Tag: oklahoma city

It has always been hard to believe that the truck-bombing of the A.P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, which killed 168 people, including 19 children at a daycare center, was planned by just one or two perpetrators acting alone. However, the official story states that the mastermind was Gulf War veteran Timothy McVeigh, and that the two others sentenced with him only helped him in various ways.

Right from the start, warning signs indicated that the investigation was being misled. The FBI developed a story claiming that a group called the Patriots Movement, which included anti-government extremists and white supremacists, was responsible for the attack. However, the agency also appeared to be trying hard to hide something. Consider these facts:

Twenty-four eyewitnesses saw a man with McVeigh just before the bombing. The FBI referred to him as John Doe 2 but later dismissed the idea that such a person existed. None of the witnesses who saw John Doe 2 were called to testify.

At least eight people connected to the investigation — including a brave police officer who was a first responder — died under mysterious circumstances, five of them reportedly by suicide.

Local reporters who looked beyond the storyline mainstream newspapers presented that the FBI had received a warning call about a bomb attack.

The sheriff’s bomb squad had even been patrolling the city before the explosion. An official of the Bureau from Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) said agents had been asked not to come in to work on the day of the attack.

In a new book called Blowback: The Untold Story of the FBI and the Oklahoma City Bombing, Margaret Roberts, former news director of America’s Most Wanted, presents shocking evidence suggesting that FBI agents might have been involved, acting as agent provocateurs in an operation gone wrong. The book suggests that the bombing was the result of a sting or deep-cover operation meant to trap white supremacists likely to carry out attacks such as the one that, tragically, could not be — or was deliberately not — prevented.

Much of the material comes from investigations conducted by Jesse Trentadue, a persistent attorney who believes his brother Kenneth was killed during an interrogation in jail because he was mistaken for Robert Guthrie, a bank robber and a probable John Doe 2. In his efforts to seek justice for his brother, Trentadue occasionally teamed up with experienced investigative reporters like Mary A. Fischer and Roberts. His legal battle resulted in the family being awarded a million dollars for Kenneth’s “wrongful death.” However, so much evidence had been tampered with or was impossible to obtain that the court refused to rule that Kenneth’s death, declared a “suicide” by prison authorities, was actually a murder.

One of the major questions is how McVeigh obtained the funds to buy the ammonium nitrate and fuel oil used in the bomb. The FBI theory suggests that a group of white supremacists calling themselves the Aryan Republican Army (ARA) funded the bombing through bank robberies across the country. Another question is whether the truck bomb alone could have caused the building to collapse. An investigation by a citizens’ group found that it could not; additional explosives might have been skillfully planted in the building to cause the cave-in.

Equally intriguing is how the prosecution handled Michael Fortier, one of the two others sentenced alongside McVeigh. Through a plea deal, Fortier testified against McVeigh. In return, lesser charges were brought against him and none against his wife. After serving 10 years of a 12-year sentence for failing to inform authorities about the bomb plot, he was released for good behavior and given a new identity under the witness protection program. Terry Nichols, the third person sentenced in the case, is serving multiple life sentences, while McVeigh was executed.

Keep reading

For years, the FBI denied that key evidence existed in the Oklahoma City bombing. But court documents, leaked files, and eyewitness accounts suggest a darker truth buried beneath the official story.

President Bill Clinton visited a church in Oklahoma City on April 19 to mark the 30th anniversary of the 1995 bombing that resulted in the deaths of 168 people. In his remarks, Clinton said we “owe” it to the victims to “do better” in honor of their sacrifice. But just like three decades ago, commemorating the bombing still requires airbrushing a mountain of contradictory evidence.

Clinton’s Justice Department owed the nation the full truth about the bombing. Instead, it spun a cover story that both distorted the past and endangered the future, leaving the American people exposed to new threats.

Among the most striking but forgotten facts surrounding the Oklahoma City bombing is the mystery of “John Doe 2,” a man 24 eyewitnesses claimed to have seen in the Ryder truck with Timothy McVeigh. The FBI now insists he never existed.

After the bombing, the media abandoned its role as a watchdog and became, in too many cases, an enabler of the official narrative of lone-wolf terror. It professed that the FBI acted swiftly and heroically, the Justice Department delivered justice, and President Clinton led the country through its pain with grace and resolve.

Fortunately, not everyone gave up on the truth. Today’s most relentless truth-seekers are anonymous digital investigators and citizen journalists, armed with Freedom of Information Act filings, archived footage, and a hunger to uncover what the gatekeepers tried to hide.

I’ve been part of one such effort for almost two decades. Working alongside attorney Jesse Trentadue, I’ve investigated the likely connection between the Oklahoma City bombing and the horrific 1995 death of Jesse’s brother, Kenneth, in federal custody. Jesse’s FOIA lawsuits unearthed shocking documents about the FBI’s concealed activities — clues that led us deeper into the bureau’s involvement than we could have imagined.

Then, a former FBI undercover operative came forward. What he revealed gave us a key piece of the puzzle. And yet for all we’ve uncovered, the vaults of secrecy remain shut.

Which brings us to a critical moment. On March 26, Trentadue submitted a letter to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, urging the release of a decade-old sealed deposition from that very whistleblower. The contents of that deposition could expose the true scope of PATCON — the FBI’s sweeping 1990s operation to infiltrate alleged right-wing extremist groups — and potentially tie it directly to the Oklahoma City bombing.

This is a test of whether the Trump administration will honor its promises of transparency. Very few are aware that the Oklahoma City bombing was caught on camera. We know this not just from speculative claims but from on-the-record sources — contemporaneous media reports, corroborating federal files, and sworn FBI testimony. The footage exists. It’s a documented fact. Yet the tapes remain hidden. Authorities only released video of the aftermath.

For over a decade, the FBI fought Trentadue in court to keep the video out of public view. The footage may prove conclusively that McVeigh was not acting alone. If made public, the tapes could shatter the myth of lone-wolf domestic terror. They could implicate associates of McVeigh who were never charged.

Further, the videos could show that 168 Americans were murdered not just by a madman but by a preventable failure of federal surveillance — or worse, by a deliberate cover-up. This cover story has allowed neo-Nazi terrorists to slip through the cracks, denied justice to the victims, and kept the American public in the dark for far too long.

Keep reading