New evidence could blow open the Oklahoma City bombing case

For years, the FBI denied that key evidence existed in the Oklahoma City bombing. But court documents, leaked files, and eyewitness accounts suggest a darker truth buried beneath the official story.

President Bill Clinton visited a church in Oklahoma City on April 19 to mark the 30th anniversary of the 1995 bombing that resulted in the deaths of 168 people. In his remarks, Clinton said we “owe” it to the victims to “do better” in honor of their sacrifice. But just like three decades ago, commemorating the bombing still requires airbrushing a mountain of contradictory evidence.

This is a test of whether the Trump administration will honor its promises on transparency.

Clinton’s Justice Department owed the nation the full truth about the bombing. Instead, it spun a cover story that both distorted the past and endangered the future, leaving the American people exposed to new threats.

Among the most striking but forgotten facts surrounding the Oklahoma City bombing is the mystery of “John Doe 2,” a man 24 eyewitnesses claimed to have seen in the Ryder truck with Timothy McVeigh. The FBI now insists he never existed.

After the bombing, the media abandoned its role as a watchdog and became, in too many cases, an enabler of the official narrative of lone-wolf terror. It professed that the FBI acted swiftly and heroically, the Justice Department delivered justice, and President Clinton led the country through its pain with grace and resolve.

Fortunately, not everyone gave up on the truth. Today’s most relentless truth-seekers are anonymous digital investigators and citizen journalists, armed with Freedom of Information Act filings, archived footage, and a hunger to uncover what the gatekeepers tried to hide.

I’ve been part of one such effort for almost two decades. Working alongside attorney Jesse Trentadue, I’ve investigated the likely connection between the Oklahoma City bombing and the horrific 1995 death of Jesse’s brother, Kenneth, in federal custody. Jesse’s FOIA lawsuits unearthed shocking documents about the FBI’s concealed activities — clues that led us deeper into the bureau’s involvement than we could have imagined.

Then, a former FBI undercover operative came forward. What he revealed gave us a key piece of the puzzle. And yet for all we’ve uncovered, the vaults of secrecy remain shut.

Which brings us to a critical moment. On March 26, Trentadue submitted a letter to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, urging the release of a decade-old sealed deposition from that very whistleblower. The contents of that deposition could expose the true scope of PATCON — the FBI’s sweeping 1990s operation to infiltrate alleged right-wing extremist groups — and potentially tie it directly to the Oklahoma City bombing.

This is a test of whether the Trump administration will honor its promises of transparency. Very few are aware that the Oklahoma City bombing was caught on camera. We know this not just from speculative claims but from on-the-record sources — contemporaneous media reports, corroborating federal files, and sworn FBI testimony. The footage exists. It’s a documented fact. Yet the tapes remain hidden. Authorities only released video of the aftermath.

For over a decade, the FBI fought Trentadue in court to keep the video out of public view. The footage may prove conclusively that McVeigh was not acting alone. If made public, the tapes could shatter the myth of lone-wolf domestic terror. They could implicate associates of McVeigh who were never charged.

Further, the videos could show that 168 Americans were murdered not just by a madman but by a preventable failure of federal surveillance — or worse, by a deliberate cover-up. This cover story has allowed neo-Nazi terrorists to slip through the cracks, denied justice to the victims, and kept the American public in the dark for far too long.

That’s why the Justice Department must act. Release the tapes. Unseal the deposition. Let the American people decide for themselves what really happened. We stand at the threshold of a new era in open-source journalism. If the Trump Justice Department delivers on its promise to unmask secrets, it could mark the rebirth of investigative integrity in America.

As Senator John Kennedy (R-La.) wryly observed earlier this year, “Sounds to me like we need to get some new conspiracy theories, because all the old ones turned out to be true.”

It’s time to test another.