Michael Quinn has been a very prominent Mormon historian since at least the 1980s.  I asked Michael if he had met Mark Hofmann, the bomber and forger.  Listen to Quinn on Hofmann!  Michael indicates that he may have inadvertently given Mark some ideas for forgeries!

GT: So he probably got some ideas for his forgeries from you.
Michael: And he may have from things I published. Yeah, because typically I would talk about things that weren’t available that were central, like I published an article about the Council of Fifty minutes and the Council of Fifty’s history and I commented about what I thought was in those minutes that I had not seen of the Nauvoo Council of Fifty. And so, I would do this about other documents like I wrote about the blessings that Joseph Smith, III had received from his father and that obviously was something that Mark Hofmann paid attention to.
I also asked Michael if he was worried about being targeted by bombs.
Michael: I had a friend who worked with the state attorney, U.S. attorney was in his office and this long-time friend of mine called and said, “Don’t go back home, go and stay with us because no one would think of us,” him and his wife. And so, he provided more than a week I think a week or two weeks of residence for me during this period.
And then he told me, “When you go back, look under your car for wires,” and for years after this, following his advice, anytime I got a package I wasn’t expecting, I would take it to the post office and run it through their x-ray machine to see if there were any machines in it. And so yeah, I was paranoid.
Check out our conversation!
Don’t forget to check out our other conversations with Michael!
185: “The Church Makes No Distinction Between God & Mammon” (Quinn)
184: Would LDS Church Income Ever Support a Paid Ministry?(Quinn)
183: Are LDS Church Revenues really $50 Billion/Year? (Quinn)
182: Michael Quinn Discusses Deseret Hemp Company (Quinn)