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Document: Oklahoma City Bombing Was Taped
AP via Yahoo! ^ | April 19, 2004 | John Solomon

Posted on 04/19/2004 1:23:06 PM PDT by RippleFire

WASHINGTON - A Secret Service document written shortly after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing described security video footage of the attack and witness testimony that suggested Timothy McVeigh (news - web sites) may have had accomplices at the scene.

"Security video tapes from the area show the truck detonation 3 minutes and 6 seconds after the suspects exited the truck," the Secret Service reported six days after the attack on a log of agents' activities and evidence in the Oklahoma investigation.

The government has insisted McVeigh drove the truck himself and that it never had any video of the bombing or the scene of the Alfred P. Murrah building in the minutes before the April 19, 1995, explosion.

Several investigators and prosecutors who worked the case told The Associated Press they had never seen video footage like that described in the Secret Service log.

The document, if accurate, is either significant evidence kept secret for nine years or a misconstrued recounting of investigative leads that were often passed by word of mouth during the hectic early days of the case, they said.

"I did not see it," said Danny Defenbaugh, the retired FBI (news - web sites) agent who ran the Oklahoma City probe. "If it shows what it says, then it would be significant."

Secret Service spokesman Charles Bopp declined to discuss the video footage reference, saying it would be addressed by witnesses later this week at the capital murder trial of McVeigh co-defendant Terry Nichols. "It is anticipated Secret Service employees will testify in court concerning these matters," he said.

Other documents obtained by AP show the Secret Service in late 1995 gave prosecutors several computer disks of enhanced digital photographs of the Murrah building, intelligence files on several subjects in the investigation and a file detailing an internal affairs inquiry concerning an agent who reconstructed key phone evidence against McVeigh.

"These abstract sheets are sensitive documents which we have protected from disclosure in the past," said a Secret Service letter that recounted discussions in late 1995 with federal prosecutors on what evidence would be turned over to defense lawyers.

Lawyers for Nichols say they have never been given the security video, photo disks or internal investigative file referenced in the documents.

The trial judge has threatened to dismiss the death penalty case if evidence was withheld. McVeigh was executed in 2001 on a separate federal conviction. Nichols was sentenced to life in prison on federal charges before being tried by the state this year.

The government has maintained for years that McVeigh parked the Ryder rental truck carrying a massive fertilizer bomb outside the Murrah building and left alone in a getaway car he parked around the corner. The bombing killed more than 160 people.

The only video prosecutors introduced at trial showed the Ryder truck without any visible passengers as it passed a security camera inside a high-rise apartment building a block away from the Murrah building.

But the Secret Service log reported on April 24 and April 25, 1995, that there was security footage showing the Ryder truck pulling up to the Murrah building. The log does not say where such video came from or who possessed it.

A log entry on April 25 states that the security footage allowed agents to determine the time that elapsed between suspects leaving the truck and the explosion.

An entry a day earlier on the same log reported that the security video was consistent with a witness' account that he saw McVeigh's getaway car in the lead before a woman guided the truck to its final parking spot in front of the Murrah building.

"A witness to the explosion named Grossman claimed to have seen a pale yellow Mercury car with a Ryder truck behind it pulling up to the federal building," the log said. The witness "further claimed to have seen a woman on the corner waving to the truck."

A Secret Service agent named McNally "noted that this fact is significant due to the fact that the security video shows the Ryder truck pulling up to the Federal Building and then pausing (7 to 10 seconds) before resuming into the slot in front of the building," the log said. "It is speculated that the woman was signaling the truck when a slot became available."

Defenbaugh said the FBI had talked to several witnesses suggesting two people had left the truck, but prosecutors never introduced the scenario at trial because it couldn't be corroborated. That's why a new security video would be significant, he said.

"It would have taken the investigation in a very specific direction," Defenbaugh said. "Rather than having to go down an eight-lane highway during rush hour, we would have gone down a faster path with just two or four lanes."

Defenbaugh said the FBI kept a log similar to the Secret Service document inside the Oklahoma City investigation command center that might help solve the mystery of the video. Justice officials declined to discuss documents, citing the ongoing Nichols' trial.

In addition to the witness mentioned in the Secret Service document, a woman working in Murrah's Social Security (news - web sites) office who was rescued from the rubble and a driver outside the building both reported to the FBI seeing two men leave the truck, according to government documents.

The Secret Service (news - web sites) log contained other information about the case — including that McVeigh made 30 calls to an Illinois gun dealer in the months before the attacks to seek dynamite and that the gun dealer subsequently failed a lie detector test. The Secret Service lost six employees in McVeigh's bombing, the single largest loss in agency history.

Nichols' attorneys last week asked the judge to dismiss the case on grounds the government withheld evidence, including the security video footage.

New documents obtained by AP show the Secret Service provided prosecutors other evidence that may not have been provided to defense lawyers, including a file showing the Secret Service agent who reconstructed crucial phone evidence against McVeigh was subjected to an internal affairs investigation and eventually cleared for her conduct in the case.

FBI officials say that file details allegations the agent wrongly collected grand jury-subpoenaed phone information about McVeigh's calls without FBI knowledge, and kept it for weeks while she produced analysis that helped the investigation.

The internal investigation caused complications for prosecutors. They decided it tainted the agent as a witness and they chose instead to hire an outside expert to re-do the phone analysis for trial, officials said.

Bopp said the Secret Service did nothing wrong.

"The Secret Service worked cooperatively with the FBI and other federal state and local law enforcement throughout the investigation," Bopp said. "The expertise of the Secret Service on electronic crimes and telecommunications provided unique and timely information to the ongoing investigation."

On the Net:

The FBI: http://www.fbi.gov

The documents obtained by The Associated Press can be viewed at http://wid.ap.org/documents/okc/okcdoc2.pdf


TOPICS: Breaking News; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; US: Oklahoma
KEYWORDS: atf; ci; clintonfailure; clintonfailures; clintonlegacy; colbern; conspiracy; coverup; dea; defenbaugh; elohimcity; fbi; gorelick; grossman; howe; jaynadavis; johndoe2; mcnally; mcveigh; murrah; murrahbuilding; nichols; ok; okc; okcbombing; okcvideo; oklahoma; oklahomacity; secretservice; strassmeier; twa800; whitewash
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To: archy
I was there. Twice the police told us to run because they found more bombs. My dad got right up to the building within about 5-10 minutes before they shut it all down and moved people away. We never got within two blocks after that.

And strangely enough, it only took the government a month to sort everthing out and demolish the building.
81 posted on 04/19/2004 2:50:32 PM PDT by okkev68
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To: glock rocks
Had TWA 800 been called a terrorist shootdown as Clinton had first been quoted as stating, attention to terrorism would have become a top priority long ago. The security would have most likely thwarted the twin towers.

No, instead everyone rallied to the tune of James Kallstrom and his mythical sideshow despite radar tracking ATC controllers, several hundred witnesses, and people who had to steal sections of seats in order to get NMR, Mass Spec, and Gas Chroatograph analysis done(of course regardless of the tests, you arrest and imprison those investigators)

82 posted on 04/19/2004 2:51:36 PM PDT by blackdog (I feed the sheep the coyotes eat)
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To: Southack
The only odd part about McViegh was that he was clearly covering up for someone else. He wouldn't name other names, preferring instead to take his secrets to the grave.

Guess he didn't want anything to happen to his sister Jennifer. Greater love hath no man...


83 posted on 04/19/2004 2:52:23 PM PDT by archy (The darkness will come. It will find you,and it will scare you like you've never been scared before.)
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To: lilylangtree
It was George W. Bush. Don't you know that by now!!!
84 posted on 04/19/2004 2:52:29 PM PDT by RetiredArmy (We'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American Way! Toby Keith)
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To: johnfrink
The Starbucks girl was the one who caught Hillary in some sort of ugly position with another woman and was killed by a robbery/shooting in a suburban Starbucks, even though no money was taken.
85 posted on 04/19/2004 2:53:58 PM PDT by blackdog (I feed the sheep the coyotes eat)
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To: Truth666
Please tell me you are kidding, please.

Try, Timothy Mcveigh, a "cowardly murderer of innocents". Any real man with a soul would have never been involved in the first place.
86 posted on 04/19/2004 2:54:11 PM PDT by okkev68
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To: IncPen
bttt
87 posted on 04/19/2004 2:55:06 PM PDT by ConservativeMan55 (There is no problem so great that it cannot be solved with high powered explosives.)
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To: lilylangtree
bttt
88 posted on 04/19/2004 2:55:17 PM PDT by Guenevere (..., .Press on toward the goal!)
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To: blackdog
...and not to totslly change the subject, but what about the Egypt air that the pilot crashed into to sea? No one ever called that terrorism. Wonder if Jamie Gorelick shut that one down too?
89 posted on 04/19/2004 2:55:22 PM PDT by sissyjane (You're either with us or against us.)
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To: johnfrink; antivenom
Just out of interest, I caught all the references in your post except "Starbuck's girl." Can you explain that one?

That would be Mary Mahoney

Take a trip on the way back machine:

DSL Research on Mary Mahoney (Starbucks)

DSL Research: Mary Mahoney

Starbucks / Mary Caitrin Mahoney

90 posted on 04/19/2004 2:55:56 PM PDT by Incorrigible (immanentizing the eschaton)
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To: archy
That gives me great comfort when I am explaining to my kids about what happened to their "grammy". What an honorable man. It makes my moms death so much easier to handle.
91 posted on 04/19/2004 2:56:55 PM PDT by okkev68
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To: sissyjane
Sorry about the spelling errors. I seem to be spelling challenged today.
92 posted on 04/19/2004 2:57:04 PM PDT by sissyjane (You're either with us or against us.)
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To: RippleFire
John Doe's 2&3, covered up by Clinton so he wouldn't have to do anything in the middle east, and he could blame right wing republicans. He says this bombing saved his presidency. Who is evil?
93 posted on 04/19/2004 2:57:10 PM PDT by ladyinred (Kerry has more flip flops than Waikiki Beach)
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To: sissyjane
No, that was diplomatic pressure from the Egyptians that nixed that one. Although I'm sure Gorelick would have covered tracks had she been ordered to do so.

No, the Egyptair thing was an issue of international diplomacy. It occured over international airspace, international waters, and killed mostly foreign nationals, with our dog in that fight only at the request of Egypt.

94 posted on 04/19/2004 2:58:25 PM PDT by blackdog (I feed the sheep the coyotes eat)
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To: archy
you're in.
95 posted on 04/19/2004 2:58:37 PM PDT by ovrtaxt ( Communism has bowed the knee to Jesus. *** Allah is next.)
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To: blackdog
You're talking about Mary Mahoney.
96 posted on 04/19/2004 2:58:50 PM PDT by Victor
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To: RippleFire; kdf1; AMERIKA; Lancey Howard; MudPuppy; SMEDLEYBUTLER; opbuzz; Snow Bunny; ...
This is way bigger than hugh!
97 posted on 04/19/2004 3:00:06 PM PDT by RaceBannon (VOTE DEMOCRAT AND LEARN ARABIC FREE!!)
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To: johnfrink
Just out of interest, I caught all the references in your post except "Starbuck's girl." Can you explain that one? Caity Mahoney.

A former Clinton White House intern, she was shot to death in a *robbery* in which no money was taken along with two other employees, after a visit to the Starbucks she managed by Chelsea Clinton and her USSS bodyguard.

98 posted on 04/19/2004 3:00:11 PM PDT by archy (The darkness will come. It will find you,and it will scare you like you've never been scared before.)
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To: hobbes1
John Doe #2 Bump.
99 posted on 04/19/2004 3:01:16 PM PDT by NeoCaveman (Politics: poli means many, and tics are blood sucking creatures)
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To: Truth666
Not innocent and obviously not alone

Gore-lick - why did you say to "kill it"? -- meaning the investigation into the middle eastern man involved with the bombing.
100 posted on 04/19/2004 3:01:29 PM PDT by BushisTheMan
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