Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 8/1/24 Ken Silva on the FBI’s Battle to Keep Their OKC Bombing Documents Classified

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

Ken Silva returns to the show to discuss Jesse Trentadue’s ongoing fight to force the FBI to release documents related to the OKC bombing. Scott and Silva use Silva’s latest article about Trentadue’s effort as a jumping-off point to discuss the case and the truth about the bombing more broadly.  Discussed on the show: “Utah Attorney Catches FBI Deception in OKC Bomb Records Case” (Libertarian Institute) An American Bombing: The Road to April 19th (IMDb) Waco: The Aftermath (IMDb) Oklahoma City Bombing Archive Ken Silva has been a reporter for more than 10 years, working in places such as the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, and the United States. Follow him on Twitter @JD_Cashless This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Roberts and Robers Brokerage Incorporated; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; Libertas Bella; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Oh, the trials and tribulations of Jesse Trenadu. What year is it? It's 2024. Jesse Trenadu is still working on justice in the courts in Utah. And on the line, I got Ken Silva. He's a great report for Headline USA. And, of course, we run all this stuff at the Institute as well. Welcome back to the show, Ken.

How you doing? I'm doing well, Scott. Thanks for having me. All right, good times. Yeah, happy to have here. So the case is a Utah attorney catches FBI deception in an OKC bomb records case. And I guess I'll ask you to give us the very quick thumbnail of who's Jesse Trinidad and

why is he suing in Utah courts over the Oklahoma City bombing records and then update us on the latest here. Yeah, I'm sure by now many of your listeners are familiar with this case. You cover it really closely. And we all thank you for that. But in a nutshell, Jesse Trinandu was just a run-in-the-mill attorney in Utah. I think he was doing some sports agent work and things like. that was in no way to set out, looking to set out to solve the Oklahoma City bombing, but a couple

months after that attack, his brother was arrested and brutally murdered in prison. And over the decades, he steadily put together evidence that suggests that the FBI probably murdered his brother because they mistook him for one of the accomplices involved in the bombing. And so Jesse He's been filing various freedom of information lawsuits in kind of a quest to get justice for his brother. And in the process, he's been the source of numerous revelations about the bombing, you know, most damningly the FBI informants that were, you know, surrounding McVeigh and we're basically, you know,

I believe in most of the researchers I trust believe that, you know, the FBI informants were actually involved in the attack. Okay, good. So that's the story of Kenny and Jesse Trinidadoo here. So it turned out when they killed Kenny, they were messing with a lawyer in his brother who was able to intervene in the courts. For example, immediately, I guess he prevented them from cremating his brother's body. So he has all the evidence from his murder. And then he's been able to wage this fight in the Utah courts.

I want to say all these years based on this, but all these. years is the real negative part and that's really what your article's about right is the FBI completely dragging ass on the judge's order which the judge has ordered has he not the FBI to turn over what they got on please describe what basis not everything on Oklahoma but something yeah the judge hasn't made that order yet but it's looking like it's heading in that direction and I should correct myself I called Jesse a run of the mill attorney but that's you know he's actually a top-notch attorney that's been kicking the DOJ's ass for decades. What I meant by that is, you know, he was never into the political stuff.

He was just, you know, living his life in Utah before his brother was murdered. Right. But yes. I understood what you meant, but that's a nice clarification. We got you. So in 2016, he filed another FOIA request is, you know, probably the 100th or 200th request that he's had to sue. sue over. But this was for records about the FBI's investigation into a bank robbery gang called the Aryan Republican Army, specifically any connection that that bank robbery gang might

have had to the main Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh. And the connections between the group and McVeigh are well documented. They both seen at a white supremacist kind of hideout in the Ozarks called Elaheim City. McVeigh told his sister that he was involved in bank robberies to fund his activities in the early and mid-90s. So we already have a lot of evidence about this, but Jesse wanted to get the FBI's entire file. And the FBI did respond in 2016 saying it had 36,000 pages of responsive documents. And they said, hey, Jesse, write a $400 check and we'll start sending you these records. Jesse paid the FBI, but the records never came. So I think he'd periodically check in with the FBI about his request over the last, you know,

eight years in running now. And he's been fighting other lawsuits in court, so he didn't really have time to pursue this, but we're almost at the 10-year mark. We're almost at the 30th anniversary of the OKC bombing. He was tired of waiting. He filed a lawsuit in February, and in response, the FBI asked for another 12 years to produce all the documents. They only want to produce 500 pages per month, and that's kind of what they're arguing about right now. We know the FBI has a bunch of responsive records that they haven't released yet. They have admitted to that. And now the question is, are they going to kind of drizzle these out over the next 10 years, or is Jesse going to get his way and hopefully we'll have, you know, new bombshell FBI reports, you know, hopefully very,

very soon. Yeah. And I guess I was reaching way back in the past when I said the judge has ordered them to turn over documents before. Those are kind of in previous iterations of the case. These or documents obviously that are still in dispute. And then now part of the story was they lied to the judge and said, but Your Honor, this stuff is already on the website. So that's why we shouldn't have to hurry. And then Jesse proved that that wasn't right. And did that already happen in a hearing?

He showed that that was not true. Yeah. The FBI filed a declaration a couple months ago saying that many of the responsive records that Jesse seeks are already online. And the FBI does have a file with the Aryan Republican Army investigatory records on its website, but, you know, Jesse's got good, you know, good friends, including Richard Booth and Wendy Painting, and I think those guys searched through the FBI's entire file, and they were only able to find, I think, about 50 records that specifically referenced

McVeigh and his possible connection to bank robberies or the ARA. So while there's a lot of ARA records online, there's only a couple dozen that reference McVeigh. And meanwhile, there's more than 36,000 records that reference McVe, apparently, that haven't been released yet. So that's kind of like the crux of the issue. I see. So in other words, they've admitted that, well, Your Honor, when we ping ARA and McVeigh, we have this many results. But then that's the 36,000, you said? Yeah. So they've admitted to having 36,000. that they haven't released yet, and then they tell the judge, well, many of these 36,000 are already online, or Richard and Wendy Painting checked, and there's only about 50 online.

So that's a highly misleading statement to the judge, and Jesse said it's so misleading that, you know, the government should be sanctioned. It's basically a lie. Yeah, God dang, but you know what, a whole other, yes, exactly, but wait, a whole other separate thing, 36,000 mentions and their documents. of the ARA and McVeigh together, really? Yeah. That sounds like a big number of a lot of things.

I don't know. I mean, quantity, as we know with the FBI in the Oklahoma Obama case, quantity is not always synonymous with quality. But on that particular set of search terms, it sounds kind of promising, Ken, I have to tell you. And even among the 50 that are online, Richard found a couple that are really juicy. I mean, there's a map that the FBI drew in the months after the bombing that was kind of documenting McVeigh's travels and comparing it to where the various ARA bank robberies occurred.

And there's another document that even said, quote, McVeigh should be considered a suspect in a bank robbery that happened in North Dakota. I'm not familiar. I couldn't track down that specific robbery and try to find out whether McVeigh was in the state when that happened. I mean, the record itself is very, very interesting. And, yeah, there could be thousands and thousands of more of these similarly, you know, very juicy records. Yeah. Well, I don't know, man. I think you need to start developing Department of Justice sources who are willing to betray their leaders to tell the truth. There must be a lot of really great heroes inside the DOJ, right?

I'm sure. Well, the interesting thing about that is I think the DOJ is typically when they fight Jesse on these cases, they send lawyers from Maine Justice, and they send lawyers that specialize in freedom of information. But I think they're so worried about, you know, taking out Trump and putting out these various fires that they've sent an assistant U.S. attorney to litigate this new lawsuit. Her name's Malina Sheraldi, and I looked her up, and she was sent to Utah last year to lead its environmental justice initiative in Utah. And this is the person that's taken on Jesse right now, which is one of the reasons I think

that they've been caught in bold-faced lies. In previous cases, Jesse usually makes progress because he catches the FBI line saying, we don't have these records, and then Jesse already had the records, and he proves to the judge that the FBI is lying. But the lawyering in those cases was a lot better, at least, you know, in my amateur opinion, looking at these records. But in this case, you know, they've got a rookie, you know, trying to argue against Jesse and the rookies going to the FBI and trying to figure out what they know and then, you know, kind of transcribing that in her court filings. And she's kind of telling on the FBI in the process. So I know she's not probably a willing whistleblower, but the fact that, you know, she's not a corrupt main justice attorney has already, you know, made this case much more interesting.

I'll give you one more example. She actually filed a copy of Roger Moore's birth certificate as one of the DOJ's exhibits in this case. And I guess at this time, I should also add that Jesse's also suing for records about Roger Moore, who the government used as a witness against McBay, but who, who, was also an FBI informant and a CIA asset that was likely, you know, helped fund the attack. Yeah. So, in other words, you're saying for the new attorney on the job to do a decent job, she would have to be read all the way in on what they did and what they're lying about here. And so instead, she's just kind of flying blind because they don't want to tell her and bring her in the loop. It's too much. That's exactly right. Yeah, I think she's probably

earnest young DOJ lawyer trying to do her best but she doesn't really know what she's dealing with which is good for us yeah well lady if you're listening it was your colleagues and your predecessors what uh well i want to say helped with a capital h but like you know kind of helps blow up that building you should look into it yeah um all right well so man um sorry i'm sure you already said, but where exactly does this leave us with the judge? Jesse went up there and argued and showed that she didn't know what she was talking about and or the

FBI itself is lying and then the judge said come back in 90 days or what? Yeah, so we're expecting a DOJ response next week. In fact, I think the deadline is August 6th, which is this Tuesday. And right now

so the DOJ is they've admitted these records exist, but they still want to only produce them at 500 pages per month, which would take over another decade. By that time, I think Jesse would be close to 90 years old. And another disingenuous or misleading statement that the FBI included in the filing in response to Jesse is saying that Jesse agreed to receive these records at 500 pages a month. And that's not the case. The whole issue of receiving 500 pages a month, that's if I initially file a FOIA, like say I file a FOIA with the FBI

for all its records on anti-war.com, instead, they go to their vault, they get a couple boxes, dust them off, instead of waiting for them to review the entire trove of records and produce them at once, while they're reviewing them, they release them 500 pages per month. But what the DOJ is arguing now is that after waiting almost 10 years and they have all these records they still want to only produce at the rate of 500 pages a month even though they should have been doing that starting like eight years ago and then maybe it wouldn't be an issue maybe Jesse would be fine with that but now I think Jesse's looking for them to produce about 5,000 records per month hey y'all let me tell you about Robertson Roberts brokerage ink nobody trusts the

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No, I know, you know, I think there was that FISA case last year where Pfizer wanted to produce records about vaccine safety, and that would have taken like 100 years at the rate that Pfizer wanted. So I don't remember the exact statistics for that case, though. But, yeah, the DOJ does try to do this all the time. And one of the things, though, is interesting in its filing is that the FBI, explained that it's got a backlog of over 12,000 unaddressed FOIA requests at the end of 2023. And one of the reasons for this is because they used to have, I think, over 300 FBI employees

dedicated to FOIA about a half decade ago. And now it's down to 236 employees, but they've up the number of contractors from like 50 contractors to 108. So I think this almost merits its own investigation where the FBI seems to be reducing the number of employees that has to handle FOIA request and it's relying on contractors, which is really bizarre to me. I sent that info over to Judicial Watch. So hopefully they might, they seem interested. They might actually look into it.

Yeah. By the way, if you do get anti-war.com's FBI file, you'll see that they broke the law and they used the foreign intelligence surveillance act against us like Carter Page and we beat them in court. The ACLU represented us and we sued them over it. And all we got was our FBI files, not money. But the court found them in violation of the law, I guess, for the way that they did us, you know, our illegal law breaking lawless law enforcers here, the FBI. yeah and i see those records i think there's still something on anti-award like right on the home page you can still find that for people interested in that yeah oh that's true yeah it's um

eric has it posted as justin's last article was like hooray we beat them and then he died oh god these things happen um all right well listen um thank you so much for coming on the show and keeping up with this it's such an important story i don't care how long ago it was In another 20 years, it'll still be just as important to me. And I feel bad. Oh, you know what? Before we go here, would you talk for a minute about the new documentary and what you think about it? Because it seems like that's such a breakthrough.

And maybe it's too late now, Kim, but I have to tell you, man, there were eras in which are so many people who just thought, man, if only we could get one real good documentary to tell the truth about this on the HBO there, what a deal. difference that would make in taking this story from whatever marginal thing that people are interested in to really making a breakthrough and getting the American people at large to care about it, getting politics to consider it, getting the House to hold some hearings, something. And we finally got that documentary, or in my opinion. So I just wonder if you talk a little bit about that. Well, I'm a little embarrassed to say I haven't watched the documentary yet. Oh, seriously?

Well, God dang it, Bobby. that's not good i've talked to richard booth about it you know i've heard it starts off with a lot you know the interview bill clinton he talks about the dangers of right wing extremists but then it does get good they talk to kathy wilburn sanders whose grandchildren were lost in the attack and she believes others were involved in the case is unsolved and i guess they treated her well um i have written extensively about the showtime drama series that came out last year called Waco the Aftermath and I thought that was really well done so basically that you know I never did watch that one yeah that was the fictionalization of it yeah and they they include carol how and

and Andreas strassmeyer in it so I see I think it's great carol how is the ATF informant that warned her handlers that these Nazis were planning on attacking the building which basically proves that the federal government did have foreknowledge. The Showtime show was quite good. That kind of led to my interview with Andreas Strasmeyer, where I got his reaction to him being painted as a domestic terrorist.

And the show also goes into the bank robbery angle. The one weak spot of the show is they don't show Jondo 2 in the last episode where McVeigh finally drives the truck up to the Murrah building he gets out and he's alone so that that's a real weak spot but i mean a show that lets people know about carol holl and strassmeyer i still think that's a real that's a real benefit yeah i try not to watch the dramatizations and whatever because i got too many facts

to keep straight without you know directors embellishments and what have you but um i'll go and answer for you about the new one because it's so good man it's uh you're right they treat Kathy Wilburn great in the thing and that's everything right because if they want to say well this one lady thinks that and try to paint it that way they could have done that but the thing is they make it very clear

why she thinks that she knows that it's true there's so many facts already in evidence about what happened here and who was involved and the thing is about Kathy Wilburn is she's clearly not a cuck she's just a grandma

and she doesn't believe in crazy things that someone convinced her to believe. She's citing documents and evidence and whatever, just like, you know, the most careful person would do. And so, and it's not just her. They go through a lot of it. And it's called

April 19th. No, no, no. An American bombing, the road to April 19th, and it came out on HBO. And there have been quite a few documentaries about Oklahoma in the past, but this is the one that should put the ball over the goal.

line. Everybody has to pay attention. Like, look, see? All the cooks were right about this one, at least. You know what I mean? And, um, no, that's not true. The cooks had all kinds of crazy theories about it, but, um, I'm looking at you, Richard Pearl. But, uh, this documentary is really great and it's really worth looking at. I'm sure it's on the Pirate Bay already and what have you. Everybody can look at it. It's, uh, HBO, um, an American bombing the road to April 19th. And,

I think, you know, I talked with Richard about it, and he said that, essentially, when it came down to all the crucial points, he's just got the documents to show it. And so he just, you know, he and I guess Wendy also are both credited at the end. They are the keepers of the proof, and they walked the directors through it. Look at these documents. Look what they say. And they bring up this red herring, but we have this 302 right here that handles that. know what I mean? And they just went through it all with them and looks to me like the directors got it right. And yeah, they do have Bill Clinton in there. But I'm glad that they

do. I let people look at him and let see how hollow his denials ring. You know, it, you know, it is what it is. But I do hope that people will look at it. This is, I mean, it's on HBO. It got past their lawyers, you know? And so that means that it's at least we're taking a look at people and maybe maybe it is too late Ken but this should be the breakthrough this should be the one where everybody's senator has to say like wow I didn't know that but

I was on HBO huh or what you know what I mean something I don't know yeah I get what you're saying I've tried bringing this case to certain congressional staffers and people you know that I know in Congress and there's just like a lack of interest and I'm not sure exactly why that is

hopefully it may Maybe, you know, all their anger at the Secret Service, they should be reminded that Pete Lang and the guy that started the Aryan Republican Army was a Secret Service undercover informant who, quote, went rogue. Secret Service has documents about John Doe, too. So if you want to get at the Secret Service over them trying to kill Trump, in my opinion, you also look at Oklahoma City. There's a long history to this. Yeah, I could edit your upcoming article for Headline USA if you want. I can see the headline now about previous failures of the Secret Service, something, you know, brought back to attention. Definitely.

And with the 30th anniversary coming up, I think with that coupled with the documentary, I think this is going to reach a real peak in popularity. And so, yeah, thanks for your continuing attention. and I'm going to keep writing about this, you know, for at least the medium, as far as I can tell in the future. Great, man. Well, thank you so much for your time, Ken, and all your great work on this. Yeah, thanks again. All right, you guys, that is Ken Silva. He writes at headline USA.com and we run it all also at the Institute.

I think sometimes he still writes exclusive stuff for us at the Institute. At least used to. Hey, do you still sometimes write exclusive stuff for the Institute? two? Most of it's been reprints, but I try to send you at least my best, my best stuff. There you go. All right. Thank you, man. Appreciate you. Yep. Thank you. All right, you guys. And hey, speaking of the Institute, it's our fundraising time right now. We got matching funds. And this is the kind of stuff that you get at the Libertarian Institute. Is conspiracy coup topics with straight journalist answers.

The most important stuff. I don't know. At least this. This is the kind of stuff that's important to me and to us. So, and by the way, for those not familiar, we have the ultimate Oklahoma City bombing archive curated by Richard Booth at Libertarian Institute.org slash O'KC. The Scott Horton Show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on KPFK, 90.7 FM in L.A. APSRadio.com. Anti-war.com. Scott Horton.org and Libertarian Institute.org.