An Old Forgotten Story Back in the News
This will be an unusual post. It contains my longest ever direct quote of another source, which happens to be the longest ever post I have seen at the Gateway Pundit website. Ordinarily this is a kind of topic I would have handled fairly briefly at Facebook, but the relevant text by Gateway and by me is too substantial for that. I tried doing it that way before choosing this site instead. Here’s the graphic I prepared for the FB post:
After I’d prepared the graphic, things started to get complicated. There was just too much relevant content for a Facebook post.
I have a personal connection to the Oklahoma City bombing story you probably have to be 50 to share. I remember exactly where I was when it broke into the regular cable programming one April morning in 1995 with a Special Announcement of an unfolding catastrophe in the state where my sister lived. My TV, large screen for the time and equipped with surround sound, was in the upstairs sitting room of the New Jersey house where my sister and I spent a good chunk of our childhoods. I won’t say the first footage shown was like being there, but it was a big loud event for me. Here are a couple of representative pictures:
The current version of the history posted at a site sponsored by the Oklahoma Historical Society offers this summary of what happened:
FTA: <<OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING.
On April 19, 1995, at 9:02 a.m. a forty-eight-hundred-pound ammonium nitrate–fuel oil bomb exploded in a Ryder truck parked at the north entrance of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injuring approximately 850. The governor's office reported that thirty children were orphaned, 219 children lost at least one parent, 462 people were left homeless, and seven thousand people lost their workplace. The City of Oklahoma City's Final Report estimated property damage to more than three hundred buildings in a forty-eight-square-block area.
Reckless media accusations that the perpetrators were Islamic terrorists led to two days of intensive anti-Muslim hysteria throughout the nation. The arrests of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, however, brought the uncomfortable realization that the perpetrators were military veterans of the Gulf War who found persuasive the conspiratorial world view of militia culture and viewed the bombing as a justifiable attack against the federal government of the United States, in which the murder of innocents was characterized, in McVeigh's words, as "collateral damage."
Both were indicted in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma on August 10, 1995, on conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, use of such a weapon, destruction by explosive, and eight counts of first-degree murder. Accomplice Michael J. Fortier was also indicted on four counts, including conspiracy to transport stolen firearms. McVeigh was found guilty on all counts on June 2, 1997, and executed on June 11, 2001. Terry Nichols was found guilty of conspiracy and manslaughter on December 24, 1997, and sentenced to life in prison with no parole. Fortier was sentenced to twelve years in prison on May 27, 1998.
The bombing was the nation's worst single act of domestic terrorism (superceded in numbers of dead only by the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, in New York City). Intensive and enduring media coverage created an imagined bereaved community in which people around the world felt emotionally connected with the deceaseds' grieving family members, who often appeared on television to eulogize their loved ones, with bloodied survivors who related their harrowing stories of escape and rescue attempts of fellow workers and friends, and with professional rescuers, whose grim work turned almost immediately from rescue of the living to the recovery of the dead.>>
FTA: <<Yet his revelations to date have shown not just government lies about the Oklahoma City bombing, but also a domestic spying and criminal operations that extends into the nation’s newsrooms, courtrooms, centers of power, and more.
Despite new attention on the crime and its case and a wave of public interest in PATCON caused by the release of Margaret Roberts’ book “Blowback: The Untold Story of the FBI and the Oklahoma City Bombing” two weeks ago, Trentadue says he does not expect any federal agent or informant to face prosecution for his brother’s killing or for related crimes.
He’s hopeful, rather, that the documented evidence he has uncovered about FBI spying on the political right can be stopped, and that will be the most justice his family will ever find.
“My family is doubtful that anyone will ever be prosecuted for my brother’s murder, Oklahoma City, Waco, or the other crimes committed by the FBI as part of PATCON,” Trentadue told The Gateway Pundit.
Trentadue points to two reasons for that conclusion. The first is the “government actor defense,” a little-known but powerful legal doctrine that shields federal agents and informants from criminal liability if they can claim they were acting within the scope of their government duties, even when the claims involve murder. In practice, legal experts say, it is nearly impossible to overcome.
The second is that the United States would have to prosecute itself. “The United States is ultimately responsible for these crimes,” Trentadue said. “Asking the United States to prosecute itself is like asking Al Capone or the cartel leaders to prosecute themselves. It is not likely to happen.”
Even if a PATCON operative were indicted, Trentadue argues that the case would collapse once that person began talking. “Any PATCON operative prosecuted is not going to remain silent. He or she is going to open the entire PATCON can of worms, which the government cannot allow to happen.”
The government has been repeatedly caught lying about video footage of the truck and bombing, which many believe shows a second conspirator exiting the truck with Timothy McVeigh.
Trentadue also uncovered memos related to an FBI Agent who tried to sell a copy of this footage to Dateline NBC in 1995 for $1 million, but who was caught when a compromised Producer at NBC revealed the information to the FBI.
PATCON, short for “Patriot Conspiracy,” was a covert FBI program in the 1990s that inserted undercover agents and informants into the American militia movement. According to records obtained through lawsuits and FOIA requests, those assets did more than gather intelligence. In some instances, they allegedly encouraged or facilitated criminal acts in order to justify federal crackdowns. Critics have compared PATCON to the FBI’s earlier COINTELPRO operation against political groups in the 1960s and 1970s, except this time the targets were constitutionalist and patriot organizations.
Recently, the existence of this operation has become more mainstream. A documentary set to release this fall, “Kidnap and Kill: The FBI Terror Plot” is set to explain how feds used PATCON to entrap the Whitmer kidnappers.
Trentadue clarified the scope of the government’s PATCON operations: “Margaret Roberts’ characterization of PATCON as government “manufactured terrorism” is spot-on, but it is also important to note that Margaret’s book Blowback is focused on the Oklahoma City bombing part of PATCON, whereas, as Ken Silva and others note, PATCON is far bigger: Waco, Lone Wolf Gun Store, Fast and Furious, Gunrunning, Bank Robberies, Drug Trafficking, a plot to damage the cooling system at the Brown’s Ferry Alabama Nuclear Facility, and also the Sensitive Informant Program, which the FBI uses to embed informants within the mainstream media, on the staffs of federal judges, inside other federal agencies and the White House, within the clergy and even within defense teams on high-profile criminal cases.”
Trentadue believes the real path to justice lies in forcing full public disclosure of what PATCON was and how it operated.
“Justice is coming in the form of exposing PATCON, which I recognized long ago is ultimately more important than seeing my brother’s murderers prosecuted. By exposing PATCON, we are saving our Country and defending the Constitution.”
The Bondi DOJ has, so far, refused to release public documents related to Trentadue’s requests, and has opposed releasing the deposition transcript from an FBI Informant John Matthews who may have information critical to solving the unanswered questions from the 1995 bombing, including the extent to which federal authorities were involved in the planning and execution of the bombing.
Matthews claimed in 2014 that he was being threatened by the FBI not to cooperate with Trentadue’s investigation and lawful subpoenas to testify.
The involved federal operations involving McVeigh prior to the bombing also, oddly, involve intelligence agents from Germany.
Trentadue sent a letter to attorney General Bondi this past March asking her to release the relevant files, a request that went unanswered.
Part of PATCON, Trentadue claims he has discovered through 30 years of FOIA litigation against the government, is a “Sensitive Informant Project” which compromises key people in major mainstream media outlets, and also attorneys involved in key lawsuits. Trentadue says the documents show operatives working at the direction of the FBI who prevent mainstream media coverage of key stories, and also steers attorneys involved in key cases to maliciously betray their clients in the course of their legal representation.
The scope and scale of PATCON’s operations, Trentadue says, is pervasive and systemic through the nation’s federal law enforcement operations.
Trentadue believes that PATCON was involved in even recent political controversies, including the Whitmer Kidnapping Hoax in Michigan and the federal undercover agents at the January 6th protest at the U.S. Capitol. PATCON, he says, is ongoing and unlikely to be stopped without public outrage.
Part of PATCON, Trentadue claims he has discovered through 30 years of FOIA litigation against the government, is a “Sensitive Informant Project” which compromises key people in major mainstream media outlets, and also attorneys involved in key lawsuits. Trentadue says the documents show operatives working at the direction of the FBI who prevent mainstream media coverage of key stories, and also steers attorneys involved in key cases to maliciously betray their clients in the course of their legal representation.
The scope and scale of PATCON’s operations, Trentadue says, is pervasive and systemic through the nation’s federal law enforcement operations.
Trentadue believes that PATCON was involved in even recent political controversies, including the Whitmer Kidnapping Hoax in Michigan and the federal undercover agents at the January 6th protest at the U.S. Capitol. PATCON, he says, is ongoing and unlikely to be stopped without public outrage.
His brother Kenneth Michael Trentadue was transferred from California to Oklahoma City in August 1995 for an alleged parole violation. Jesse spoke to his brother and he anticipated being released soon, and they spoke about Kenneth’s young son. The parole violation was not, Kenneth told Jesse, anything serious.
So when Jesse learned three days later that his brother was dead, found hanging in his cell, it did not match his brother’s demeanor on his phone call. In addition, federal authorities were urgently trying to declare the death a suicide and prevent an autopsy and wanted to cremate the body, raising suspicion. When Jesse finally was able to view his brother’s body, his face was caked in make-up put on by prison authorities.
The family intervened to stop the cremation.
When the make-up was removed from Kenneth’s face, it was clear what they were trying to hide: bruising and cuts all over his face consistent with being tortured. Federal authorities have since claimed that Kenneth hit his head several times when attempting a suicide by hanging.
Kenneth’s face had multiple cuts and bruises, and his arms and legs were also covered in recent bruises.
Jesse believes that his brother was mistaken for “John Doe number 2” in the Oklahoma City bombing, whom he now believes was a federal agent or informant, Richard Lee Guthrie, working within the PATCON operation. Both Kenneth Trentadue and Richard Guthrie had the same physique, stature, height, and both had a similar tattoo on the same arm.
Jesse believes federal agents beat his brother to death in Oklahoma City and have tried to cover it up ever since.
Kenneth’s cell was immediately cleaned and wiped down with bleach. Evidence in the case has disappeared.
Every federal investigation into the death of Kenneth Trentadue has cleared the government of any wrongdoing, and has claimed that the death was simply a jailhouse suicide.
Since then, Jesse Trentadue has used his expertise as an Attorney to request public documents, and when refused, demanded through through litigation to uncover the people and programs behind his brother’s murder. That effort has revealed ongoing domestic surveillance greater and more substantial than ever before in U.S. history. So far, Trentadue has spent 30 years litigating, and has uncovered the most extensive federal system of domestic surveillance and political disruption in the nation’s history.
But he has not yet found the names of his brother’s killers.>>
What you’ll see first at the link is a brief intro to the book as a whole. Arrows to the right of text lead you to the next page. Two more pages in you’ll find this, the very first day of the diary:
It proceeds from there obviously and is self explanatory. We both had questions that seemed obvious to us, but they weren’t questions we saw anybody in the mass media asking. There is more about the McVeigh case in the book, but no firm conclusions about its ultimate meaning in the scheme of things. Now, of course, there is a broader context. Just how long and how criminally has the Deep State been creating fake realities behind the scene to keep their life clients in power? If the FBI/CIA/NSA/DOJ nexus has been operating nefarious secret machinery all these years, then the plot to overthrow Trump didn’t really begin just with Hillary and Obama. It’s more likely a routine part of the process, just more risky and dramatic given the scale of the target that had to be taken down.
I’m not going to try to piece it all together from here. That would be wild-ass speculative folly. All I can do is say ‘Hmmm’ and mean it. It’s possible that reading the rest of the book would add a little something to your thought process. It’s still available for purchase in paperback and on Kindle. There’s a story about the writing of it, but I won’t bother you with it here. The best I can do is give you a hint about my mood during that long hot summer…
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