Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Ref the OKC Bombing

This is pissing me off on several levels, not least that I heard about this on the radio, but KTOK doesn't have anything on their web site about it. So I looked around and found this on the site for the McCurtain Daily Gazette, only the damn link is broken and the whole article won't come up. Full text of what does come up is:
Judge sealed testimony that ATF was warned before bombing

11/9/2005

Copyright 2005,
McCurtain Daily Gazette

By J.D. Cash
Unearthed by a Salt Lake City, Utah, attorney, statements made by a Tulsa Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) agent in a federal courtroom confirm that a confidential informant did warn the agency of plans to bomb...

and when you try to bring up the rest of the article you get a blank. And I can't find the damn thing anywhere else. If I can find anything from wherever it's been hidden, I'll add it in.

Update:
I still can't find the complete article, but KTOK just had an interview with the McCurtain Daily Gazette reporter who did the story. Basically, an BATF agent admitted in a trial that they'd been warned of bomb threats against federal buildings in OKC. They judge decided didn't want the information to get to the Timothy McVeigh's lawyers because it would show there was a wider conspiracy than the governments' case said, so he sealed the record. Think about that. My understanding is that it's unethical at least and, in at least some cases, illegal to keep information of this type from a defense attorney, yet the judge sealed the record of this testimony so the defense couldn't get hold of it.

I have to think that another consideration of this judge is that this would show how ATF and FBI fell down on the job, and he didn't want that coming out. May be wrong about this, but I tend to believe it.

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