Posted on 08/19/2005 12:28:24 PM PDT by ovrtaxt
OKC BOMBING FALLOUT
FBI must turn over investigation docs
While agent says agency again probing '95 attack on federal building
By J.D. Cash
© 2005 McCurtain Daily Gazette
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.
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.
In 2000, the head of the original OKBOMB investigation, Danny Defenbaugh, told an interviewer for a documentary film on the subject: "The FBI will never reopen the case, under any circumstances. Even if McVeigh calls and gives us names," Defenbaugh stated, "we will never reopen it."
A civil suit filed by a Utah attorney may have flushed out new evidence of a wider conspiracy in the bombing, forcing the agency to move forward with a new investigation.
The brother of a murdered inmate, Jesse Trentadue, sued the Oklahoma City FBI office after attempting to obtain documents concerning the death of his younger brother Kenny.
At the time of his death, Trentadue was being held in solitary confinement in the Oklahoma City Federal Transfer Center, pending a hearing on his parole status. The government has since claimed Trentadue killed himself.
Jesse Trentadue, an attorney in Salt Lake City, Utah, claims he has found evidence that his brother was tortured and killed because federal agents suspected him of involvement in the bombing conspiracy in Oklahoma City. Trentadue received the information from a person close to McVeigh, who was waiting execution at the time.
Additional evidence to support this claim could be available soon.
In an order dated Aug. 16, U.S. District Judge Dale A. Kimball directed the parties to appear before him on Oct. 12 to present additional arguments on whether the FBI is entitled to continue withholding evidence it may have of a wider conspiracy in the matter – and much more.
Kimball also ordered the FBI to bring to court all unredacted copies of the documents involved in the litigation for him to review in his chambers.
Trentadue's litigation thus far has uncovered links between McVeigh and several subjects that frequented Elohim City, a paramilitary training camp in eastern Oklahoma.
For a decade since the bombing, senior FBI agents and lawyers for the U.S. Department of Justice have argued that they never had any evidence that persons at Elohim City could be involved with McVeigh or the Oklahoma bombing.
But several 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.
In the documents, the FBI also notes the agency was monitoring McVeigh and Elohim City with the help of the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC is a tax-exempt civil rights group that was co-founded by Alabama attorney Morris Dees.
Dees confirmed participation in a covert operation at Elohim City, but refused to elaborate during an interview with this newspaper almost two years ago.
During the course of this litigation, Justice Department lawyers have also argued that the individuals working for the SPLC and the FBI were promised anonymity in return for their undercover work, thus their names were blacked out to protect their identities.
Trentadue has told the court that the public's interest in learning who killed 168 persons and injured 500 more in Oklahoma City in 1995 far outweighs the FBI's interest in protecting the names of its informants – especially those employed by a private organization.
Previous stories:
Ex-Green Beret involved in attack?
FBI has secret docs it's reluctant to give up
Withheld evidence to sink case against Nichols?
Declassified FBI memo reveals twists in probe
Reporter's Oklahoma City coverage vindicated
Was FBI early arrival in Oklahoma City?
Another suicide or another cover-up?
Read WorldNetDaily's extensive coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing case.
Order Jayna Davis's blockbuster -- "The Third Terrorist: The Middle Eastern Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing" at ShopNetDaily -- the only place it's available in hardcover!
If you prefer ordering by phone, call our toll-free order line: 1-800-4-WND-COM (1-800-496-3266).
We love you jayna! your book is must read. Love hearing you on rightalk.
Whatever happened to the report that Timothy McVeigh converted to Mohammedism during the Gulf War?
Please put me on the list. Thank you.
I'm waiting on Jayna Davis' book now, does it mention this guy, Kenny Trentadue?
Ping
andy the german....
This is another scab which should be picked off to see what oozes out.
While I don't doubt that it could be true I have never seen such an allegation.
Please add me to the list, thank you.
Jayna, if you are reading this: what happened to "INDIVISIBLE"? :(
http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2001/06/09/john_doe/index.html
June 9, 2001 | The main thing Joann Van Buren says she remembers about Timothy McVeigh is the $50 bill he wanted her to break. That, and the two men who accompanied him.
One day before he tore a hole in the nation's psyche with the bomb that destroyed Oklahoma City's Murrah Federal Building, McVeigh, Van Buren says, pulled up to the little Subway sandwich shop where she worked in Junction City, Kansas, driving the yellow Ryder truck that would contain the bomb.
Van Buren didn't pay any particular attention to them at first. Another clerk waited on the men, but when they tried to pay for their meal with a large bill, she took notice.
"As soon as the $50 bill came up, I had to go to the safe to get the change," says Van Buren today. "And when I gave them the change and they got their sandwiches, I remember them going back over to the corner, sitting down. And when they left, I remember three people getting into the truck. There were three people at the table."
The clerks she worked with later told FBI agents that two of the men matched the descriptions of McVeigh and his cohort, Terry Nichols. The third was a shorter, dark-haired and muscular man with an olive complexion: a perfect fit for the figure destined to be known as John Doe 2.
Luckily, the Subway shop actually had a video camera recording that day's events. When Van Buren contacted the FBI, agents interviewed everyone working in the shop on April 18. And when they were done, they confiscated the video recorded that day.
But if that tape showed a third co-conspirator with McVeigh and Nichols, no one outside the FBI can say. No one beyond the agency ever saw it. In the waning days of Nichols' trial, his defense attorneys discovered the details of Van Buren's story -- which had only been described in generic terms in the FBI's report, omitting her contention that two men accompanied McVeigh -- along with information contained in some 43,000 other "lead sheets" that the FBI until then had failed to turn over to them.
Michael Tigar, who led the Nichols defense, tried in 1999 to use the FBI's failures to produce all relevant documents to gain a new trial for his client. But U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch refused, saying the withheld material would not have altered the trial's outcome.
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Where's the tape? Nichols lawyer was not interested in it becuase it would implicate Nichols. The govt. didn't use it to implicate Nichols with McVeigh because...?
To add to the OKC archive... (if it's officially around).
That'll learn ya!
The next few years should be interesting. Able Danger, OKC bombing and who knows... maybe Flight 800.
Hope you aren't in much pain rdb3.
Kenny Trentadue? Oh no! Not Agent 32!
Jayna brought all her data to the FBI who turned it down because they would have to share it with the McVeigh defense team. She had a Notary with her to document that they saw it.
The judge will look at the material and decide there is nothing that should be made public.
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