July 27, 2025 • 36 mins
Newt talks with Margaret Roberts about her new book, “Blowback: The Untold Story of the FBI and the Oklahoma City Bombing.” Roberts who is the former news director of America's Most Wanted, reexamines the Oklahoma City bombing, challenging the lone wolf terrorism narrative with evidence suggesting a neo-Nazi plot and FBI involvement. Roberts reveals her investigative journey, including exclusive interviews with co-conspirator Terry Nichols, who alleges Timothy McVeigh was an undercover federal operative. Her book explores the FBI’s PATCON program, suggesting the bombing was a sting operation gone wrong. Roberts calls for transparency and the release of FBI documents to uncover the truth.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
On this episode of the news World. Tragedy unfolded on
April nineteenth, nineteen ninety five, when a massive bomb exploded
in America's heartland, killing one hundred and sixty eight people,
including fifteen children in their daycare center. History says the
Oklahoma City bombing was lone wolf terrorism, but fresh evidence
(00:27):
points instead to a neo Nazi plot in which the
FBI played a hidden role, allowing suspects to walk free.
The FBI launched the biggest man hunting its history for
two suspected bombers, and quickly arrested Timothy McVeigh, a twenty
six year old Gulf War Army veteran. Yet they never
(00:48):
captured the other suspect, known only as John Doe two,
who rode next to McVeigh in the bomb truck. Soon
the FBI canceled the search, saying eyewitnesses who while John
Doe two were mistaken. In her new book, Blowback, Margaret
Roberts reopens the mystery of John Doe two and chronicles
(01:09):
her shocking discoveries, including journalism's only face to face prison
interviews with McVeigh co conspirator Terry Nichols. Here to discuss
her new book. I am really pleased to welcome my guests,
Margaret Roberts. She is the former news director of America's
Most Wanted. Margaret, welcome and thank you for joining me
(01:48):
on news World.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Thank you, mister Speaker.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
It is an honor to be here with you.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
You were news director of America's Most Wanted, which was
an amazingly successful program. You are deeply familiar with the
FBI and criminal investigations, but I want to start with
America's Most Wanted because it became such a popular show
and in many ways an iconic show that people really
cueued off of and paid attention to. How did you
(02:16):
get to America's Most Wanted?
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Well, I was a print journalist, mister Speaker, in the
very button down world, which you know very well of Washington,
DC policy and politics. I was a top editor at
National Journal, and then I moved over to Congressional Quarterly.
So it was a very different beat from America's Most Wanted.
(02:44):
But what happened was it was a radical media experiment
when Barry Diller at Fox decided to take a flyer
and put this television show in the backyard of the
FBI and propose to them that they partner with Hollywood
(03:06):
basically to catch criminals.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
And it was a bold move.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
And I always have kind of suspected that part of
my hiring or choice of me for the job was
that I really represented the Washington journalists, not the Hollywood type.
But I was the more buttoned down, conventional one, and
they had a lot of explaining and persuading to do
(03:33):
to bring the FBI on board for this media experiment.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
I've seen the show, but how did you get put together?
Did you all sit down with the FBI and look
at a range of possibilities or how wout a typical
show for America's most wanted to actually be put together? Well?
Speaker 3 (03:52):
I ran the news room and the research department, and
I was the liaison with the FBI as well as
with victims and cops. So my department effort was all
about identifying fugitive cases. You know, the FBI would give
(04:14):
us files and help us in that way, but delivering
and developing fugitive cases and files that would make compelling TV.
I mean, not every case would have the story value.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
How often did those stories actually lead to finding the
criminal you were looking for?
Speaker 3 (04:34):
I bet the show captured a thousand fugitives, but we
captured hundreds while I was there, and these were high
profile fugitives. The night of our premiere was an extraordinary
moment in television history because there we were at the
(04:57):
WTTG television station where we had our headquarters, and there
was the FBI about fifteen agents, you know, in their suits,
up against the wall, our brand new phone bank that
we had developed with call one eight hundred Crime.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
TV, and we rolled the tape.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Well, you were asking how it's put together. Field producers,
mister Speaker had made the segments.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
That were the stories.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
It was started as a half hour show, so they
had made the stories and then they were rolled together
in a studio session where John Walsh would do the
wrap around the stories.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
And that night we rolled.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Our very first story featuring one of the FBI's ten
most wanted criminals, and he was a criminal. Monster was
a prison escapee who had abducted a young woman with
a baby, raped her through the baby out in the
cold where it died, and stuffed her in the trunk
(06:12):
of her car and took off. So we rolled our
segment about that crime and that criminal, and the first
thing that happened was a blanket of phone calls from
Staten Island, New York. But they weren't calling to tell
us congratulations. They were calling to tell us that we
(06:35):
were soon going to be off the air because we
had made a terrible mistake. This picture that they were
looking at was the beloved director of their homeless mission
there on Staten Island, and it couldn't possibly have been
the man that we were looking for, but it was.
And five days later one of the FBI's ten most
(06:57):
wanted criminals was in custody and we were immediate phenomenon.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
So this guy had committed that crime, but had gotten
to Staten Island. Where was the crime committed?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Gary Indiana tells you the.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Reach of television. I mean, you put it on TV and.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Boom, absolutely and somehow in this case, I think fate
also because we were on a very short leash as
to the future of that show, and it was only
broadcast on seven Fox owned and operated stations nationwide. If
(07:38):
he had been hiding out in some small town, we
likely wouldn't have found him and we likely wouldn't have
been renewed for another season.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
So things happened for a reason.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Did capturing that criminal pretty much guarantee that you would
go to the whole network.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Yes, absolutely, and maybe we would have any but we
felt we had to have one big capture to be
picked up.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
That was our feeling.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
What led you then to decide that you wanted to
write about Oklahoma City?
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Well, that was a long and I really think odyssey,
mister Speaker is the right way to put it, because
I had moved on from America's Most Wanted. But of
course I had been in the cockpit of high profile
manhunts for three years. I mean, a regular journalist just
(08:37):
doesn't get that close to how the FBI is capturing
bad guys, but I did, and then moved on to
Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
That was just a couple of years that I was.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Out there working on developing a new show when this
bomb exploded in Oklahoma City. And how I became involved
in investigating the case takes another ten years to explain.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
But when the bomb went.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Off, I had two perspectives. One, just like millions of Americans,
probably yourself, it's one of those rare moments where you
remember where you were because it's just so profound. And
I watched that devastation, which was almost immediately live on
(09:32):
television and saw the destruction, the agony, the fear, the blood,
the concrete, all of it, the devastation the children. As
you know, the icon from that day is the firefighter
holding the dying or dead one year old. I saw
(09:54):
all of that, and I felt all of that agony.
I also felt from my experience that America's most wanted.
Oh my god, this is the big one, this is
the big man hunt.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Because of course the perpetrators were.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Gone and the hunt was on, and my thought was,
who could have done this? So I became hooked on
the story as a news junkie, as a horrified American.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I wasn't working it.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
But I sure wished that I was back at America's
Most Wanted, in the middle of a newsroom where I
could have chased that story and had the best sources
in America, the cops and the federal agents that were
on speed dial.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
That's how it struck me. There were many things.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
I don't want to get ahead here, but there were
many reasons to wonder immediately about that story, and I
think probably America's Most Wanted may have given me a
head start, but I'm sure a lot of people wondered
about discrepancies that arose immediately in that story. One of
(11:12):
them was twenty four eyewitnesses, regular ordinary people in Oklahoma
City saw.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Timothy McVeigh and the man.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Next to him arrive at the Mirror building to bomb
the building and exit the rider truck before the bomb
went off. So, right away a story that became lone
wolf terror the prosecution of Timothy McVeigh. Obviously there was
(11:49):
more to it than lone wolf terror. That was a
first flag, if you will, that there was more to
this story, and it immediately got magnified by stories. Top
journalists were reporting in the best newspapers that the FBI
had surveillance videotaped.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Of the bombers and the.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Bombing, So again there were obviously more than one. And
to me, really compelling is that a juror, a grand
juror on the McVeigh grand jury, was so disturbed by
what was going on inside that jury that he went rogue.
(12:36):
And of course, as you know, mister speaker, the grand
jury proceedings are on the federal level especially, are very
tightly kept secrets. He started leaking to the Oklahoma newspaper
and then wrote a letter to the judge actually written
after the indictment came in, he complained bitterly that the
(13:01):
prosecutors who were managing that grand jury had rigged it,
and specifically rigged it by concealing the identity of John
Doe two. So, to answer your question, there just were
all these red flags as I was first fascinated by
the story, and then watching the story, and then watching
(13:24):
as the FBI by June of nineteen ninety five suddenly
did a U turn called off the biggest manhunt in
American history for John Doe two, who had a two
million dollar reward for his capture, and came up with
(13:45):
a preposterous explanation of how the mechanic at the Ryder
Rental truck agency must have misremembered the two men who
came in to rent the bomb truck. He must have
thought it was the two guys who.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Were there the day before.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
And it was just a preposterous explanation. As the rogue
grandeuror said in an interview, Oh my god, that was
the thing that got my attention to begin with, that
there was something wrong about this investigation.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
I flew in the second night and went and visited
the rescue workers and it was really horrifying. Prior to
nine to eleven, I don't think of anything quite like
it in American soil. And I went back a few
years ago to the museum they now have, which I
really encourage all of our listeners if you ever go
to oklah Alama City. It's a very sobering and compelling
(15:04):
experience to see just how much damage was done and
how many innocent people were killed. But the museum doesn't
really deal with the issue of the year book. I
think your book is going to really put back on
the front burner some very significant questions. Now you actually
got to interview Nichols. Is that correct? First of all,
how did you get to do it? And second what
(15:26):
was it like?
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Well, it was extraordinary, and how I got to do
it takes a little bit of telling. It's ten years in.
I basically was summoned to Oklahoma City by a survivor
who knew I was prowling around on the tenth anniversary
thinking about a story for America's Most Wanted and she
(15:51):
called me and without much introduction, just summoned me to
Oklahoma City.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
We need your help out here. It was just one
of those.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Moments I just got on a plane and went to
Oklahoma City and then went on to Salt Lake City,
where she had pointed me to a man, an attorney
named Jesse Trinidou, who becomes central in this investigation and
is the reason I could interview Terry Nichols, who is
(16:22):
off limits. Wasn't his off limits to other reporters. Jesse
believes that the FBI murdered his brother, who was a prisoner.
Jesse is the lawyer in the family. His brother was
a prisoner, a parole violator, arrested in southern California in
(16:43):
mid June, right about the time the FBI was backing
away from its John Doe two identification, kept in custody
in Southern California for two months and then suddenly and
inexplicably transferred to Oklahoma City, supposedly for a parole violation hearing,
(17:04):
but three days later he was found tortured and murdered
in his federal prison cell. And the connection to the
Oklahoma City bombing, as Jesse would learn later, is that
Kenneth Trinidou was a dead ringer lookalike for John Doe two.
(17:26):
The wanted poster that the FBI was seeking he was
muscularly built, he had the tattoo, he stood about the
correct height and weight, And that began for Jesse, not
yet for me, but for Jesse, the odyssey of connecting
(17:46):
his brother's murder to the Oklahoma City bombing. That connection
came incredibly at first from Timothy McVeigh himself on death row,
who told Jesse through another death row inmate, that the
FBI had mistaken his brother for another man, Richard Guthrie,
(18:13):
who was the leader of this Aryan Republican Army neo
Nazi group that figures in the bombing story. So Jesse
was chasing all of that through a devoted circle of
journalists who eventually surrounded him and became his brain trust,
(18:36):
and went into federal court with Foya demands and Foyle
lawsuits to force information out of the FBI as to
what really happened. And by the time I arrived on
the scene, what Jesse needed was more information to file
(19:00):
more freedom of information at lawsuits. So he chose me,
as as he says, stealth reporter who could go into
the prisons because I was his paralegal. So that's how
(19:21):
I interviewed Terry Nichols and Jesse went with me on
the first interview, and it was remarkable. Nichols had enticed
us with the prospect that he was going to be
able to help tie the Aryan Republican Army gang to
(19:45):
the bombing. That isn't what materialized in that interview. Nichols
had another agenda and made two extraordinary revelations in that interview.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
His interest. His agenda was.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
To incriminate this gun dealer named Roger Moore, who was
always portrayed in these bombing prosecutions as the victim of
Nichols and mcveigh's robbery that happened in late nineteen ninety four.
(20:23):
But Nichols claimed that Roger Moore was a government operative.
My investigation leads to suspected government operative after suspected government operative.
Until this story and case begins more and more to
resemble the Governor Whitmer kidnapped plot than the lone wolf
(20:48):
terror plot that we have been told.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
For thirty years.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
And Nichols had, incredibly from his supermax prison cell, inducted
an exhaustive investigation of Roger Moore and came up with
very compelling evidence.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Wait, you're saying, hold on, how do you do research
from a supermax.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Well through your lawyers. So he had research from two
bombing trials and very high profile legal representations. So he
had a lot of stuff that was delivered in discovery
to them, and he actually had quite a lot of
exclusive material. And also one of his most remarkable revelations
(21:37):
was that in two thousand and four, as he awaited
his second trial, the state trial in Oklahoma, he was
visited by an attorney who represented himself as an off
the books envoy from the Department of Justice in Washington,
(22:00):
offering Terry Nichols that the DOJ could take the death
penalty off the table if he would help locate a
box of explosives belonging to Roger Moore. Those explosives Nichols
had taken in the robbery. What was significant to Nichols
(22:23):
is that Moore's name and address was on that cart,
and so were his fingerprints, which Nichols believed was going
to tie him to the bombing. Because Nichols claimed that
Roger Moore not only was the government operative, but was
a provocateur who provided explosives used in the bomb The envoy,
(22:51):
or supposed it envoy from Washington to Nichols shock the
plea bargaining went sideway when Nichols said he certainly, could
you know, help incriminate Roger Moore, and he was told
by the envoy that Roger Moore, and this is verbatim
(23:12):
from Nichols, was untouchable. Another attorney of Nicholls confirmed that
this transaction actually happened, that this lawyer did show up,
did make this offer, but that attorney concluded for some
reason that this must have all been a hoax.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
But it did happen.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Terry Nichols obviously had been seething for many years by
the time I interviewed him, and he was a man
shrunken with agony, almost fragile. He seemed to be in
agony over more than he is ever admitted to, and
(23:59):
he was just driven to deliver the case against Roger Moore.
The other stunning highlight of the Nichols interview was his
allegation that Timothy McVeigh, while they were in the run
(24:21):
up to the bombing, while they were conspiring and preparing,
had let slip to Terry Nichols that he was operating
as an undercover federal operative in the bomb plot, and that,
of course is a head spinning idea when you first
(24:44):
hear it. It has some support from other sources, but
obviously coming from Terry Nichols, it's not going to stand
on its own. But I will just mention a because
you probably have that as a question. Timothy McVeigh told
his first attorneys, who were public defenders before he was
(25:09):
quickly passed on to Stephen Jones. So within days and
hours of the bombing itself, he told those attorneys that
he was working undercover. And he told those attorneys that
he was stunned by witnessing the damage done by the bomb,
(25:32):
as if he did not believe that his bomb was
going to bring that kind of devastation to the building.
And he also wrote a letter to his sister, which
was published in the New York Times at some point,
telling her that he had been plucked out of Special
Operations training tryouts and made part of this special undercover unit.
(26:00):
So those were the really stunning headlines of the Terry
Nichols interview.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
In your judgment, looking at all the different stuff you're
looking at, do you think that the FBI was trying
to set up a sting and a gut out of control.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Yes, I do, And there's at the edge, I would
say of my investigation again, this is the Jesse Trinadou,
the attorney who is carrying the flag for all of
these years. Eventually, in twenty eleven, a fellow marine of
Jesse's comes out of the shadows and says, I've been
(26:56):
following your crusade for justice for your I want to
tell you about the FBI's pat Con program. The whistleblower
is John Matthews. He was a top FBI undercover in
(27:16):
the program, which is short for patriot conspiracy, that was
targeting right wing extremist groups in the nineteen nineties before
the bombing and after.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
In fact, and the FBI.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Represents this program as simply a limited infiltration program that
targeted three groups. John Matthews and his first phone called
to Jesse said, you wouldn't believe how big or how
ugly this is. I want to come to Salt Lake
City and tell you about it. He worked undercover in
(27:57):
this program for eight years and he personally infiltrated twenty
two right wing groups.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
He described it as.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
A sprawling, rogue program that eventually he became so disillusioned
about being part of that he left. But what his
discovery was that it was inciting the violence that he
(28:29):
believed he had joined up to stop. John Matthews was
based in Arizona. He told Jesse that he believed Oklahoma
City was a pat Con operation, and he told Jesse
that he knew for a fact that the FBI set
(28:50):
up the Aryan Republican Army Gang as a front group
inside pat Con. So the pieces begin to fall together
about what really happened. And yes, my conclusion is that
Oklahoma City was not an act of lone wolf terror
(29:14):
by any stretch. It was manufactured terror. It was made
in Washington, DC by the FBI, and it was tragically
a sting operation that went sideways in somehow as we
still don't know and won't find out until we can
(29:37):
learn the rest of the truth.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
I have to ask you, because you've done so much
research here and you have such great credibility as somebody
who has worked with the FBI, understands the process and
is a good reporter, doesn't this almost beg Cash Battel
to go through and release the documents that would indicate
exactly what was going on.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
In that absolutely, mister Speaker, Jesse Trinidou has a letter
on the desk of Attorney General Bondie asking the Department
of Justice to stand down from resisting the unseiling of
(30:21):
the whistleblower John Matthews deposition, which would lay out in
its entirety what pat con was in the nineteen nineties,
and absolutely this case, if I could just mention one
last major feature of it, and it is the grand
(30:43):
finale of this cover up, is that John Matthews. First
Newsweek jumped on the John Matthews story, and they did
write a profile, a cover story about John Matthews. But
on the day of the eve of publication, that story,
(31:08):
under intense pressure from the Justice Department, was gutted in
an executive edit, and all mention of pat con the
Oklahoma City bombing Timothy McVeigh under surveillance months before the bombing,
all that was gone. The whistleblower was furious. He agreed
(31:33):
volunteered to be Jesse's star witness in the Foyer trial,
seeking to force the FBI to release the video tapes
because those videotapes, which the FBI has never allowed the
public to see, very likely would identify John Doe two,
(31:58):
perhaps identify a federal undercover operative on the scene somewhere
in the shot and would tell the tale of what
actually happened. On the eve of John Matthews's testimony, he
pulled out of the trial.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Pulled out as a witness.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Told Jesse he had been pressured by the FBI and
that in almost a plea, he said, I don't want
to be just another vet living under a bridge. He
feared that his handlers would take his disability, his pension,
(32:46):
and he was gone as the witness in the trial.
Now the trial, this is twenty fourteen. That trial was
finished and Jesse immediately filed formal witness tampering charges against
the FBI, and the court appointed a special master to
(33:10):
investigate those charges. But the judge said he was going
to wait on the verdict in the surveillance videotapes case
until that investigation was complete. And that was eleven years ago.
So yes, I fully believe that in the spirit of
the new transparency that Cash Patel and Attorney General Bondi
(33:36):
could open the door to the truth about this story.
I also think we need to look at the cost
of all of this silence. I mean, since the Oklahoma
City bombing, we have had the Boston bombing, where there
are serious suspicions that the older brother was an FBI informant.
(34:04):
Now the Jeffrey Epstein story with potential of his connections
to intelligence January sixth, where Congress for five years has
been trying to find out how many informants were on
the ground, and just this week Russian collusion and the
questions of what role the FBI might have played in
(34:26):
all of that. It boils down to a creeping surveillance
crisis that urgently needs to be exposed.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
You had mentioned the letter which is already on Attorney
General Bondi's desk. Is that letter public? Yes, Margaret, this
is an astonishing story. It's a great credit to you
that you would put in this kind of time and
that you bring your knowledge to bear. And I want
to thank you for joining me. Your new book, Blowback
is available now on Amazon and in bookstores everywhere, and
(35:00):
it certainly deserves to be a bestseller.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Thank you, mister Speaker, and honor to be with you.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Thank you to my guest, Margaret Roberts, you can get
a link to buy her new book, Blowback. Oklahoma City
and the Untold story of the FBI's box sting operation
on our show page at Newtsworld dot com. News World
is produced by Gingish three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive
producer is Guarnsey Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The
(35:30):
artwork for the show was created by Steve Penley Special
thanks to the team of Gingrish three sixty. If you've
been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast
and both rate us with five stars and give us
a review so others can learn what it's all about.
Right now, listeners of Newsworld can sign up for my
three freeweekly columns at gingrishree sixty dot com slash newsletter.
(35:54):
I have newt Gingrich. This is newts World.
On this episode of the news World. Tragedy unfolded on
April nineteenth, nineteen ninety five, when a massive bomb exploded
in America's heartland, killing one hundred and sixty eight people,
including fifteen children in their daycare center. History says the
Oklahoma City bombing was lone wolf terrorism, but fresh evidence
(00:27):
points instead to a neo Nazi plot in which the
FBI played a hidden role, allowing suspects to walk free.
The FBI launched the biggest man hunting its history for
two suspected bombers, and quickly arrested Timothy McVeigh, a twenty
six year old Gulf War Army veteran. Yet they never
(00:48):
captured the other suspect, known only as John Doe two,
who rode next to McVeigh in the bomb truck. Soon
the FBI canceled the search, saying eyewitnesses who while John
Doe two were mistaken. In her new book, Blowback, Margaret
Roberts reopens the mystery of John Doe two and chronicles
(01:09):
her shocking discoveries, including journalism's only face to face prison
interviews with McVeigh co conspirator Terry Nichols. Here to discuss
her new book. I am really pleased to welcome my guests,
Margaret Roberts. She is the former news director of America's
Most Wanted. Margaret, welcome and thank you for joining me
(01:48):
on news World.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Thank you, mister Speaker.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
It is an honor to be here with you.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
You were news director of America's Most Wanted, which was
an amazingly successful program. You are deeply familiar with the
FBI and criminal investigations, but I want to start with
America's Most Wanted because it became such a popular show
and in many ways an iconic show that people really
cueued off of and paid attention to. How did you
(02:16):
get to America's Most Wanted?
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Well, I was a print journalist, mister Speaker, in the
very button down world, which you know very well of Washington,
DC policy and politics. I was a top editor at
National Journal, and then I moved over to Congressional Quarterly.
So it was a very different beat from America's Most Wanted.
(02:44):
But what happened was it was a radical media experiment
when Barry Diller at Fox decided to take a flyer
and put this television show in the backyard of the
FBI and propose to them that they partner with Hollywood
(03:06):
basically to catch criminals.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
And it was a bold move.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
And I always have kind of suspected that part of
my hiring or choice of me for the job was
that I really represented the Washington journalists, not the Hollywood type.
But I was the more buttoned down, conventional one, and
they had a lot of explaining and persuading to do
(03:33):
to bring the FBI on board for this media experiment.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
I've seen the show, but how did you get put together?
Did you all sit down with the FBI and look
at a range of possibilities or how wout a typical
show for America's most wanted to actually be put together? Well?
Speaker 3 (03:52):
I ran the news room and the research department, and
I was the liaison with the FBI as well as
with victims and cops. So my department effort was all
about identifying fugitive cases. You know, the FBI would give
(04:14):
us files and help us in that way, but delivering
and developing fugitive cases and files that would make compelling TV.
I mean, not every case would have the story value.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
How often did those stories actually lead to finding the
criminal you were looking for?
Speaker 3 (04:34):
I bet the show captured a thousand fugitives, but we
captured hundreds while I was there, and these were high
profile fugitives. The night of our premiere was an extraordinary
moment in television history because there we were at the
(04:57):
WTTG television station where we had our headquarters, and there
was the FBI about fifteen agents, you know, in their suits,
up against the wall, our brand new phone bank that
we had developed with call one eight hundred Crime.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
TV, and we rolled the tape.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Well, you were asking how it's put together. Field producers,
mister Speaker had made the segments.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
That were the stories.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
It was started as a half hour show, so they
had made the stories and then they were rolled together
in a studio session where John Walsh would do the
wrap around the stories.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
And that night we rolled.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Our very first story featuring one of the FBI's ten
most wanted criminals, and he was a criminal. Monster was
a prison escapee who had abducted a young woman with
a baby, raped her through the baby out in the
cold where it died, and stuffed her in the trunk
(06:12):
of her car and took off. So we rolled our
segment about that crime and that criminal, and the first
thing that happened was a blanket of phone calls from
Staten Island, New York. But they weren't calling to tell
us congratulations. They were calling to tell us that we
(06:35):
were soon going to be off the air because we
had made a terrible mistake. This picture that they were
looking at was the beloved director of their homeless mission
there on Staten Island, and it couldn't possibly have been
the man that we were looking for, but it was.
And five days later one of the FBI's ten most
(06:57):
wanted criminals was in custody and we were immediate phenomenon.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
So this guy had committed that crime, but had gotten
to Staten Island. Where was the crime committed?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Gary Indiana tells you the.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Reach of television. I mean, you put it on TV and.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Boom, absolutely and somehow in this case, I think fate
also because we were on a very short leash as
to the future of that show, and it was only
broadcast on seven Fox owned and operated stations nationwide. If
(07:38):
he had been hiding out in some small town, we
likely wouldn't have found him and we likely wouldn't have
been renewed for another season.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
So things happened for a reason.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Did capturing that criminal pretty much guarantee that you would
go to the whole network.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Yes, absolutely, and maybe we would have any but we
felt we had to have one big capture to be
picked up.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
That was our feeling.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
What led you then to decide that you wanted to
write about Oklahoma City?
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Well, that was a long and I really think odyssey,
mister Speaker is the right way to put it, because
I had moved on from America's Most Wanted. But of
course I had been in the cockpit of high profile
manhunts for three years. I mean, a regular journalist just
(08:37):
doesn't get that close to how the FBI is capturing
bad guys, but I did, and then moved on to
Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
That was just a couple of years that I was.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Out there working on developing a new show when this
bomb exploded in Oklahoma City. And how I became involved
in investigating the case takes another ten years to explain.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
But when the bomb went.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Off, I had two perspectives. One, just like millions of Americans,
probably yourself, it's one of those rare moments where you
remember where you were because it's just so profound. And
I watched that devastation, which was almost immediately live on
(09:32):
television and saw the destruction, the agony, the fear, the blood,
the concrete, all of it, the devastation the children. As
you know, the icon from that day is the firefighter
holding the dying or dead one year old. I saw
(09:54):
all of that, and I felt all of that agony.
I also felt from my experience that America's most wanted.
Oh my god, this is the big one, this is
the big man hunt.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Because of course the perpetrators were.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Gone and the hunt was on, and my thought was,
who could have done this? So I became hooked on
the story as a news junkie, as a horrified American.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I wasn't working it.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
But I sure wished that I was back at America's
Most Wanted, in the middle of a newsroom where I
could have chased that story and had the best sources
in America, the cops and the federal agents that were
on speed dial.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
That's how it struck me. There were many things.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
I don't want to get ahead here, but there were
many reasons to wonder immediately about that story, and I
think probably America's Most Wanted may have given me a
head start, but I'm sure a lot of people wondered
about discrepancies that arose immediately in that story. One of
(11:12):
them was twenty four eyewitnesses, regular ordinary people in Oklahoma
City saw.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Timothy McVeigh and the man.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Next to him arrive at the Mirror building to bomb
the building and exit the rider truck before the bomb
went off. So, right away a story that became lone
wolf terror the prosecution of Timothy McVeigh. Obviously there was
(11:49):
more to it than lone wolf terror. That was a
first flag, if you will, that there was more to
this story, and it immediately got magnified by stories. Top
journalists were reporting in the best newspapers that the FBI
had surveillance videotaped.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Of the bombers and the.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Bombing, So again there were obviously more than one. And
to me, really compelling is that a juror, a grand
juror on the McVeigh grand jury, was so disturbed by
what was going on inside that jury that he went rogue.
(12:36):
And of course, as you know, mister speaker, the grand
jury proceedings are on the federal level especially, are very
tightly kept secrets. He started leaking to the Oklahoma newspaper
and then wrote a letter to the judge actually written
after the indictment came in, he complained bitterly that the
(13:01):
prosecutors who were managing that grand jury had rigged it,
and specifically rigged it by concealing the identity of John
Doe two. So, to answer your question, there just were
all these red flags as I was first fascinated by
the story, and then watching the story, and then watching
(13:24):
as the FBI by June of nineteen ninety five suddenly
did a U turn called off the biggest manhunt in
American history for John Doe two, who had a two
million dollar reward for his capture, and came up with
(13:45):
a preposterous explanation of how the mechanic at the Ryder
Rental truck agency must have misremembered the two men who
came in to rent the bomb truck. He must have
thought it was the two guys who.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Were there the day before.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
And it was just a preposterous explanation. As the rogue
grandeuror said in an interview, Oh my god, that was
the thing that got my attention to begin with, that
there was something wrong about this investigation.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
I flew in the second night and went and visited
the rescue workers and it was really horrifying. Prior to
nine to eleven, I don't think of anything quite like
it in American soil. And I went back a few
years ago to the museum they now have, which I
really encourage all of our listeners if you ever go
to oklah Alama City. It's a very sobering and compelling
(15:04):
experience to see just how much damage was done and
how many innocent people were killed. But the museum doesn't
really deal with the issue of the year book. I
think your book is going to really put back on
the front burner some very significant questions. Now you actually
got to interview Nichols. Is that correct? First of all,
how did you get to do it? And second what
(15:26):
was it like?
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Well, it was extraordinary, and how I got to do
it takes a little bit of telling. It's ten years in.
I basically was summoned to Oklahoma City by a survivor
who knew I was prowling around on the tenth anniversary
thinking about a story for America's Most Wanted and she
(15:51):
called me and without much introduction, just summoned me to
Oklahoma City.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
We need your help out here. It was just one
of those.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Moments I just got on a plane and went to
Oklahoma City and then went on to Salt Lake City,
where she had pointed me to a man, an attorney
named Jesse Trinidou, who becomes central in this investigation and
is the reason I could interview Terry Nichols, who is
(16:22):
off limits. Wasn't his off limits to other reporters. Jesse
believes that the FBI murdered his brother, who was a prisoner.
Jesse is the lawyer in the family. His brother was
a prisoner, a parole violator, arrested in southern California in
(16:43):
mid June, right about the time the FBI was backing
away from its John Doe two identification, kept in custody
in Southern California for two months and then suddenly and
inexplicably transferred to Oklahoma City, supposedly for a parole violation hearing,
(17:04):
but three days later he was found tortured and murdered
in his federal prison cell. And the connection to the
Oklahoma City bombing, as Jesse would learn later, is that
Kenneth Trinidou was a dead ringer lookalike for John Doe two.
(17:26):
The wanted poster that the FBI was seeking he was
muscularly built, he had the tattoo, he stood about the
correct height and weight, And that began for Jesse, not
yet for me, but for Jesse, the odyssey of connecting
(17:46):
his brother's murder to the Oklahoma City bombing. That connection
came incredibly at first from Timothy McVeigh himself on death row,
who told Jesse through another death row inmate, that the
FBI had mistaken his brother for another man, Richard Guthrie,
(18:13):
who was the leader of this Aryan Republican Army neo
Nazi group that figures in the bombing story. So Jesse
was chasing all of that through a devoted circle of
journalists who eventually surrounded him and became his brain trust,
(18:36):
and went into federal court with Foya demands and Foyle
lawsuits to force information out of the FBI as to
what really happened. And by the time I arrived on
the scene, what Jesse needed was more information to file
(19:00):
more freedom of information at lawsuits. So he chose me,
as as he says, stealth reporter who could go into
the prisons because I was his paralegal. So that's how
(19:21):
I interviewed Terry Nichols and Jesse went with me on
the first interview, and it was remarkable. Nichols had enticed
us with the prospect that he was going to be
able to help tie the Aryan Republican Army gang to
(19:45):
the bombing. That isn't what materialized in that interview. Nichols
had another agenda and made two extraordinary revelations in that interview.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
His interest. His agenda was.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
To incriminate this gun dealer named Roger Moore, who was
always portrayed in these bombing prosecutions as the victim of
Nichols and mcveigh's robbery that happened in late nineteen ninety four.
(20:23):
But Nichols claimed that Roger Moore was a government operative.
My investigation leads to suspected government operative after suspected government operative.
Until this story and case begins more and more to
resemble the Governor Whitmer kidnapped plot than the lone wolf
(20:48):
terror plot that we have been told.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
For thirty years.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
And Nichols had, incredibly from his supermax prison cell, inducted
an exhaustive investigation of Roger Moore and came up with
very compelling evidence.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Wait, you're saying, hold on, how do you do research
from a supermax.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Well through your lawyers. So he had research from two
bombing trials and very high profile legal representations. So he
had a lot of stuff that was delivered in discovery
to them, and he actually had quite a lot of
exclusive material. And also one of his most remarkable revelations
(21:37):
was that in two thousand and four, as he awaited
his second trial, the state trial in Oklahoma, he was
visited by an attorney who represented himself as an off
the books envoy from the Department of Justice in Washington,
(22:00):
offering Terry Nichols that the DOJ could take the death
penalty off the table if he would help locate a
box of explosives belonging to Roger Moore. Those explosives Nichols
had taken in the robbery. What was significant to Nichols
(22:23):
is that Moore's name and address was on that cart,
and so were his fingerprints, which Nichols believed was going
to tie him to the bombing. Because Nichols claimed that
Roger Moore not only was the government operative, but was
a provocateur who provided explosives used in the bomb The envoy,
(22:51):
or supposed it envoy from Washington to Nichols shock the
plea bargaining went sideway when Nichols said he certainly, could
you know, help incriminate Roger Moore, and he was told
by the envoy that Roger Moore, and this is verbatim
(23:12):
from Nichols, was untouchable. Another attorney of Nicholls confirmed that
this transaction actually happened, that this lawyer did show up,
did make this offer, but that attorney concluded for some
reason that this must have all been a hoax.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
But it did happen.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Terry Nichols obviously had been seething for many years by
the time I interviewed him, and he was a man
shrunken with agony, almost fragile. He seemed to be in
agony over more than he is ever admitted to, and
(23:59):
he was just driven to deliver the case against Roger Moore.
The other stunning highlight of the Nichols interview was his
allegation that Timothy McVeigh, while they were in the run
(24:21):
up to the bombing, while they were conspiring and preparing,
had let slip to Terry Nichols that he was operating
as an undercover federal operative in the bomb plot, and that,
of course is a head spinning idea when you first
(24:44):
hear it. It has some support from other sources, but
obviously coming from Terry Nichols, it's not going to stand
on its own. But I will just mention a because
you probably have that as a question. Timothy McVeigh told
his first attorneys, who were public defenders before he was
(25:09):
quickly passed on to Stephen Jones. So within days and
hours of the bombing itself, he told those attorneys that
he was working undercover. And he told those attorneys that
he was stunned by witnessing the damage done by the bomb,
(25:32):
as if he did not believe that his bomb was
going to bring that kind of devastation to the building.
And he also wrote a letter to his sister, which
was published in the New York Times at some point,
telling her that he had been plucked out of Special
Operations training tryouts and made part of this special undercover unit.
(26:00):
So those were the really stunning headlines of the Terry
Nichols interview.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
In your judgment, looking at all the different stuff you're
looking at, do you think that the FBI was trying
to set up a sting and a gut out of control.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
Yes, I do, And there's at the edge, I would
say of my investigation again, this is the Jesse Trinadou,
the attorney who is carrying the flag for all of
these years. Eventually, in twenty eleven, a fellow marine of
Jesse's comes out of the shadows and says, I've been
(26:56):
following your crusade for justice for your I want to
tell you about the FBI's pat Con program. The whistleblower
is John Matthews. He was a top FBI undercover in
(27:16):
the program, which is short for patriot conspiracy, that was
targeting right wing extremist groups in the nineteen nineties before
the bombing and after.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
In fact, and the FBI.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Represents this program as simply a limited infiltration program that
targeted three groups. John Matthews and his first phone called
to Jesse said, you wouldn't believe how big or how
ugly this is. I want to come to Salt Lake
City and tell you about it. He worked undercover in
(27:57):
this program for eight years and he personally infiltrated twenty
two right wing groups.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
He described it as.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
A sprawling, rogue program that eventually he became so disillusioned
about being part of that he left. But what his
discovery was that it was inciting the violence that he
(28:29):
believed he had joined up to stop. John Matthews was
based in Arizona. He told Jesse that he believed Oklahoma
City was a pat Con operation, and he told Jesse
that he knew for a fact that the FBI set
(28:50):
up the Aryan Republican Army Gang as a front group
inside pat Con. So the pieces begin to fall together
about what really happened. And yes, my conclusion is that
Oklahoma City was not an act of lone wolf terror
(29:14):
by any stretch. It was manufactured terror. It was made
in Washington, DC by the FBI, and it was tragically
a sting operation that went sideways in somehow as we
still don't know and won't find out until we can
(29:37):
learn the rest of the truth.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
I have to ask you, because you've done so much
research here and you have such great credibility as somebody
who has worked with the FBI, understands the process and
is a good reporter, doesn't this almost beg Cash Battel
to go through and release the documents that would indicate
exactly what was going on.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
In that absolutely, mister Speaker, Jesse Trinidou has a letter
on the desk of Attorney General Bondie asking the Department
of Justice to stand down from resisting the unseiling of
(30:21):
the whistleblower John Matthews deposition, which would lay out in
its entirety what pat con was in the nineteen nineties,
and absolutely this case, if I could just mention one
last major feature of it, and it is the grand
(30:43):
finale of this cover up, is that John Matthews. First
Newsweek jumped on the John Matthews story, and they did
write a profile, a cover story about John Matthews. But
on the day of the eve of publication, that story,
(31:08):
under intense pressure from the Justice Department, was gutted in
an executive edit, and all mention of pat con the
Oklahoma City bombing Timothy McVeigh under surveillance months before the bombing,
all that was gone. The whistleblower was furious. He agreed
(31:33):
volunteered to be Jesse's star witness in the Foyer trial,
seeking to force the FBI to release the video tapes
because those videotapes, which the FBI has never allowed the
public to see, very likely would identify John Doe two,
(31:58):
perhaps identify a federal undercover operative on the scene somewhere
in the shot and would tell the tale of what
actually happened. On the eve of John Matthews's testimony, he
pulled out of the trial.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Pulled out as a witness.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Told Jesse he had been pressured by the FBI and
that in almost a plea, he said, I don't want
to be just another vet living under a bridge. He
feared that his handlers would take his disability, his pension,
(32:46):
and he was gone as the witness in the trial.
Now the trial, this is twenty fourteen. That trial was
finished and Jesse immediately filed formal witness tampering charges against
the FBI, and the court appointed a special master to
(33:10):
investigate those charges. But the judge said he was going
to wait on the verdict in the surveillance videotapes case
until that investigation was complete. And that was eleven years ago.
So yes, I fully believe that in the spirit of
the new transparency that Cash Patel and Attorney General Bondi
(33:36):
could open the door to the truth about this story.
I also think we need to look at the cost
of all of this silence. I mean, since the Oklahoma
City bombing, we have had the Boston bombing, where there
are serious suspicions that the older brother was an FBI informant.
(34:04):
Now the Jeffrey Epstein story with potential of his connections
to intelligence January sixth, where Congress for five years has
been trying to find out how many informants were on
the ground, and just this week Russian collusion and the
questions of what role the FBI might have played in
(34:26):
all of that. It boils down to a creeping surveillance
crisis that urgently needs to be exposed.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
You had mentioned the letter which is already on Attorney
General Bondi's desk. Is that letter public? Yes, Margaret, this
is an astonishing story. It's a great credit to you
that you would put in this kind of time and
that you bring your knowledge to bear. And I want
to thank you for joining me. Your new book, Blowback
is available now on Amazon and in bookstores everywhere, and
(35:00):
it certainly deserves to be a bestseller.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Thank you, mister Speaker, and honor to be with you.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Thank you to my guest, Margaret Roberts, you can get
a link to buy her new book, Blowback. Oklahoma City
and the Untold story of the FBI's box sting operation
on our show page at Newtsworld dot com. News World
is produced by Gingish three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive
producer is Guarnsey Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The
(35:30):
artwork for the show was created by Steve Penley Special
thanks to the team of Gingrish three sixty. If you've
been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast
and both rate us with five stars and give us
a review so others can learn what it's all about.
Right now, listeners of Newsworld can sign up for my
three freeweekly columns at gingrishree sixty dot com slash newsletter.
(35:54):
I have newt Gingrich. This is newts World.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.