July 25, 2025 • 48 mins
What if everything Americans knew about the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing was wrong? On this episode of "The Federalist Radio Hour," Margaret Roberts, an award-winning journalist and former news director of America's Most Wanted, joins Federalist Senior Elections Correspondent Matt Kittle to explain how the FBI not only failed to prevent the OKC attack, but also covered up key evidence suggesting suspect Timothy McVeigh did not act alone.
You can find Roberts' book Blowback: The Untold Story of the FBI and the Oklahoma City Bombing here.
If you care about combating the corrupt media that continue to inflict devastating damage, please give a gift to help The Federalist do the real journalism America needs.
You can find Roberts' book Blowback: The Untold Story of the FBI and the Oklahoma City Bombing here.
If you care about combating the corrupt media that continue to inflict devastating damage, please give a gift to help The Federalist do the real journalism America needs.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
And we are back with another edition of the Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle's senior elections correspondent at the
Federalist and your experienced Shirpa on today's quest for Knowledge.
As always, you can email the show at radio at
the Federalist dot com, follow us on x at FDR LST.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and
(00:40):
of course to the premium version of our website as well.
Our guest today is Margaret Roberts, award winning journalist, former
news director of America's Most Wanted, an author of the
compelling new book Blowback, the untold story of the FBI
and the Oklahoma City bombing. To believe it has been
(01:01):
thirty plus years since that awful event, Margaret, thank you
so much for joining us on the Federalist Radio Hour.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Great to be with you, Matt.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
This is a topic, of course, that engrossed our attention
for so long, and I think it still does today.
I think it still resonates thirty years after you ask,
and I want to start here. You ask a very
very important question, a very compelling question. Once again, what
(01:31):
if everything we know about one of America's darkest days
is wrong. And I think that is ultimately the premise
of your book, is it not?
Speaker 3 (01:41):
It is, Matt, absolutely, and I think it does resonate
for what is going on today. We just have almost
a sense of vertigo about some of these stories that
we thought we understand because of what our news media
(02:02):
told us, but they turn out to be very different.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Absolutely, and you know, we're seeing that the reporting as
we speak today, all of this week has been about
the Russian collusion hoax and the you know what, we're
finding some very troubling documents about all of that in
the people who were involved in setting that whole narrative
(02:29):
into motion. And I think there is was the is
the accepted narrative of the FBI. But you say, let's
think about this again. I mean, after April nineteenth of
nineteen ninety five, when that blast occurred, one hundred and
sixty eight lives lost, children lost, like a war zone
(02:53):
in Oklahoma City at the Murrah Building. Immediately, almost immediately,
they had Timothy mcveay at least law enforcement officials had
Timothy McVeagh in custody and they were piecing this thing together.
But in your reporting you have found there are some
things not just missed, but glossed over and then perhaps
(03:17):
blocked from the FBI moving forward.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Absolutely, you're right.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
It seemed that the FBI had sewed this case up
in just a couple of days when Timothy McVay was
perk walked out of the jail and Perry, But almost
immediately contradictions discrepancies began to appear. Most notably, Timothy mcveay
(03:52):
had an accomplice, never identified, never arrested, known only as
John Doe two, but very definitely there on the scene,
riding in the rider truck with Timothy McVeigh and seen
by twenty four eyewitnesses. He then vanished into thin air,
(04:19):
became the subject of the world's biggest manhunt ever, with a.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Two million dollar price on his head for his capture, And.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Yet the FBI almost immediately began backing away from the
existence of John Doe two.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
And of course, when Timothy McVay.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Was tried for the bombing, he was tried basically on
a prosecution of lone wolf terror, but it was clear
from other things that began happening.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Top journalist reported.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
That the FBI had surveillance videotape of John Doe two
and a grand juror, a McVeigh grand juror, was so
upset with what was going on behind those closed doors
that he went rogue. Eventually wrote a letter to the
(05:23):
judge in the case saying, the prosecutors are rigging this jury,
hiding the identity of John Doe two. All of that
leads to questions about why would the FBI be hiding
the identity of this other player in the crime.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
That is my next question. I think it's our listener's
next question too. And I think those who closely followed
the story, those who you know, remember it, but their memories,
of course, are a little bit for thirty years later. Understandably,
so it was obviously the you know, the biggest story
of nineteen ninety five. But why, indeed, why would the FBI,
(06:12):
after you know, pursuing John Doe number two, this massive
man hunting, then all of a sudden, almost seem like
on a dime, that whole portion of the bombing and
the suspects involved just disappeared exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
And you know, when people.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Are responding to my investigation, I'm hearing again and again
the reaction that, oh I always wondered about that, or
oh that didn't make sense at a.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Time, but the.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Prosecutors said, the jury agreed, the newspapers said it was
just Timothy McVeigh. So the question is why would that
be covered up? And of course my investigation traveled longer
paths than we have time to explore, but basically my
(07:16):
conclusion and the evidence that I have uncovered by following
the work of several others, this was not an act
of lone wolf terror. The public was misled and in fact,
(07:39):
the Oklahoma City bombing was manufactured terror manufactured by the
FBI in Washington, d c. Unwittingly, not to say anybody
intended that disaster to happen, but aparently of an undercover
(08:03):
sting operation targeting right wing.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Extremists that went sideways.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
And tragically resulted in all of those deaths. It's clear
that the FBI, or that the government knew in advance
that a bombing was coming, that Oklahoma City was on
a short list of targets.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
The government knew.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
This because it had The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms had an informant embedded inside the bomb plot. Six
months before that blast occurred. She warned the government a
(08:52):
bombing was coming and her and her warnings were ignored.
So the the short answer, Matt, is that the government
had great liability for what happened, and much of the
effort of the next thirty years has been to conceal
(09:17):
that fact.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Interesting, it gets curious, or and curious or as we
move along low these thirty years later, I think you
had questions. I think we all had questions and concerns
at the time, how could this possibly happen? But as
you note, this was the investigation from the FBI and
(09:42):
the domestic intelligence community was really focused on a neo
Nazi plot. Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Yes, a gang of bank robbers. An Aryan Republican army
was the name of this gang of bank robbers, and
Timothy McVeigh was part of this plot. I don't mean
to suggest that he wasn't, but he wasn't the mastermind.
And eventually, great reporting by very independent minded reporters, while
(10:20):
the mainstream news media was basically taking its story from
the Justice Department in Washington, DC, over a period of
years zeroed in on this Aryan Republican army and they
were planning an insurrection, and they committed a series of
(10:45):
twenty two bank robberies across the Midwest two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars take. This was in the early nineteen nineties,
roughly twice that much today. None of the money ever
ever recovered, by the way, but they they were. They
(11:06):
became in the spotlight of the investigation that I've been
part of for the last twenty years. And at the
end of all of this, an FBI whistleblower steps out
of the shadows, this is.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Roughly twenty eleven.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
To tell Jesse Trinidou, I really should introduce him Matt,
because he has carried the flag on this investigation very importantly.
But the FBI whistleblower stepped out of the shadows to
tell Jesse about the pat Con undercover pat con program
(11:55):
that the FBI was running in the nineteen nineties, and
he just he was a top spy in that program,
and he worked for the FBI undercover for eight years,
and he revealed that the FBI had set up this
(12:17):
Aryan Republican Army as a front group deliberately to incite violence.
This spy became very disillusioned because he signed on to
prevent this extremist violence, and suddenly or not suddenly but
(12:40):
eventually became disillusioned because the real purpose of this program
was to incite.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
The violence that he thought he was preventing.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
So the investigation comes full circle with the revelation that indeed,
this Aryan Republican army that had been in the crosshairs
of some of these independent reporters.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Was the creation of the FBI.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
There is another why. There are a lot of whys
in this story, and I think that's probably what has
drawn you to this story so much, all of the wise. Indeed,
and so the logical next why is why would the
FBI set up you know, this Aryan underground and force
(13:45):
it or lead it, manipulate it into you know, into violence. Again,
that's the question that the whistleblower asked, you know, why
are we inciting violence or helping to incite islands We're
supposed to be stopping this.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yes, it is a good question, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
I think we see we see a pattern here. Most recently,
you can look at the Governor Whitmer Kidnapp plot and
see a pattern of creating a situation that is allowed
(14:28):
to go to a certain point before before the capture
of the perpetrators and it's you know, this is a
huge creeping surveillance crisis. I think really one of the
most important, you know, pillars of my work is to expose,
(14:53):
you know, what has happened here. Again and again we
see federal agencies cross the line from enforcement to entrapment.
And I think, to go back to the Oklahoma City bombing,
it was clearly, you know, the intention of law enforcement
to capture these.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Neo Nazis, but.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Once unleashed, they found a way to hit their target.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
And why did they let it go so long? You
had mentioned the informant who was working inside begging FBI
officials to move on this, that this was happening in
real time and the danger was very imminent. Why did
they Why didn't they move before this happened?
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Well, she was reporting to the ATF, remember, and in
quite an extra ordinary turn of events, the ATF and
the FBI discovered in February of nineteen ninety five that
they both had undercover operations going targeting this same plot. So,
(16:20):
as you can imagine, you know, there was inner agency
you know, fighting that went on, and the FBI came
out in February. So this is just a couple of
months before the bombing, they were the last agency standing
surveilling this plot. And as to how and why the
(16:45):
next couple of months unfolded the way they did, you know,
that remains an open question.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
There are some very strong evidence that.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
My book explores, my book Blowback Explorers, that the FBI
was was actively surveilling. They definitely had Timothy McVeigh under
surveillance in UH six months before the bombing, and some
of these other UH members of the Aryan Republican Army
(17:22):
in that in that orbit were also under surveillance. So
there was an effort to, you know, to close in,
but obviously it failed.
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Speaker 1 (18:10):
It failed quite dramatically, of course, and we know what
that failure ultimately meant to the people of Oklahoma City,
the lives loss, the devastation it you know, as this
explosion takes place and the fallout, you have Timothy McVeagh
(18:35):
apprehended by what we're told is an alert law enforcement official,
local law enforcement official within Oklahoma's legal or police system.
Within what forty minutes of Timothy McVeigh getting into his
(18:56):
getaway vehicle, they pick him up. Is that Is that
any coincidence? Was that just dumb luck? Or as you say,
they had been the FBI had been surveilling this guy
for six months, did they Were they working with local
law enforcement at that front.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
It's a very good question. It's really hard, you know.
And here we learn that Timothy McVay was arrested because
he didn't have a license.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Plate on his vehicle. And what a lot of people point.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
To as the real the head scratcher in this whole
scenario is that it's hard to imagine that a criminal
who has just killed one hundred and sixty eight people
and is armed, you know, with a weapon that's got
(19:56):
you know, why doesn't he shoot the highway patrolman who
arrests him?
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Well, you know it.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
You know again, that's just one of those questions that
doesn't have an answer yet.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Yeah, it's not like he suddenly his morals clicked on
right at this front. I mean, as you say, he
just he just murdered in cold blood one hundred and
sixty eight people. You would think he is fleeing the scene.
He is desperate to leave the area. He thinks that
he's walking away unnoticed, but obviously he's on high alert,
(20:38):
and yet they apprehend him very easily. Now there is,
as you mentioned before, we'll get back to that in
just a moment, this John Doe two character that became
such a focal point of this investigation until the narrative
of course shifted. But there were other known obviously accomplices
or people involved in including Terry Nichols, who, unlike Timothy McVeigh,
(21:06):
you know, was offered a life sentence as opposed to McVeigh,
who was executed what in two thousand and one if
I remember correctly, correct, Yeah, And then a couple of
other individuals who are involved and actually end up being
convicted and doing prison time. What is their connection once again,
(21:30):
and what did the FBI focus on in terms of
the you know these individuals.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Well, Terry Nichols, I'm glad you raise him because he was,
of course the convicted co conspirator and is serving life
in prison in the supermax in Colorado. I am the
(21:59):
only journal ever to interview Terry Nichols face to face.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
I did so.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
With Jesse Trinidou, the attorney who has really.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Led this investigation. Let me just.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Quickly, you know, double click on who Jesse Trinido is.
He believes that the FBI murdered his brother, who was
a prisoner in Oklahoma City, four months after the bombing. Actually,
(22:40):
he was moved to Oklahoma City inexplicably since he was
just awaiting a parole violation hearing in southern California.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
His name is Kenneth Trinidou.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Four months after the bombing, three days after his sudden
move to Oklahoma City, he was found brutally tortured and
murdered in his suicide proof cell in the federal facility
(23:15):
in Oklahoma City. And it was clearly a prison cover up.
Kenneth Trinido was a. This is what Jesse would later
find out and what would lead Jesse and me to
interview Terry Nichols, among other clues. Kenneth trinido was a
(23:42):
dead ringer look alike for the FBI's wanted poster for
John Doe two, the stocky.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Well built.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Accomplice in the bomb truck with Timothy McVay that the
the FBI was actively seeking. In June of nineteen ninety five,
just a couple of months after the bombing, when they
arrested Kenneth Trinidau in southern California on an old parole violation.
(24:17):
Nobody was even looking for him for years, so Jesse
Trinidou became He's devoted the last thirty years of his
life to getting justice for his brother, who didn't kill himself,
was murdered, and incredibly eventually, in two thousand and one,
(24:45):
Timothy McVeigh on death row sent Jesse a message saying.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
I'm going to I want to tell you what happened
to your brother.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
The FBI mistook him for Richard Lee Guthrie. Guthrie was
the leader of the Aryan Republican Army gang who was
now in the crosshairs of the independent and reporters who
were investigating the story. So the work Jesse's work has
(25:20):
been remarkable. He's led landmark Foyer investigations and demands and
a trial that I'll tell you a little bit about.
But in search of those leads and in search of
basically informational fuel for these Foyer actions, Jesse enlisted me
(25:45):
to go into maximum security prisons where journalists were not
allowed to go because of total media lockdowns. That is
how I came to interview try Nichols face to face
in two thousand and seven. And in that interview what
(26:10):
was There were several remarkable disclosures, but the one that's
really mind boggling is that Terry Nichols claimed that Timothy
McVeigh operated in the Oklahoma City bombing as an undercover operative,
(26:32):
and that this had slipped out, you know, in there
in the months prior to the bombing, that this revelation
had slipped out by you know, Timothy mcveay let it slip.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
That's what Terry Nichols said.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
So it's it was an incredible claim, one that has
some support independently of Terry Nichols, which of course you
have to seek when you're talking to a convicted, you know,
co conspirator in this crime, but it does have some corroboration.
(27:15):
Perhaps most remarkably, Timothy McVeigh told a version of this
story to his very first lawyers, public defenders, who quickly
exited the case because, you know, they had so many
friends who had been injured or in the bombing.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
But McVeigh told the story that he.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
Had been undercover and that he was actually surprised at
the degree of damage done by this bomb, suggesting that
you know, there was again more, much more behind this plot.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Then Timothy mcveain knew.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Wild stuff, absolutely wild stuff. Our guest today is Margaret Roberts,
Award winning journalist, former news director of America's Most Wanted,
and author of the new book Blowback, The Untold story
of the FBI and the Oklahoma City Bombing. It must
have been just amazing to hear this from Terry Nichols.
(28:26):
But correct me if I'm wrong. Terry Nichols was the
guy behind the bomb or the production of it? Was
he not?
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Nichols was in all versions of this story the help
made Matt.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
He didn't.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
He didn't really have bomb making expertise.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
He talked about that in prison. For those who who.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Wonder, I mean, and I'm certainly one of them. I
wish I could say I sized him up. I know
what makes Terry Nichols tick, But honestly, he's an enigma,
an almost frail man who seemed to be torn, torn
(29:21):
by guilt really beyond I would have to say anything
that he's admitted to. So I think Terry Nichols is
someone who has more of a story to tell than
he's told.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
I mean, that's why we went to interview him.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
And in that interview, remarkably, he turned over hundreds of
pages of documents and evidence of a dossier that he
had compiled over the previous ten years. Much of it
went to point to this other character. To your question, Matt,
(30:05):
about the others involved. This other character, the gun dealer
Roger Moore, who in all these bombing prosecutions was portrayed
as the victim of this robbery by Nichols and McVeigh.
And Nichols admitted to the robbery, but Nichols also wanted
(30:33):
us to know and believe, and actually he wanted to
to really indict Roger Moore. In Terry Nichols claims Moore
was a government provocateur, an undercover operative who actually supplied
(30:57):
explosives that were used in the bomb. And nichols claim
is that Roger Moore was very much a part of
this and that the government was actively.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Protecting him.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Nichols told an incredible story about being approached by a
third party attorney while Nichols was awaiting his trial, his
state trial in Oklahoma. This attorney came to visit him
in jail and make an off the record proffer of
(31:47):
a deal, which he said came directly from the Department
of Justice in Washington, to take the death penalty off
the table for Terry Nichols. He would assist on a
list of three items, one of which was to locate
(32:08):
this box of explosives that he had taken in that
robbery from Roger Moore. And Terry Nichols said he was
he was glad, he wanted actually Roger Moore to take
some responsibility for what had happened.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
And the attorney.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Who was there, who said he represented the Department of
Justice in Washington, said, oh, no, we're you know, this.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Is not about a prosecution.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
I'm not quoting him, but the verbatim quote from Nichols
was that this attorney told him Roger Moore was quote
unquote untouchable. So you can see the pattern here. Nichols
investigated Roger Moore from his prison cell in Colorado far
(33:11):
more aggressively than anybody looked at Roger Moore as anything
but a victim who to assist the prosecution in the
bombing trials.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
How often have we seen it that some of the
people in these kinds of high profile cases that you know,
there is this notion of victimhood around them, and then
you find out later that, well, there are other circumstances involved.
So basically what we have here is we have the
(33:51):
people who are said to be the lone wolves orchestrating
this domestic terrorist of they're actually on the payroll of
the FBI. You have an FBI that is trying to
stir up the area nation so eventually they can make
(34:13):
some key arrest of some major figures. At the same time,
they're inciting violence. According to your sources and according to
some of the documents that you turned over, the whistleblowers involved.
Speaker 4 (34:28):
And.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
They totally miss this seminal moment where you have the explosion.
They could have intervened much sooner. Now, of course, with
that those allegations in front, you have the FBI basically
(34:51):
telling a version of a story in your estimation, and
you're reporting that doesn't ring true.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
That's right, That's absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
This was not just a tragedy, a grave tragedy in
Oklahoma City in nineteen ninety five. It was a failure
of the truth the last and the government knew it
and knows it. May I just carry out the thread
(35:26):
because it kind of finishes the arc mat of the
surveillance video tapes.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Yes, absolutely, because.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
When you think about this as a cover up, the
video tapes would show because they were described in I
mean Oklahoma City News did a reenactment based on people
(35:59):
who had seen some of this video, and the videotapes
were described as well. They would show the two McVeigh
and John Doe two getting out of the rider truck
and very well might identify John Doe two who was he?
Speaker 2 (36:25):
And when you think.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
About the effort, because the FBI continues to fight this
or resist I should say this foil lawsuit that Jesse
Trinado filed in two thousand and nine, When you follow.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
That out, you see that this.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
That there may be the presence of federal undercover operative
in that videotape, whether it be John Doe two who
got out of the truck, or others on the scene
in the shot, or even perhaps an idea or theory
(37:16):
that Jesse Trinidou developed after the whistleblower came forward, After
John Matthews, the FBI whistleblower came forward and said that
this pat con operation videotaped everything, raising the possibility that
(37:38):
Timothy McVay, who we know had been under surveillance months before,
may have been under surveillance that day. This may have
been videotape produced by that program.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
So you can see.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
There's something about that video tape that is so compelling
that it had to be hidden for these thirty years.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
And where this all leads in the story.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Is that after John Matthews, the FBI informant, came out
of the shadows and told his story to Jesse Trinidou,
he agreed to be Jesse's star witness in the Foyer
(38:33):
trial in twenty fourteen to force the release of those videotapes,
and on on the eve of his testimony, John Matthews
pulled out of the trial and told Jesse that he
had been pressured by the FBI not to testify, and
(38:58):
his quote, almost to plea, was that he didn't want
to be just another VET living under a bridge.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
He was a marine.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
He feared he was going to lose his disability, his
medical benefits, and that was and he was the star
witness as to what the FBI's motivation might have been
to hide those videotapes.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
All of that.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Matt has now been in limbo for eleven years since
Jesse Trinidou brought formal witness tampering charges against the Department
of Justice and the court ordered a special Master to
investigate the videotapes. Trial is fully litigated and ready for
(39:56):
the judge's decision, but it has to wait for this
prolonged witness tampering action that happened in twenty fourteen. So
the cost of all of this, as.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
You can see, from.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
The Oklahoma City bombing onto the Boston bombing onto Jeffrey
Epstein January sixth, and even as you mentioned Russian collusion,
this spreading surveillance crisis that we are experiencing, somewhat silent
(40:49):
as a matter of fact, is partly the result of
this bottling up of this story and others.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Indeed, and we'll close with that in just a moment,
but this is what the FBI says according to their website,
the bombing was quickly solved, but the investigation turned out
to be one of the most exhaustive in FBI history.
No stone was left unturned to make sure every clue
was found in all the culprits identified. I don't believe
(41:23):
that you are suggesting in your research, in the many,
many hours that you have put into your investigative work,
that the person in Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted of
these heinous crimes, was not guilty of these heinous crimes.
Terry Nichols was not guilty of assisting, and forty a
(41:46):
the others not guilty. It's that there are a lot
of other guilty people in this story, perhaps, as you
note in the FBI itself, that should be sitting in prison.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Absolutely absolutely, it was.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
Neo Nazi terror suspects walked free, the bombing victims were
denied justice, and the American public was kept in the dark.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
And thirty years later, this is where we stand. So
the final question is the implications of that and the
possibility we've seen within the Trump administration of releasing some
very key documents associated with a lot of different things
we've been talking about for many years, the JFK assassination,
(42:51):
the Bobby Kennedy assassination, MLK, what we've talked about recently
with the deep state, the FBI and the CIA, the
intelligence community involved in the Russian collusion hoax that we've
reported on quite a bit at the Federalist. Do you
(43:15):
have hope now and have you made inquiries into the FBI,
into the Department of Justice to release this information that's
been blocked for so long.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
I do have hope, Matt.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
I do think there's just been a remarkable sea change here.
Jesse Trinidou has a letter on Attorney General Bondi's desk
as of March of this year, asking her to stand
down from the Justice Department opposition to unseiling the whistleblower's
(43:58):
deposition in the surveillance tapes case. The reason that's so
important is although it's sealed document, so I can't represent
what's in it, but knowing what John the story John
Matthews told to Jesse and I report on this in
(44:21):
one of the last chapters of my book Blowback, that
that document would lay out the anatomy of this pat
con program, which John Matthews has described, you know, as
a sprawling, rogue infiltration program that you know, cross the
(44:49):
line into you know, criminal activity. And no one has
an idea, as John Matthews said when he called Jesse,
you know, you have no idea how big or ugly
this thing is. So the letter is on the Attorney
General's desk. She obviously has quite a lot of business
(45:11):
on her desk.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
But I also would say, so I do have.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
Hope, matt and I have hope that the federal judge
who's got the surveillance tapes case will soon rule to
let the American public see that video tape, which it
(45:37):
has been denied it for thirty years. And then I
just would lastly say, so much of my book I
think portrays of failure of the institutions that we rely on,
from the FBI to the.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
DOJ, to our news media.
Speaker 3 (46:02):
And yet the story advances because of the personal individual
courage of some people that were willing to just fight
for the truth, whistleblowers who took a risk, and there
were several in this story journalists who who couldn't find
(46:26):
a home for their reporting, and eventually or you know,
eventually came together and encircled Jesse Trinado with their as
a remarkable brain trust. And I think and some of
the victims that continue to stick up for what they believe,
(46:55):
they're entitled to know what really happened.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
Indeed, you are one of those courageous people, one of
those courageous reporters. You've been doing this for a long time.
It is so critical thirty years later now that Americans
know the full truth. But more than anything, those victims,
the one hundred and sixty eight lives lost and the
(47:23):
untold people, number of people who were impacted by that bombing.
You know, we're talking about one hundred and sixty eight
lives lost, many hundreds more injured, some of them very badly.
Oklahoma City traumatized, the country traumatized. And if this indeed
(47:46):
was the work of the people that we are, the
law enforcers, we are supposed to count on to uphold
the law, and they failed in that mission. We need
to know more than ever, thanks to my guess, yes
today Margaret Roberts Award winning journalist, former news director of
America's most wanted and author of the compelling new book Blowback,
(48:10):
the untold story of the FBI and the Oklahoma City bombing.
You've been listening to another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour.
I'm Matt Kittle, Senior Elections correspondent at the Federalist. We'll
be back soon with more. Until then, stay lovers of
freedom and anxious for the friend. Light the fire.
Speaker 4 (48:30):
You plase the flys in the bs that you bomb
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Today.
And we are back with another edition of the Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle's senior elections correspondent at the
Federalist and your experienced Shirpa on today's quest for Knowledge.
As always, you can email the show at radio at
the Federalist dot com, follow us on x at FDR LST.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and
(00:40):
of course to the premium version of our website as well.
Our guest today is Margaret Roberts, award winning journalist, former
news director of America's Most Wanted, an author of the
compelling new book Blowback, the untold story of the FBI
and the Oklahoma City bombing. To believe it has been
(01:01):
thirty plus years since that awful event, Margaret, thank you
so much for joining us on the Federalist Radio Hour.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Great to be with you, Matt.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
This is a topic, of course, that engrossed our attention
for so long, and I think it still does today.
I think it still resonates thirty years after you ask,
and I want to start here. You ask a very
very important question, a very compelling question. Once again, what
(01:31):
if everything we know about one of America's darkest days
is wrong. And I think that is ultimately the premise
of your book, is it not?
Speaker 3 (01:41):
It is, Matt, absolutely, and I think it does resonate
for what is going on today. We just have almost
a sense of vertigo about some of these stories that
we thought we understand because of what our news media
(02:02):
told us, but they turn out to be very different.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Absolutely, and you know, we're seeing that the reporting as
we speak today, all of this week has been about
the Russian collusion hoax and the you know what, we're
finding some very troubling documents about all of that in
the people who were involved in setting that whole narrative
(02:29):
into motion. And I think there is was the is
the accepted narrative of the FBI. But you say, let's
think about this again. I mean, after April nineteenth of
nineteen ninety five, when that blast occurred, one hundred and
sixty eight lives lost, children lost, like a war zone
(02:53):
in Oklahoma City at the Murrah Building. Immediately, almost immediately,
they had Timothy mcveay at least law enforcement officials had
Timothy McVeagh in custody and they were piecing this thing together.
But in your reporting you have found there are some
things not just missed, but glossed over and then perhaps
(03:17):
blocked from the FBI moving forward.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Absolutely, you're right.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
It seemed that the FBI had sewed this case up
in just a couple of days when Timothy McVay was
perk walked out of the jail and Perry, But almost
immediately contradictions discrepancies began to appear. Most notably, Timothy mcveay
(03:52):
had an accomplice, never identified, never arrested, known only as
John Doe two, but very definitely there on the scene,
riding in the rider truck with Timothy McVeigh and seen
by twenty four eyewitnesses. He then vanished into thin air,
(04:19):
became the subject of the world's biggest manhunt ever, with a.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Two million dollar price on his head for his capture, And.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Yet the FBI almost immediately began backing away from the
existence of John Doe two.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
And of course, when Timothy McVay.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Was tried for the bombing, he was tried basically on
a prosecution of lone wolf terror, but it was clear
from other things that began happening.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Top journalist reported.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
That the FBI had surveillance videotape of John Doe two
and a grand juror, a McVeigh grand juror, was so
upset with what was going on behind those closed doors
that he went rogue. Eventually wrote a letter to the
(05:23):
judge in the case saying, the prosecutors are rigging this jury,
hiding the identity of John Doe two. All of that
leads to questions about why would the FBI be hiding
the identity of this other player in the crime.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
That is my next question. I think it's our listener's
next question too. And I think those who closely followed
the story, those who you know, remember it, but their memories,
of course, are a little bit for thirty years later. Understandably,
so it was obviously the you know, the biggest story
of nineteen ninety five. But why, indeed, why would the FBI,
(06:12):
after you know, pursuing John Doe number two, this massive
man hunting, then all of a sudden, almost seem like
on a dime, that whole portion of the bombing and
the suspects involved just disappeared exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
And you know, when people.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Are responding to my investigation, I'm hearing again and again
the reaction that, oh I always wondered about that, or
oh that didn't make sense at a.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Time, but the.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Prosecutors said, the jury agreed, the newspapers said it was
just Timothy McVeigh. So the question is why would that
be covered up? And of course my investigation traveled longer
paths than we have time to explore, but basically my
(07:16):
conclusion and the evidence that I have uncovered by following
the work of several others, this was not an act
of lone wolf terror. The public was misled and in fact,
(07:39):
the Oklahoma City bombing was manufactured terror manufactured by the
FBI in Washington, d c. Unwittingly, not to say anybody
intended that disaster to happen, but aparently of an undercover
(08:03):
sting operation targeting right wing.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Extremists that went sideways.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
And tragically resulted in all of those deaths. It's clear
that the FBI, or that the government knew in advance
that a bombing was coming, that Oklahoma City was on
a short list of targets.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
The government knew.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
This because it had The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms had an informant embedded inside the bomb plot. Six
months before that blast occurred. She warned the government a
(08:52):
bombing was coming and her and her warnings were ignored.
So the the short answer, Matt, is that the government
had great liability for what happened, and much of the
effort of the next thirty years has been to conceal
(09:17):
that fact.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Interesting, it gets curious, or and curious or as we
move along low these thirty years later, I think you
had questions. I think we all had questions and concerns
at the time, how could this possibly happen? But as
you note, this was the investigation from the FBI and
(09:42):
the domestic intelligence community was really focused on a neo
Nazi plot. Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Yes, a gang of bank robbers. An Aryan Republican army
was the name of this gang of bank robbers, and
Timothy McVeigh was part of this plot. I don't mean
to suggest that he wasn't, but he wasn't the mastermind.
And eventually, great reporting by very independent minded reporters, while
(10:20):
the mainstream news media was basically taking its story from
the Justice Department in Washington, DC, over a period of
years zeroed in on this Aryan Republican army and they
were planning an insurrection, and they committed a series of
(10:45):
twenty two bank robberies across the Midwest two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars take. This was in the early nineteen nineties,
roughly twice that much today. None of the money ever
ever recovered, by the way, but they they were. They
(11:06):
became in the spotlight of the investigation that I've been
part of for the last twenty years. And at the
end of all of this, an FBI whistleblower steps out
of the shadows, this is.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Roughly twenty eleven.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
To tell Jesse Trinidou, I really should introduce him Matt,
because he has carried the flag on this investigation very importantly.
But the FBI whistleblower stepped out of the shadows to
tell Jesse about the pat Con undercover pat con program
(11:55):
that the FBI was running in the nineteen nineties, and
he just he was a top spy in that program,
and he worked for the FBI undercover for eight years,
and he revealed that the FBI had set up this
(12:17):
Aryan Republican Army as a front group deliberately to incite violence.
This spy became very disillusioned because he signed on to
prevent this extremist violence, and suddenly or not suddenly but
(12:40):
eventually became disillusioned because the real purpose of this program
was to incite.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
The violence that he thought he was preventing.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
So the investigation comes full circle with the revelation that indeed,
this Aryan Republican army that had been in the crosshairs
of some of these independent reporters.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Was the creation of the FBI.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
There is another why. There are a lot of whys
in this story, and I think that's probably what has
drawn you to this story so much, all of the wise. Indeed,
and so the logical next why is why would the
FBI set up you know, this Aryan underground and force
(13:45):
it or lead it, manipulate it into you know, into violence. Again,
that's the question that the whistleblower asked, you know, why
are we inciting violence or helping to incite islands We're
supposed to be stopping this.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Yes, it is a good question, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
I think we see we see a pattern here. Most recently,
you can look at the Governor Whitmer Kidnapp plot and
see a pattern of creating a situation that is allowed
(14:28):
to go to a certain point before before the capture
of the perpetrators and it's you know, this is a
huge creeping surveillance crisis. I think really one of the
most important, you know, pillars of my work is to expose,
(14:53):
you know, what has happened here. Again and again we
see federal agencies cross the line from enforcement to entrapment.
And I think, to go back to the Oklahoma City bombing,
it was clearly, you know, the intention of law enforcement
to capture these.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Neo Nazis, but.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Once unleashed, they found a way to hit their target.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
And why did they let it go so long? You
had mentioned the informant who was working inside begging FBI
officials to move on this, that this was happening in
real time and the danger was very imminent. Why did
they Why didn't they move before this happened?
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Well, she was reporting to the ATF, remember, and in
quite an extra ordinary turn of events, the ATF and
the FBI discovered in February of nineteen ninety five that
they both had undercover operations going targeting this same plot. So,
(16:20):
as you can imagine, you know, there was inner agency
you know, fighting that went on, and the FBI came
out in February. So this is just a couple of
months before the bombing, they were the last agency standing
surveilling this plot. And as to how and why the
(16:45):
next couple of months unfolded the way they did, you know,
that remains an open question.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
There are some very strong evidence that.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
My book explores, my book Blowback Explorers, that the FBI
was was actively surveilling. They definitely had Timothy McVeigh under
surveillance in UH six months before the bombing, and some
of these other UH members of the Aryan Republican Army
(17:22):
in that in that orbit were also under surveillance. So
there was an effort to, you know, to close in,
but obviously it failed.
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Speaker 1 (18:10):
It failed quite dramatically, of course, and we know what
that failure ultimately meant to the people of Oklahoma City,
the lives loss, the devastation it you know, as this
explosion takes place and the fallout, you have Timothy McVeagh
(18:35):
apprehended by what we're told is an alert law enforcement official,
local law enforcement official within Oklahoma's legal or police system.
Within what forty minutes of Timothy McVeigh getting into his
(18:56):
getaway vehicle, they pick him up. Is that Is that
any coincidence? Was that just dumb luck? Or as you say,
they had been the FBI had been surveilling this guy
for six months, did they Were they working with local
law enforcement at that front.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
It's a very good question. It's really hard, you know.
And here we learn that Timothy McVay was arrested because
he didn't have a license.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Plate on his vehicle. And what a lot of people point.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
To as the real the head scratcher in this whole
scenario is that it's hard to imagine that a criminal
who has just killed one hundred and sixty eight people
and is armed, you know, with a weapon that's got
(19:56):
you know, why doesn't he shoot the highway patrolman who
arrests him?
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Well, you know it.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
You know again, that's just one of those questions that
doesn't have an answer yet.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Yeah, it's not like he suddenly his morals clicked on
right at this front. I mean, as you say, he
just he just murdered in cold blood one hundred and
sixty eight people. You would think he is fleeing the scene.
He is desperate to leave the area. He thinks that
he's walking away unnoticed, but obviously he's on high alert,
(20:38):
and yet they apprehend him very easily. Now there is,
as you mentioned before, we'll get back to that in
just a moment, this John Doe two character that became
such a focal point of this investigation until the narrative
of course shifted. But there were other known obviously accomplices
or people involved in including Terry Nichols, who, unlike Timothy McVeigh,
(21:06):
you know, was offered a life sentence as opposed to McVeigh,
who was executed what in two thousand and one if
I remember correctly, correct, Yeah, And then a couple of
other individuals who are involved and actually end up being
convicted and doing prison time. What is their connection once again,
(21:30):
and what did the FBI focus on in terms of
the you know these individuals.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Well, Terry Nichols, I'm glad you raise him because he was,
of course the convicted co conspirator and is serving life
in prison in the supermax in Colorado. I am the
(21:59):
only journal ever to interview Terry Nichols face to face.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
I did so.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
With Jesse Trinidou, the attorney who has really.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Led this investigation. Let me just.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Quickly, you know, double click on who Jesse Trinido is.
He believes that the FBI murdered his brother, who was
a prisoner in Oklahoma City, four months after the bombing. Actually,
(22:40):
he was moved to Oklahoma City inexplicably since he was
just awaiting a parole violation hearing in southern California.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
His name is Kenneth Trinidou.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Four months after the bombing, three days after his sudden
move to Oklahoma City, he was found brutally tortured and
murdered in his suicide proof cell in the federal facility
(23:15):
in Oklahoma City. And it was clearly a prison cover up.
Kenneth Trinido was a. This is what Jesse would later
find out and what would lead Jesse and me to
interview Terry Nichols, among other clues. Kenneth trinido was a
(23:42):
dead ringer look alike for the FBI's wanted poster for
John Doe two, the stocky.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Well built.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Accomplice in the bomb truck with Timothy McVay that the
the FBI was actively seeking. In June of nineteen ninety five,
just a couple of months after the bombing, when they
arrested Kenneth Trinidau in southern California on an old parole violation.
(24:17):
Nobody was even looking for him for years, so Jesse
Trinidou became He's devoted the last thirty years of his
life to getting justice for his brother, who didn't kill himself,
was murdered, and incredibly eventually, in two thousand and one,
(24:45):
Timothy McVeigh on death row sent Jesse a message saying.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
I'm going to I want to tell you what happened
to your brother.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
The FBI mistook him for Richard Lee Guthrie. Guthrie was
the leader of the Aryan Republican Army gang who was
now in the crosshairs of the independent and reporters who
were investigating the story. So the work Jesse's work has
(25:20):
been remarkable. He's led landmark Foyer investigations and demands and
a trial that I'll tell you a little bit about.
But in search of those leads and in search of
basically informational fuel for these Foyer actions, Jesse enlisted me
(25:45):
to go into maximum security prisons where journalists were not
allowed to go because of total media lockdowns. That is
how I came to interview try Nichols face to face
in two thousand and seven. And in that interview what
(26:10):
was There were several remarkable disclosures, but the one that's
really mind boggling is that Terry Nichols claimed that Timothy
McVeigh operated in the Oklahoma City bombing as an undercover operative,
(26:32):
and that this had slipped out, you know, in there
in the months prior to the bombing, that this revelation
had slipped out by you know, Timothy mcveay let it slip.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
That's what Terry Nichols said.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
So it's it was an incredible claim, one that has
some support independently of Terry Nichols, which of course you
have to seek when you're talking to a convicted, you know,
co conspirator in this crime, but it does have some corroboration.
(27:15):
Perhaps most remarkably, Timothy McVeigh told a version of this
story to his very first lawyers, public defenders, who quickly
exited the case because, you know, they had so many
friends who had been injured or in the bombing.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
But McVeigh told the story that he.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
Had been undercover and that he was actually surprised at
the degree of damage done by this bomb, suggesting that
you know, there was again more, much more behind this plot.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Then Timothy mcveain knew.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Wild stuff, absolutely wild stuff. Our guest today is Margaret Roberts,
Award winning journalist, former news director of America's Most Wanted,
and author of the new book Blowback, The Untold story
of the FBI and the Oklahoma City Bombing. It must
have been just amazing to hear this from Terry Nichols.
(28:26):
But correct me if I'm wrong. Terry Nichols was the
guy behind the bomb or the production of it? Was
he not?
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Nichols was in all versions of this story the help
made Matt.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
He didn't.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
He didn't really have bomb making expertise.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
He talked about that in prison. For those who who.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Wonder, I mean, and I'm certainly one of them. I
wish I could say I sized him up. I know
what makes Terry Nichols tick, But honestly, he's an enigma,
an almost frail man who seemed to be torn, torn
(29:21):
by guilt really beyond I would have to say anything
that he's admitted to. So I think Terry Nichols is
someone who has more of a story to tell than
he's told.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
I mean, that's why we went to interview him.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
And in that interview, remarkably, he turned over hundreds of
pages of documents and evidence of a dossier that he
had compiled over the previous ten years. Much of it
went to point to this other character. To your question, Matt,
(30:05):
about the others involved. This other character, the gun dealer
Roger Moore, who in all these bombing prosecutions was portrayed
as the victim of this robbery by Nichols and McVeigh.
And Nichols admitted to the robbery, but Nichols also wanted
(30:33):
us to know and believe, and actually he wanted to
to really indict Roger Moore. In Terry Nichols claims Moore
was a government provocateur, an undercover operative who actually supplied
(30:57):
explosives that were used in the bomb. And nichols claim
is that Roger Moore was very much a part of
this and that the government was actively.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Protecting him.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Nichols told an incredible story about being approached by a
third party attorney while Nichols was awaiting his trial, his
state trial in Oklahoma. This attorney came to visit him
in jail and make an off the record proffer of
(31:47):
a deal, which he said came directly from the Department
of Justice in Washington, to take the death penalty off
the table for Terry Nichols. He would assist on a
list of three items, one of which was to locate
(32:08):
this box of explosives that he had taken in that
robbery from Roger Moore. And Terry Nichols said he was
he was glad, he wanted actually Roger Moore to take
some responsibility for what had happened.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
And the attorney.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Who was there, who said he represented the Department of
Justice in Washington, said, oh, no, we're you know, this.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Is not about a prosecution.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
I'm not quoting him, but the verbatim quote from Nichols
was that this attorney told him Roger Moore was quote
unquote untouchable. So you can see the pattern here. Nichols
investigated Roger Moore from his prison cell in Colorado far
(33:11):
more aggressively than anybody looked at Roger Moore as anything
but a victim who to assist the prosecution in the
bombing trials.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
How often have we seen it that some of the
people in these kinds of high profile cases that you know,
there is this notion of victimhood around them, and then
you find out later that, well, there are other circumstances involved.
So basically what we have here is we have the
(33:51):
people who are said to be the lone wolves orchestrating
this domestic terrorist of they're actually on the payroll of
the FBI. You have an FBI that is trying to
stir up the area nation so eventually they can make
(34:13):
some key arrest of some major figures. At the same time,
they're inciting violence. According to your sources and according to
some of the documents that you turned over, the whistleblowers involved.
Speaker 4 (34:28):
And.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
They totally miss this seminal moment where you have the explosion.
They could have intervened much sooner. Now, of course, with
that those allegations in front, you have the FBI basically
(34:51):
telling a version of a story in your estimation, and
you're reporting that doesn't ring true.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
That's right, That's absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
This was not just a tragedy, a grave tragedy in
Oklahoma City in nineteen ninety five. It was a failure
of the truth the last and the government knew it
and knows it. May I just carry out the thread
(35:26):
because it kind of finishes the arc mat of the
surveillance video tapes.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Yes, absolutely, because.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
When you think about this as a cover up, the
video tapes would show because they were described in I
mean Oklahoma City News did a reenactment based on people
(35:59):
who had seen some of this video, and the videotapes
were described as well. They would show the two McVeigh
and John Doe two getting out of the rider truck
and very well might identify John Doe two who was he?
Speaker 2 (36:25):
And when you think.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
About the effort, because the FBI continues to fight this
or resist I should say this foil lawsuit that Jesse
Trinado filed in two thousand and nine, When you follow.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
That out, you see that this.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
That there may be the presence of federal undercover operative
in that videotape, whether it be John Doe two who
got out of the truck, or others on the scene
in the shot, or even perhaps an idea or theory
(37:16):
that Jesse Trinidou developed after the whistleblower came forward, After
John Matthews, the FBI whistleblower came forward and said that
this pat con operation videotaped everything, raising the possibility that
(37:38):
Timothy McVay, who we know had been under surveillance months before,
may have been under surveillance that day. This may have
been videotape produced by that program.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
So you can see.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
There's something about that video tape that is so compelling
that it had to be hidden for these thirty years.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
And where this all leads in the story.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Is that after John Matthews, the FBI informant, came out
of the shadows and told his story to Jesse Trinidou,
he agreed to be Jesse's star witness in the Foyer
(38:33):
trial in twenty fourteen to force the release of those videotapes,
and on on the eve of his testimony, John Matthews
pulled out of the trial and told Jesse that he
had been pressured by the FBI not to testify, and
(38:58):
his quote, almost to plea, was that he didn't want
to be just another VET living under a bridge.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
He was a marine.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
He feared he was going to lose his disability, his
medical benefits, and that was and he was the star
witness as to what the FBI's motivation might have been
to hide those videotapes.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
All of that.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Matt has now been in limbo for eleven years since
Jesse Trinidou brought formal witness tampering charges against the Department
of Justice and the court ordered a special Master to
investigate the videotapes. Trial is fully litigated and ready for
(39:56):
the judge's decision, but it has to wait for this
prolonged witness tampering action that happened in twenty fourteen. So
the cost of all of this, as.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
You can see, from.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
The Oklahoma City bombing onto the Boston bombing onto Jeffrey
Epstein January sixth, and even as you mentioned Russian collusion,
this spreading surveillance crisis that we are experiencing, somewhat silent
(40:49):
as a matter of fact, is partly the result of
this bottling up of this story and others.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Indeed, and we'll close with that in just a moment,
but this is what the FBI says according to their website,
the bombing was quickly solved, but the investigation turned out
to be one of the most exhaustive in FBI history.
No stone was left unturned to make sure every clue
was found in all the culprits identified. I don't believe
(41:23):
that you are suggesting in your research, in the many,
many hours that you have put into your investigative work,
that the person in Timothy McVeigh, who was convicted of
these heinous crimes, was not guilty of these heinous crimes.
Terry Nichols was not guilty of assisting, and forty a
(41:46):
the others not guilty. It's that there are a lot
of other guilty people in this story, perhaps, as you
note in the FBI itself, that should be sitting in prison.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Absolutely absolutely, it was.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
Neo Nazi terror suspects walked free, the bombing victims were
denied justice, and the American public was kept in the dark.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
And thirty years later, this is where we stand. So
the final question is the implications of that and the
possibility we've seen within the Trump administration of releasing some
very key documents associated with a lot of different things
we've been talking about for many years, the JFK assassination,
(42:51):
the Bobby Kennedy assassination, MLK, what we've talked about recently
with the deep state, the FBI and the CIA, the
intelligence community involved in the Russian collusion hoax that we've
reported on quite a bit at the Federalist. Do you
(43:15):
have hope now and have you made inquiries into the FBI,
into the Department of Justice to release this information that's
been blocked for so long.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
I do have hope, Matt.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
I do think there's just been a remarkable sea change here.
Jesse Trinidou has a letter on Attorney General Bondi's desk
as of March of this year, asking her to stand
down from the Justice Department opposition to unseiling the whistleblower's
(43:58):
deposition in the surveillance tapes case. The reason that's so
important is although it's sealed document, so I can't represent
what's in it, but knowing what John the story John
Matthews told to Jesse and I report on this in
(44:21):
one of the last chapters of my book Blowback, that
that document would lay out the anatomy of this pat
con program, which John Matthews has described, you know, as
a sprawling, rogue infiltration program that you know, cross the
(44:49):
line into you know, criminal activity. And no one has
an idea, as John Matthews said when he called Jesse,
you know, you have no idea how big or ugly
this thing is. So the letter is on the Attorney
General's desk. She obviously has quite a lot of business
(45:11):
on her desk.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
But I also would say, so I do have.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
Hope, matt and I have hope that the federal judge
who's got the surveillance tapes case will soon rule to
let the American public see that video tape, which it
(45:37):
has been denied it for thirty years. And then I
just would lastly say, so much of my book I
think portrays of failure of the institutions that we rely on,
from the FBI to the.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
DOJ, to our news media.
Speaker 3 (46:02):
And yet the story advances because of the personal individual
courage of some people that were willing to just fight
for the truth, whistleblowers who took a risk, and there
were several in this story journalists who who couldn't find
(46:26):
a home for their reporting, and eventually or you know,
eventually came together and encircled Jesse Trinado with their as
a remarkable brain trust. And I think and some of
the victims that continue to stick up for what they believe,
(46:55):
they're entitled to know what really happened.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
Indeed, you are one of those courageous people, one of
those courageous reporters. You've been doing this for a long time.
It is so critical thirty years later now that Americans
know the full truth. But more than anything, those victims,
the one hundred and sixty eight lives lost and the
(47:23):
untold people, number of people who were impacted by that bombing.
You know, we're talking about one hundred and sixty eight
lives lost, many hundreds more injured, some of them very badly.
Oklahoma City traumatized, the country traumatized. And if this indeed
(47:46):
was the work of the people that we are, the
law enforcers, we are supposed to count on to uphold
the law, and they failed in that mission. We need
to know more than ever, thanks to my guess, yes
today Margaret Roberts Award winning journalist, former news director of
America's most wanted and author of the compelling new book Blowback,
(48:10):
the untold story of the FBI and the Oklahoma City bombing.
You've been listening to another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour.
I'm Matt Kittle, Senior Elections correspondent at the Federalist. We'll
be back soon with more. Until then, stay lovers of
freedom and anxious for the friend. Light the fire.
Speaker 4 (48:30):
You plase the flys in the bs that you bomb
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Today.
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