Document: Oklahoma City Bombing Was Taped

AP via Yahoo! ^ | April 19, 2004 | John Solomon

[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

[Diogenesis]

"America has the watches.
We have the time and Jamie Gorelick."
-- Ayman Al-Zawahiri

---

Consider: If Gorelick, Clarke and Clinton had been completely HONEST
to the American public about the Islamic-crashed airplanes, like TWA800, in the 90's
or the other Islamic terror attacks, then Americans WOULD have been on alert on 911
and would have had the opportunity to prevent the 911 Atrocities.

---

PARTIAL LIST OF TERRORIST ACTIVITIES IGNORED BY GORELICK, CLARKE and CLINTON

1993 Attempted Assassination of Pres. Bush Sr., April 14,1993
1993 First World Trade Center bombing, February 26th, 7 Killed, Hundreds injured, Billions
1995 Attack on US Diplomats in Pakistan, Mar 8,1995
1996 Khobar Towers attack
1998 U.S. Embassy Bombing in Peru, Jan 15, 1998
1998 U.S. Kenya Embassy blown up, 100's murdered
1998 U.S. Tanzania Embassy blown up, 100's murdered
1999 Plot to blow up Space Needle (thwarted)
2000 USS Cole attacked, many U.S. Navy sailors murdered

---

[CyberAnt]

I think so too. And .. I think this 9/11 commission is forcing everything out in the public - finally - after the Clintons kept everything hidden for so many years.

[blackdog]

If you pay real close attention and observe vehicles, you'll see a lot that normally goes right by you. The majority of patrol cars in my state have switched to unmarked vehicles. Make a loud scene in an airport and look who looks at points of interest away from where you are making the scene. When in a public place, and someone is complaining very loudly and enthusiastically about something, watch the exits. I've seen people in restaraunts draw the cook, manager, hostess, and waiter to the table to discuss what horse the steak came from while a table of ten slips out the door dodging a bill of a few hundred bucks.

There is an entire society of good and bad guys that we are conditioned to never observe as we are conditioned.

I took a self defense course with my kids a long time ago and the things you learn are priceless. I never go into a gas station/mini mart without sizing up who is inside and how many. I can wait until the type that give me the willies depart before going inside. Never park your car to coincide with your room location in those one or two story motels. The moment you pack the kids in the car to drive two blocks to eat dinner before going to bed for the night, they know exactly what room to break into!

[Zathras]

And so it begins...
Kosh

[archy]

BUT, @ 1983/84 I was pumping gas at the local Exxon and a white van pulled up at the adjacent pump. The panel door slid open and a black-jump-suited guy got out. He was armed. He slid the door closed as he pumped gas but I did catch a glimpse of a couple others just like him inside. I watched him from six feet away. He met my eye with a look that was half embarassment at having to be seen and half "You're not really seeing me, I'm not here.".

It was not until ten years or more later that I first heard of the infamous "white vans" (probably here). To quote Lou Costello..."I know what I saw when I saw it"

That description would have pretty well fit me and my appearance, right down to the vehicle used, around that time while I was working as a classified materials courier, AKA a *mailman*, for a number of federal facilities and contractors in that timeframe.

That was before the usual widespread use of the HK MP5 submachinegun by most police and fed SWAT teams, and Ingram M10 submachineguns and M79 grenade launchers were our more common equipment then. We didn't get bothered much, though there's a reoccuring story about a highway cop who decided to pull one of our units over for a traffic offense once. They reported it via radio as a possible armed hijacking, received authority to shoot the attacker, and did so.

[TMSuchman]

There is still the question of the leg in a camie trousered boot that can not be explained. All of the body limbs were accounted for except that one. It was of an olive skinned male & was given a Muslim burial service. [Gee go figure]

[glock rocks]

Hannity interviews Ashcroft on the Gorelick issue tonight on H&C. It will be interesting.

[eternity]

This tape needs some serious explaining. http://www.letsroll911.org

[TMSuchman]

I forgot, there was supposedly a 40 foot crater in front of the building. I never saw any such a crater, did anybody else? There was a firetruck parked where they said one was.

[OXENinFLA]

If memory serves me correctly this would be from a Subway (like the sandwich).

[teletech]

Can you say coverup?

[rocksblues]

Can I get rid of the tin foil hat? Will the rest of the story ever be told? Waco, Oklahoma, TWA 800?

[wtc911]

Yeah, my father and one of his brothers were FBI. I was NYPD for a while and for a short period after that I made a living finding people. I picked up a lot of eyes-open stuff along the way. To this day I point things out to my wife, things that are out of place that she didn't notice.

My oldest son is the same way, doesn't miss much. When he was a kid we'd play a game, one of us would say, out of the blue, "the guy who just got out of the toyota, describe the woman with him"...Fun stuff with a good lesson attached.

[wtc911]

Sooooo, you're the guy....

[demlosers]

Good tips.

[shield]

bmp

[OXENinFLA]

Take a trip on the way back machine

Thanks, I hadn't heard about that one either.

[glock rocks]

If memory serves me correctly this would be from a Subway (like the sandwich).

Ding ding ding, we have a winner!

"Luckily, the Subway shop actually had a video camera recording that day's events. When Van Buren contacted the FBI, agents interviewed everyone working in the shop on April 18. And when they were done, they confiscated the video recorded that day."

...from a David Neiwert article in Salon on 6-6-01

[OXENinFLA]

ON FOX NOW.

[OXENinFLA]

Hey cool, thanks.