Posted on 04/19/2004 1:23:06 PM PDT by RippleFire
WASHINGTON - A Secret Service document written shortly after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing described security video footage of the attack and witness testimony that suggested Timothy McVeigh (news - web sites) may have had accomplices at the scene.
"Security video tapes from the area show the truck detonation 3 minutes and 6 seconds after the suspects exited the truck," the Secret Service reported six days after the attack on a log of agents' activities and evidence in the Oklahoma investigation.
The government has insisted McVeigh drove the truck himself and that it never had any video of the bombing or the scene of the Alfred P. Murrah building in the minutes before the April 19, 1995, explosion.
Several investigators and prosecutors who worked the case told The Associated Press they had never seen video footage like that described in the Secret Service log.
The document, if accurate, is either significant evidence kept secret for nine years or a misconstrued recounting of investigative leads that were often passed by word of mouth during the hectic early days of the case, they said.
"I did not see it," said Danny Defenbaugh, the retired FBI (news - web sites) agent who ran the Oklahoma City probe. "If it shows what it says, then it would be significant."
Secret Service spokesman Charles Bopp declined to discuss the video footage reference, saying it would be addressed by witnesses later this week at the capital murder trial of McVeigh co-defendant Terry Nichols. "It is anticipated Secret Service employees will testify in court concerning these matters," he said.
Other documents obtained by AP show the Secret Service in late 1995 gave prosecutors several computer disks of enhanced digital photographs of the Murrah building, intelligence files on several subjects in the investigation and a file detailing an internal affairs inquiry concerning an agent who reconstructed key phone evidence against McVeigh.
"These abstract sheets are sensitive documents which we have protected from disclosure in the past," said a Secret Service letter that recounted discussions in late 1995 with federal prosecutors on what evidence would be turned over to defense lawyers.
Lawyers for Nichols say they have never been given the security video, photo disks or internal investigative file referenced in the documents.
The trial judge has threatened to dismiss the death penalty case if evidence was withheld. McVeigh was executed in 2001 on a separate federal conviction. Nichols was sentenced to life in prison on federal charges before being tried by the state this year.
The government has maintained for years that McVeigh parked the Ryder rental truck carrying a massive fertilizer bomb outside the Murrah building and left alone in a getaway car he parked around the corner. The bombing killed more than 160 people.
The only video prosecutors introduced at trial showed the Ryder truck without any visible passengers as it passed a security camera inside a high-rise apartment building a block away from the Murrah building.
But the Secret Service log reported on April 24 and April 25, 1995, that there was security footage showing the Ryder truck pulling up to the Murrah building. The log does not say where such video came from or who possessed it.
A log entry on April 25 states that the security footage allowed agents to determine the time that elapsed between suspects leaving the truck and the explosion.
An entry a day earlier on the same log reported that the security video was consistent with a witness' account that he saw McVeigh's getaway car in the lead before a woman guided the truck to its final parking spot in front of the Murrah building.
"A witness to the explosion named Grossman claimed to have seen a pale yellow Mercury car with a Ryder truck behind it pulling up to the federal building," the log said. The witness "further claimed to have seen a woman on the corner waving to the truck."
A Secret Service agent named McNally "noted that this fact is significant due to the fact that the security video shows the Ryder truck pulling up to the Federal Building and then pausing (7 to 10 seconds) before resuming into the slot in front of the building," the log said. "It is speculated that the woman was signaling the truck when a slot became available."
Defenbaugh said the FBI had talked to several witnesses suggesting two people had left the truck, but prosecutors never introduced the scenario at trial because it couldn't be corroborated. That's why a new security video would be significant, he said.
"It would have taken the investigation in a very specific direction," Defenbaugh said. "Rather than having to go down an eight-lane highway during rush hour, we would have gone down a faster path with just two or four lanes."
Defenbaugh said the FBI kept a log similar to the Secret Service document inside the Oklahoma City investigation command center that might help solve the mystery of the video. Justice officials declined to discuss documents, citing the ongoing Nichols' trial.
In addition to the witness mentioned in the Secret Service document, a woman working in Murrah's Social Security (news - web sites) office who was rescued from the rubble and a driver outside the building both reported to the FBI seeing two men leave the truck, according to government documents.
The Secret Service (news - web sites) log contained other information about the case including that McVeigh made 30 calls to an Illinois gun dealer in the months before the attacks to seek dynamite and that the gun dealer subsequently failed a lie detector test. The Secret Service lost six employees in McVeigh's bombing, the single largest loss in agency history.
Nichols' attorneys last week asked the judge to dismiss the case on grounds the government withheld evidence, including the security video footage.
New documents obtained by AP show the Secret Service provided prosecutors other evidence that may not have been provided to defense lawyers, including a file showing the Secret Service agent who reconstructed crucial phone evidence against McVeigh was subjected to an internal affairs investigation and eventually cleared for her conduct in the case.
FBI officials say that file details allegations the agent wrongly collected grand jury-subpoenaed phone information about McVeigh's calls without FBI knowledge, and kept it for weeks while she produced analysis that helped the investigation.
The internal investigation caused complications for prosecutors. They decided it tainted the agent as a witness and they chose instead to hire an outside expert to re-do the phone analysis for trial, officials said.
Bopp said the Secret Service did nothing wrong.
"The Secret Service worked cooperatively with the FBI and other federal state and local law enforcement throughout the investigation," Bopp said. "The expertise of the Secret Service on electronic crimes and telecommunications provided unique and timely information to the ongoing investigation."
On the Net:
The FBI: http://www.fbi.gov
The documents obtained by The Associated Press can be viewed at http://wid.ap.org/documents/okc/okcdoc2.pdf
Thank you! I'd never
read this. The source of this is
Media Bypass.
I'd heard of it, but
I had never tracked it down
because I'd seen it
described as McVeigh
speaking on his family! *
Yikes. I should have known.
------------------------------------------------------------
* "... In addition, Mr. McVeigh did grant an interview, concerning only his family and military background, to Media Bypass Magazine. Since Mr. McVeigh's transfer to the Federal Correctional Institution at Englewood, counsel for Mr. McVeigh has permitted Tom Brokaw from NBC News and Scott Pelley from CBS News to meet, film and record a very brief casual meeting with Mr. McVeigh. ... "
The fact that the government moved quickly to demolish the rest of the building (aka destroy the evidence) makes complete sense if they used a micro nuke. They took all the debris and buried it and sealed it with concrete. Kinda precludes anyone discovering Plutonium 239 particles later.
Why is it our goobermint always seals things up for 100 years or buries the debris in concrete? (First shuttle wreckage, for another example) They wouldn't be HIDING anything, would they?
Hate to sound too "cynical" but I think this demonstrates the absolute neccesity of making copies of anything before turning them over to authorities. The Zapruder film comes to mind. Of course, don't be stupid enough to tell anyone you made a copy either.
Denial is a powerful motive. I know LOTS of people who immediately began to convince themselves the Challenger crew died instantly. I know enough about what it takes for things to explode violently enough to do that to know it didn't happen, and that the astronauts were well aware of what was going on all the way in.
Public myth-making is a facinating process. So is the destruction of those myths. The trust has inherent value. I hope the truth here comes out.
Sure did. They really don't want this story getting 'legs.'
Even if a video surfaced, they would simply write it off as more members of McVeigh's 'cell' and use it as justification to crack down on 'extreme right-wingers' and/or to create a domestic CIA. In fact I believe they will do this as soon as we conveniently have another terror incident.
What's to 'spin' - the facts are facts, they *are* out there for the prudent to see, and the rest is hyperbole, 'spinning' and the intentional ignorance of those facts *for* the purpoe of book-sales (Jayna Davis comes to mind) ...
1)
IN RE: OKLAHOMA COUNTY ] GRAND JURY ] No. CJ-95-7278 ] FINAL REPORT OF THE GRAND JURYwww.oklahomacounty.org/GrandJuryReport.htm
2)
The Oklahoma City Bombing Trial Transcripts (McVeigh)
3)
The Thrill of a Good Conspiracy -
Iraq and the Oklahoma bombing case
4)
McVeigh admits he worked alone, shows no remorse
5
The amended criminal complaint issued by the FBI against Terry and James Nichols, who allegedly participated in the manufacture of the explosive devices used in the Oklahoma City bombing. - Details on explossive 'experiments' by Nichols, et al.
Goofball ... try to mis-represent my position on this subject?
Frankly, I don't believe that the Thing was a serious "man". He talked people to death, and held meetings and partied. This was the mo of the 60's bunch. While most people were working, starting families, or dying in VN, they were sitiing around talking, smoking dope, and going to meetings. ___________ Fill in Commie front group name. Kerry is the exactly the same.
Remember now?
Whoops, you're correct- I had it for purposes of comparison with the size of the plywood-covered crater at the Murrah Building. I'll track the right one down.
Thanks for catching that.
The truth is that neither 'Toon nor the federal agencies had the nads to think of outside agents, he mght have had to do something.
Gwjack
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