Congressional hearings coming in OKC Bombing

KTOK reported this yesterday, and links to the story at the McCurtain Daily Gazette:

In what some on Capitol Hill are calling a surprising decision, U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde has given the nod for hearings into the long-debated question of whether those responsible for the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building had help from any foreign source.

Spurred to action by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., Hyde has given Rohrabacher’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee the wide-ranging authority to conduct interviews and subpoena documents related to the April 19, 1995, terrorist attack that left 168 dead, 19 of them children.

...

Forecasting the areas of particular interest the congressional investigation could take, Rohrabacher promised to look carefully for any evidence linking the cabal to Arab terrorists and or to a German national in this country illegally in 1995, Andreas Carl Strassmeir.

In his letter seeking authority for hearings, Rohrabacher wrote: “It is highly likely that the Arab connection and/or the Strassmeir connection played a significant role in the planning and execution of the murderous bombing of the OKC federal building. In both possible scenarios, the official investigation fell short and further investigation has been discouraged ever since.”

There's been a lot of controversy from the first about various connections to foreign nationals, and just maybe this'll finally get through some of the walls that had been thrown up.





Rohrabacher also noted that much of the investigation would focus on a spate of documents recently unearthed during a Freedom of Information lawsuit in Salt Lake City, Utah.

While attempting to piece together evidence in the mysterious death of his inmate-brother in August of 1995 at the Oklahoma City Federal Transfer Center, attorney Jesse Trentadue has sued the Oklahoma City FBI office for documents that might shed light on the inmate’s bizarre demise while locked up in a suicide-proof cell.

While the documents obtained in the suit have been heavily redacted, they do appear to link Strassmeir to a foiled “sting operation” involving the federal government, McVeigh, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Oklahoma City bombing conspiracy.

I've mentioned some parts of the Trentadue case before; the documents dragged out of the Justice Dept. and the FBI have plainly shown that various lawyers and federal agents flat lied in the investigation of this mess. Maybe, maybe, this'll finally drag more of this out in the open.