Rescue workers stand in front of the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building, following an explosion on 19 April 1995, in downtown Oklahoma City.(Credit:: David Longstreath/AP)
(Ken Silva, Headline USA) There was a lot of news last week about the FBI suppressing evidence: Sen. Chuck Grassley alleged Thursday that the bureau has a “Prohibited Access” label to hide damning documents, while Director Kash Patel was widely criticized a day later for his dubious claims that the FBI doesn’t have footage of sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s associates abusing girls.
To top it off, an attorney suing the FBI in federal court filed a motion Friday afternoon, accusing the bureau of lying about footage in another scandalous case: the Oklahoma City bombing, which remains the deadliest domestic terrorism attack in American history.
Jesse Trentadue is photographed in Salt Lake City, Saturday July 26, 2014. (Credit: Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune)
The late-Friday motion comes from Utah attorney Jesse Trentadue, who’s been suing the FBI for records on the OKC bombing for decades. Trentadue said in his motion that a researcher he works with recently uncovered previously hidden FBI records about the bombing. Those records, unearthed by OKC bomb researcher Richard Booth, show that an agent falsely testified in court that the bureau didn’t have surveillance footage of OKC bomber Timothy McVeigh and his mystery accomplice “John Doe 2.”
“Booth did a text based search of those FBI records and discovered therein four documents proving that the Bureau is in possession of videotapes from security cameras at the Regency Towers Apartments (“RTA”) that show the destruction of the Murrah Federal Building, and Timothy McVeigh actually arming the truck bomb at approximately 8:57 am on the morning of [April] 19, 1995, when the Ryder Truck that was carrying the bomb was parked in front of the RTA,” Trentadue’s motion states.
“More importantly, these same RTA videotapes would show John Doe 2, the accomplice that 24-witnesses have said was in the truck with McVeigh that morning, but who the FBI insists never existed.”
Trentadue’s filing comes some 17 years after he initially sued the FBI for surveillance footage of the OKC bombing in 2008. His lawsuit went to trial in 2014, and the FBI vociferously argued that no footage from the RTA buildings exists. The presiding judge has yet to issue a final judgment, in large part due to allegations that the FBI tampered with one of Trentadue’s witnesses (that wild saga can be read here). (Read more: Headline USA, 6/8/2025) (Archive)