WI: Waco siege under Perot Administration

What if Ross Perot had not dropped out and gotten back in and instead stayed in the race the whole time and had gotten elected? How would he have handled the 1993 Waco siege? Would it have ended the way it did in OTL?
 
The ATF and FBI made the key decisions at Waco, not the President.

And utterly screwed up at every step of the way. The Inside Man's cover was utterly blown and David Koresh told him morning of the raid, he knew he was a spy in front of everyone, kissed him and let him go.

Ironic thing was, the Davidians up till the raid did nothing illegal. Heck if a stupid ATF man's sidearm hadn't gone off in a freak accident and wounded him in the leg, as caught on the raid footage when the ATF deployed, there would have been no shootout. That misfire started the entire shootout with ATF agents thinking they were under fire and shooting at the compound and the Branch Davidians shooting back thinking the ATF was there to murder them and thus unwilling to cooperate further.

It took till the trials for that footage to come out.

To think, a stupid misfire because an agent didn't properly secure/clean/inspect his weapon prior to the raid, sparked a tragedy.

Fix that POD and the tragedy doesn't occur, the ATF goes in, finds the weapons are legal and nothing illegal is going on. The Davidians sue, talking points hit the news talking about "Guvmint afta our gunz" and that be the end of it.
 
Assuming that the prez didn't have much to do with how Waco went down, we can still look at the political fallout...

With Perot as POTUS, you probably wouldn't see Waco become a lightning-rod for anti-government sentiment. Even though he was liberal on a lot of social issues(including gun control), I think Perot was still the kind of guy who militia-types would instinctively regard in a friendly, or at least, non-hostile manner. Whereas Clinton(Democrat, "draft-dodger" feminist wife, lots of black supporters) was pretty much Central Casting for the demonic pantheon of the militia movement.

So, a Perot-led Waco siege might mean no militia blowback, specifically no OKC bombing.
 
David Koresh gets taken down in the near future for his....cravings for the underage.

Never proven. Even his I'm god speech was judiciously edited by the Government.

His full speech which the Government edited out for its version of events was:

David Koresh: I got an 80 year old woman pregnant?

Davidians: "Laughter"

David Koresh: Wow! Then I'm God.

Davidians: "Laughter"

For those not in the know, David had been accused of raping an 80 year old woman and getting her pregnant. That sermon was his answering it and was heavily edited by the Government to demonize him and cover up their screwups.

So the Government tape simply has David Koresh say "I'm God," and divorced of its context.
 
That misfire started the entire shootout with ATF agents thinking they were under fire and shooting at the compound and the Branch Davidians shooting back thinking the ATF was there to murder them and thus unwilling to cooperate further.



If I recall correctly, that whole 'the ATF was there to murder them' was based on a previous lethal shootout with an anti-gov back woods survivor type where one or more people were killed by gov shooters.
 
If I recall correctly, that whole 'the ATF was there to murder them' was based on a previous lethal shootout with an anti-gov back woods survivor type where one or more people were killed by gov shooters.

Ruby Ridge was not a factor, but that was another monumental screwup and reckless abuse of authority by Federal Agents who went out of their way to blatantly frame the Weavers and blackmail them into being informants in the Aryan Nation. Every Federal Agent in that incident should have been dishonorably cashiered from Federal Service.
 
Given how paranoid Perot was(eg. thinking shadowy agents were targetting his daughter's wedding), and how violent some of the militia rhetoric was, if some of them do turn against him after Waco, it could really push him over the edge, psychologically speaking. He might start ranting in public about how gun-nuts are following him everywhere, and initiate purges of the Secret Service etc.

Though I still think that any anti-Perot backlash would be more muted than the anti-Clinton one, for the reasons I outlined earlier.
 
Have Pres. Perot issue a executive order and close down the ATF and give the dept's responsibility to the FBI. In OTL there were on going Congressional hearing to do just that. Some think the Waco raid was a publicity stunt by the ATF to forestall their closing down and get more funding.
 
Actually Perot as President would be a key PoD. The assorted misteps of the Federal Law enforcement were the result of poor leadership & policy at the top. led by Janet Reno. if Perot is president Reno wiil not be Attorney General, other key leaders in Fed LE will be different, and the Policies that led to Ruby Ridge, Waco, & the DEA scandal will not be in place. Perots paranoia would have been more like Nixons & its expression been in other directions.
 
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Have Pres. Perot issue a executive order and close down the ATF and give the dept's responsibility to the FBI. In OTL there were on going Congressional hearing to do just that. Some think the Waco raid was a publicity stunt by the ATF to forestall their closing down and get more funding.

Both the DEA & ATF were 'reorganized'. The DEA lost its Mega SWAT arsenal & was put back into suit jackets & ties. Similar for the ATF. They spent the better part of the next decade as low profile investigators, & at much less of the door kicking activities.
 
What if Ross Perot had not dropped out and gotten back in and instead stayed in the race the whole time and had gotten elected? How would he have handled the 1993 Waco siege? Would it have ended the way it did in OTL?

This presupposes that Perot had a snowball's chance in hell of getting elected. Which he didn't.
 
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