Domestic Terror: OK City Bombing, Years Later

The FBI on Friday objected to a Utah lawyer's motion to conduct depositions of Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols and a death-row inmate in a lawsuit that alleges the attorney's brother was murdered in a federal prison.

Attorney Jesse Trentadue says the two prisoners can provide valuable information concerning his brother's death in 1995 and the FBI's alleged refusal to turn over all relevant documents requested in his Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit. He believes authorities mistook Kenneth Trentadue for a bombing conspirator and that guards killed him in an interrogation that got out of hand.

  Salt Lake Tribune article

Danny Coulson, a 31-year veteran of the FBI, was deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Division at the time of the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, Okla., which killed 168 people, 19 of them children in an on-site day care center.

Timothy McVeigh was convicted of the bombing in 1997 and executed in 2001.

Mr Coulson said there were some “very strong indicators” that other people were involved with Timothy McVeigh.

  Homeland Stupidity post

FBI ordered to turn over Oklahoma City bombing docs, unredacted

And...surprise. The FBI has reopened the case.

A U.S. District Court judge in Salt Lake City, Utah, has ordered the Oklahoma City FBI office to turn over unredacted copies of all documents currently at issue in a Freedom of Information lawsuit involving additional evidence and the names of additional conspirators in the Oklahoma City bombing case.

According to the judge, the materials would be reviewed in his chambers and then returned to the FBI.
The order could also include evidence in the possession of the FBI that might shed light on the mysterious death of an inmate, Kenny Trentadue, who was being held at the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City in 1995.

Contacted about whether the agency would comply with the order or appeal it, FBI Special Agent Gary Johnson made a startling announcement. After declining to comment on the civil matters involved in the Trentadue suit, Johnson said the FBI was currently investigating the April 19, 1995, bombing.

In the past, Johnson has told the media that the FBI was standing by its original investigation. "It was the most experienced and thorough in our history," he said.

The $85 million effort yielded only two federal convictions, Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh. Mike Fortier provided testimony against McVeigh and Nichols in return for a reduced sentence.

[...]

[S]everal weeks ago, a court order from Kimball forced the release of approximately 100 pages of documents by the Oklahoma City FBI office, and some do indeed appear to implicate others in the bombing.

However, the FBI has blacked out almost every name in those documents, along with whole sentences of other information regarding an undercover operation the FBI and others were involved in.

[...]

Asked how many FBI agents were involved in the renewed effort, Johnson simply commented: "We don't ever disclose that type of information."

Exactly when this investigation was opened and why remains unclear.

  McCurtain Daily Gazette article

I'd say it's because they know the Trentadue case is forcing their hand, and they're about to be busted for withholding information. Somebody's ass is coming uncovered. Maybe they're looking for another way to cover up. Maybe they're trying to flush out anybody still alive with information who might be willing to testify.

"Andy the German" knows people.

FBI 302 provides allegations of a former Green Beret's involvement in Oklahoma City bombing and connections to McVeigh, alleged by FBI undercover operative.

  McCurtain Daily Gazette - larger view available

Oklahoma City bombing - the conspiracy

From the documents Kenneth Trentadue's brother recently obtained...

Newly released documents received by a Salt Lake City attorney in his suit against the Oklahoma City FBI office provide the strongest evidence yet that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has been conducting a well-orchestrated cover-up of evidence linking Timothy McVeigh to subjects that frequented, and in some cases resided, at an eastern Oklahoma paramilitary compound called Elohim City.

[...]

Perhaps even more surprising is evidence in these 87 pages released by DOJ on behalf of the FBI and the Oklahoma City FBI office, is documentation showing that top FBI agents assigned the bombing case lacked authority to conduct interviews at Elohim City or to go after a leading suspect in the case, Andreas Carl Strassmeir, also known as "Andy the German."

  McCurtin Daily Gazette article July 30, 2005

Now, why would that be?

While the state's media ignored (and some even attacked) evidence this newspaper presented nine years ago linking McVeigh, Terry Nichols and Mike Fortier to Strassmeir and other radicals at Elohim City, these new but heavily redacted documents should provide a starting point for a real investigation into the horrific crime and apparent government sponsored cover-up.

[...]

In this newly disclosed report, the FBI notes that Fortier, identified as "the OKBOMB cooperating subject" (but with his name redacted), as having said that, "April 5, 1995, was around the time that he backed out of the plans to bomb the federal building. McVeigh may have been trying to recruit other individuals to assist him."

This new evidence from the top echelons of the FBI directly contradicts many statements made in federal court by top DOJ officials, who told federal judges they were not aware of any government information about any informants operating inside Elohim City before the bombing.

[...]

Furthermore, these same DOJ attorneys said absolutely nothing about an April 17, 1995 call by McVeigh, while at least one operative from the SPLC [Southern Poverty Law Center] was present at Elohim City, monitoring the compound, when McVeigh called.

[...]

According to a highly placed confidential source in the DOJ at the time of the bombing, Attorney General Janet Reno would not allow the FBI much latitude in developing intelligence inside the far-right due to concerns that such activities might violate existing departmental guidelines on "domestic spying."

To skirt Reno's policies, the FBI developed a relationship with cutouts such as the SPLC that could use their own spies to do what the FBI could not. These non-government agents then passed their intelligence products back to the bureau.

[...]

While the FBI for years told the media that the agency had no interest in Strassmeir and any alleged connections to Tim McVeigh and the OKC bombing, these new documents establish that some key officials inside the FBI were monitoring Strassmeir's escape from the U.S. - but were doing nothing to stop him from leaving.

[...]

Taken in their entirety, Utah attorney Jesse Trentadue's latest documents clearly place the role of the SPLC and its own undercover operatives at the center of unresolved issues about federal law enforcement's prior knowledge of the conspiracy to bomb a federal building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995.

Isn't that interesting?

Sort of like 9/11.

Trentadue says he now intends to go back to court for additional information concerning files the FBI has not yet turned over.

"If the Southern Poverty Law Center was providing information about Elohim City after the bombing to the FBI, they must have been providing it before April 19th, Trentadue noted. Asking further: "So where are those reports?"

Trentadue also says there is considerable information redacted in these latest reports that clearly should not have been withheld.

"The names of certain newspapers were even withheld," Trentadue quipped. "Hell, where does the FBI get the right to withhold the names of the papers it reads?"

I think they do what they please and let you try to correct them. And good luck.

There's much more to read in this article...

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Jesse Trentadue gets the FBI files

The F-B-I has turned over 17 internal reports to a Utah lawyer who is trying to prove his brother was killed in a federal holding cell in Oklahoma City.

[...]

Local and federal investigations ruled Kenneth Trentadue's death a suicide.

[...]

Among other things, the documents he obtained reveal that the F-B-I and other law enforcement agencies were investigating evidence of a wider conspiracy in the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building.

  KSL TV article

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