half a century, was taken aback enough to call Bill Self, running CBS programming, and suggest, "Would it bother you too much to kill this Mormon show?"
The "Mormon show," which had been ordered to production and funded, was now dead at CBS.
So Hinckley influenced both the police investigation and the TV show that was going to be made which would have shown his own culpability and deception.
I wonder if, now that he's dead the Church would be able to stop a production being made about it? It's about time, it is a story that deserves to be told.