Posted on 03/31/2006 4:12:26 AM PST by berkeleybeej
After 10 years of fighting the federal government to get to the bottom of the death of his brother, Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue does not consider a federal judge's ruling in a Freedom of Information fight a defeat.
If anything, he says it's just the opposite after Judge Dale Kimball ruled last night the FBI in Okahoma City did not have to reveal the names of informants who had targeted Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh before he attacked the Murrah building in 1995 and killed 168 persons.
"I think that's huge," said Trentadue in pointing out the judge also accepted as fact 'that there was an undercover operative in with Timothy McVeigh and members of the various militia groups who aided and supported McVeigh'. For the first time in the various legal actions in state and federal courts since 1995, a judge has ruled a government informant or operative was with McVeigh before the bombing. It is something the government has steadfastly denied since the bombing.
The judge also wondered, in his ruling why there are no earlier records which have been produced by the FBI about the operation, an operation many have called a 'sting which went bad'.
Trentadue had sued the FBI in his fight to learn whether the August 1995 death of his brother Kenneth Trentadue at the Oklahoma City Federal Transfer Center was linked to the government probe of the bombing. Sources had indicated Kenneth Trentadue was a match for one of the Midwestern Bank bandits who had run with McVeigh before the bombing.
"While officials ruled the death a suicide, Plaintiff unearthed 'significant evidence of foul play', wrote Judge Kimball in his ruling.
But the judge upheld the government's belief it had made promises to informants to keep their identities secret.
"The court is satisfied that either express or imlied promises of confidentiality were made and that the information must therefore remain protected," he declared in the ruling.
"The court agrees that the redacted information contains information compiled for law enforcement purposes and that it could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy," continued Judge Kimball in his ruling in Utah federal court.
However Jesse Trentadue, speaking from his Salt Lake City law offices also feels he has scored another victory because the judge ordered the FBI to do a search of its records for information concerning efforts of the Southern Poverty Law Center to also maintain undercover operators at Elohim City.
Trentadue asked the government to do a search for SPLC executive Morris Dees and it refused.
"The FBI has not satisfied its burden in convincing the court that the FBI need not even search for documents containing Dees' name," wrote the judge. "While the FBI is entitled to redact any information it claims is exempt, subject to review by the court, the FBI shall conduct a search for such documents, similar to the search it has previously conducted regarding the OKBOMB file."
Trentadue says he is not sure of the impact of the judge's conclusion about government informants targeting McVeigh before the bombing.
Such information was excluded by judicial rulings on the federal and state levels in the trials of Tim McVeigh and co-conspirator Terry Nichols.
Ping
ping
Sounds as if some people pretty high in government agencies were involved directly or indirectly in the Oklahoma City bombings. The FBI is doing everything it can to cover up for those in government who were involved.
I wonder if the FOIA could be used to get a copy of the Secret Service logs discussing the video of the explosion that shows that McVeigh had friends with him that day.
bttt
ping
Only if you read in an incredible amount of stuff between the lines.
Judge Dale Kimball ruled last night the FBI in Okahoma City did not have to reveal the names of informants who had targeted Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh before he attacked the Murrah building in 1995 and killed 168 persons.
From a ruling that the government does not need to reveal names of an informants or operatives that may have for some unspecified reason though McVeigh might have been doing something wrong, this person deducts that there government was somehow in on the bombing and that it's being covered up.
That's the things about conspiracy theories, they don't really require much by the way or evidence to support them.
I thought I had missed something. The plaintiff lept from not required to identify operatives to there were operatives in a particular case. Sounded a lot like the reversal of the "Have you stopped beating your wife?" ploy.
Or Strassmeier.
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