By J.D.
Cash
© 2005 McCurtain Daily Gazette
Unearthed by a Salt Lake City, Utah, attorney, statements made by a
Tulsa Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agent in a federal courtroom
confirm that a confidential informant did warn the agency of plans to bomb
federal buildings before the attack in Oklahoma City that left 168 dead
and hundreds more injured.
Moreover, a federal judge in Oklahoma ordered that the information be
kept sealed because of its potential impact on the trial of bomber Timothy
McVeigh, records show.
Civil attorney Jesse Trentadue submitted as an exhibit a transcript
from a 1997 federal court proceeding in Tulsa that contains admissions by
a BATF agent that she had prior warning of a bomb plot being discussed
inside a right-wing paramilitary compound in eastern Oklahoma called
Elohim City.
The information emerges now because in May of this year a federal judge
in a Utah Freedom of Information case ordered the Oklahoma City FBI office
to surrender all responsive documents requested by Trentadue without
redactions. The FBI has been fighting the order ever since.
As part of that suit, Trentadue on Friday responded to the FBI's
delivery to the judge of just under 100 pages of documents related to a
little-known undercover operation involving the Southern Poverty Law
Center, or SPLC; the FBI; and the $85 million OKBOMB investigation.
In presenting the documents under seal to the court, lawyers for the
Department of Justice once again argued that the identity of certain SPLC
informants and others along with important details of the undercover
operation involving McVeigh and the far right should be kept secret from
the public.
Almost since the day of the bombing, there has been considerable
information emerging that various law enforcement agencies had
intelligence pointing to a bomb plot by McVeigh and others well ahead of
the attack.
Federal officials have consistently denied that they had evidence of a
pending attack.
Questions immediately surfaced after the bombing as to why there were
no BATF field agents on duty at the building the morning terrorists
struck. The Oklahoma City office had over a dozen employees assigned to
the ninth floor office. However, none was killed and only two auditors
were treated for injuries afterward.
Responding to press inquiries, the BATF at the time of the bombing said
most of their agents had been out the night before on a surveillance
operation and had slept in.
Trentadue has obtained a 1997 transcript from a Tulsa federal court
case that casts doubt on BATF claims that the agency had no advance
warning of an Oklahoma City bombing.
The 1997 case involved a Tulsa BATF contract informant who stood
accused, along with a boyfriend, of making bomb threats in 1996.
With no media present, Carol E. Howe's BATF handler, Angela
Finley-Graham, responded to questions from Howe's attorney, Clark
Brewster, about her work for the agency.
In particular, Finley-Graham was asked whether Howe had warned the BATF
in 1994 and 1995 that Andreas Strassmeir and others at Elohim City were
plotting to bomb an Oklahoma federal building in the spring of 1995.
The transcript of Graham's testimony includes this exchange:
Brewster: And Ms. Howe told you about Mr. Strassmeir's
threats to blow up federal buildings, didn't she?
Graham: In general, yes.
Brewster: And that was before the Oklahoma City bombing?
Graham: Yes.
During the proceeding, Graham also acknowledged that she was aware Howe
traveled to Oklahoma City with members of the radical group before the
attack and had later reported the incident. Upon her return to Tulsa, Howe
was debriefed and then taken to Oklahoma City to show Graham the areas she
visited with the individuals who were part of a wide-ranging terrorist
investigation that was receiving substantial funding and attention in
Washington, D.C.
At the conclusion of Graham's testimony, the judge in the case was
encouraged by Justice Department prosecutors to order Howe's attorney not
to turn the information over to bombing defense attorneys for McVeigh,
whose trial had just begun.
In a closed-door, "in camera" hearing on April 24, 1997, U.S. District
Judge Michael Burrage commented on the BATF records involving Howe's
undercover file and referred to a mass-murder case that was not before
him.
Burrage: With that McVeigh trial going on, I don't want
anything getting out of here that would compromise that trial in any
way.
Brewster: What do you mean by "compromise"? Do you mean shared with
McVeigh's lawyers?
Burrage: Yes, or something that would come up you know, we have got
evidence that the ATF took a trip with somebody that said buildings were
going to be blown up in Oklahoma City before it was blown up or
something of that nature, and try to connect it to McVeigh in some way
or something.
Brewster: That would be up to their representation of the client in
some regard, Your Honor. If you are asking me not to share any
documentation from these files with those lawyers, then I
won't.
Howe was not allowed to testify in the McVeigh trial. However, after
she was acquitted of all charges brought by the DOJ against her in Tulsa,
the former beauty queen and debutante was allowed to testify in a very
limited manner in the Terry Nichols trial in Denver.
Under strict orders by U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch, Howe was not
allowed to tell Nichols' jurors that she was under contract for the BATF
when she visited Elohim City in the months before the bombing.
Thus, Howe was not allowed to discuss any portion of her BATF file that
showed the Tulsa office was planning a February 1995 raid of Elohim City
and then arrest Strassmeir.
Nor was evidence allowed into the Nichols' trial that the FBI
intervened to stop the raid. Howe was only allowed to tell jurors that she
saw McVeigh at Elohim City before the April 19, 1995, blast and that he
walking with Strassmeir.
Earlier this year, individuals involved in the OKBOMB investigation
came forward to the McCurtain Daily Gazette and claimed the FBI's OKBOMB
case was corrupted by the Clinton White House and federal prosecutors in
Denver who covered up evidence of a wider conspiracy in the bombing.
Each of those officials has continued to follow media reports about the
bombing for over a decade. They came forward albeit without attribution
to express concerns and to provide details of a government cover-up of a
failed sting operation at Elohim City a sting operation, each said, that
was very likely bungled by the BATF.
"I was close to the bombing case immediately," one former official told
the Gazette, "and over time it became clear the White House had taken the
investigation away from the FBI and handed it over to officials at the
Department of Justice.
"And that's not how it works. The FBI should investigate and then turn
the evidence over to them to decide if they want to proceed with a
prosecution. That didn't happen in this case. In this case, after the
original commanders left the case, the DOJ began calling the shots
telling field agents what they could investigate and what they couldn't."
Documents withheld
Various lawyers who worked for the defendants in the bombing case have
reviewed the documents central to the Trentadue FOIA lawsuit and have told
the newspaper they were never turned over to them in discovery by DOJ as
the court had ordered.
At issue is close to 100 pages of heavily redacted documents about the
FBI's interest in phone calls and associations involving McVeigh, Elohim
City and informants privy to that information before the bombing in
Oklahoma and afterward.
Much of the information involves teletypes from the then-director of
the FBI, Louis Freeh.
Central to Trentadue's FOIA litigation, the FBI is now asking the court
to allow it to continue to withhold details of the SPLC operation at
Elohim City including the names of the informants that assisted the SPLC
and others. The FBI also wants to redact how much information the
government and the SPLC knew of the bomb plot before terrorists struck in
Oklahoma City.
Trentadue alleges that the SPLC and the FBI through their informants
and agents actually helped McVeigh and his cohorts bomb the federal
building as part of a failed "sting operation" that went awry. At no stage
in the litigation has the FBI denied this allegation.
Also contained in Friday's filing in Salt Lake City, Trentadue writes:
"During the course of investigating his brother Kenneth Michael
Trentadue's murder, Plaintiff discovered that the Southern Poverty Law
Center (SPLC) and the FBI had conducted a joint sting operation at a white
supremacist compound in eastern Oklahoma, known as Elohim City, and that
Timothy McVeigh was a visitor at Elohim City, which was also a
paramilitary training camp. Another visitor to Elohim City was Richard Lee
Guthrie. Prior to McVeigh's execution, Plaintiff received a message from
McVeigh stating that McVeigh believed Plaintiff's brother was killed
because of FBI Defendants' mistaken belief that Kenneth Michael Trentadue
was actually Richard Lee Gurthrie.
"Gurthrie was one of McVeigh's accomplices in the Oklahoma City bombing
and a member of the Mid-West Bank Robbery Gang, which was an arm of the
Aryan Republican Army. Approximately nine months after Kenneth Trentadue
was murdered, Guthrie was found hanging in his cell while in federal
custody. Plaintiff commenced this action to obtain records/documents from
FBI Defendants concerning the joint SPLC-FBI sting operation, the Mid-West
Bank Robbery Gang and the murder of his brother.
"FBI Defendants have filed 96 pages of responsive documents with the
Court. Plaintiff has been provided with redacted copies of these same
documents. FBI Defendants have now asked the Court to reconsider and
vacate its Order of May 5, 2005. If that Motion is granted, FBI Defendants
will continue to conceal their involvement in the greatest act of domestic
terrorism to occur in the United States of America during the 20th
Century, which involved the murders of 169 people including 19 children
and Plaintiff's brother."
In one explosive document from the FBI after the bombing, Trentadue
points out, "Exhibit 2 is the SPLC Bombing Memorandum. The Court should
note that there are at least two informants mentioned in this document.
One is a Cincinnati cooperating witness for whom FBI Defendants assert the
implied assurance of confidentiality exemption, but there is nothing in
the record before the Court to indicate that this witness, who is Shawn
Kenny, is entitled to that exemption. Of more significance, however, is
the other informant at Elohim City, Andreas Carl Strassmeir.
"There is no exemption asserted for Andreas Carl Strassmeir. This
document is crucial because it reveals that McVeigh had a lengthy
relationship with Strassmeir, a weapons and explosives instructor at
Elohim City and that two days prior to the Murrah Building bombing,
McVeigh had called Elohim City looking for help."
Dees responds
SPLC's Morris Dees in an interview with the Gazette over a year ago
admitted involvement in an operation at Elohim City, but refused to
provide details. That interview was tape recorded by this reporter and
filmed by a Texas television network. Since that interview, Dees'
assistant Mark Potok has said his employer was just making a joke. Potok
has refused to communicate further with the Gazette.
Today in Salt Lake City the parties in the lawsuit expect the court to
rule on the manner. If the judge in the case once again orders the FBI to
surrender the unaltered documents to Trentadue, the matter could be
appealed to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.
Previous stories:
Oklahoma
City FBI surrenders documents to court
Congressman
to FBI: Turn over documents
FBI
must turn over investigation docs
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
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