FBI Memos Suggest Agency Had Moles In Media
https://sundispatch.com/2022/04/12/fbi-memos-suggest-agency-had-moles-in-media/
FBI Memos Suggest Agency Had Moles In Media
Authored by Ken Silva via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Investigator Roger Charles was combing through records of the FBI’s Oklahoma City bombing investigation more than a decade ago, when he discovered a memo suggesting that someone working at ABC News provided a tip to the bureau a day after the deadly April 19, 1995, domestic terrorist attack.
It appeared that a senior ABC News journalist had been doubling as an FBI informant. The memo made a few headlines in 2011, but quickly passed through the news cycle with little impact and hardly any coverage by major outlets.
However, Charles’s discovery stoked the curiosity of his friend, attorney Jesse Trentadue. The Utah resident was suing the FBI for records related to his brother’s murder, and began filing requests in 2012 to see if the bureau had other informants in the media, as well as places such as congressional offices, courts, churches, other government.
“I thought they’d come back and say, ‘We would never do that because that would be illegal and unconstitutional,’” he said. “Instead, they came back and said, ‘Yeah, we do that. We have manuals on that, but you can’t have them because of national security.’”
The FBI fought against Trentadue for years in federal court to keep its manuals secret, and was ultimately successful. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2015.
However, Trentadue said the litigation helped him piece together what he calls the FBI’s “sensitive informant program.” According to his lawsuit over the matter, this program is used to place informants in the national media, among other institutions.
But in the wake of a recently released, scathing internal FBI audit—which found special agents breaking their own rules more than twice per reviewed case when investigating sensitive institutions—some lawmakers are beginning to question the bureau’s sweeping investigatory powers.
“It has been nearly two weeks since this information was revealed, and the FBI has thus far declined to comment or provide additional transparency,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said in a March 31 letter. “I believe the Senate would benefit from hearing directly from Inspector General Horowitz, FBI Director Wray, as well as any division directors with knowledge of the audit or the errors detailed in it.”
Among those is a September 1996 FBI memo, reporting that a “confidential source who works for a news agency [learned] that ABC News was going to air an expose in the next few days concerning the OKC bombing.”
* Please note, this part is very interesting
“ABC will be interviewing a rescue worker who is going to state that ATF had stored a large amount of explosives in the MURRAH BUILDING, which contributed to the explosion. The rescue worker is also going to advise that evidence of these explosives was found by rescue workers, and this particular rescue worker had contacted the FBI with this information, and was told by the FBI to keep quiet,” the FBI memo says.
“This rescue worker is currently upset because nothing has been done with this information and he feels the FBI has attempted to cover up the information.”
The September 1996 memo identifies the person at the news agency as a “confidential source,” rather than referring to the person by a serial number—suggesting that this source may be different than the aforementioned informant. Trentadue said he didn’t know for sure, nor did he know whether the ABC report referenced in the memo was ever published.
Then, there’s a series of FBI memos that also serve as the subject of controversy in another Trentadue lawsuit. These memos describe FBI agents who were allegedly trying to sell surveillance footage of the Oklahoma City bombing to NBC.
No arrests resulted from the matter, and the U.S. government says the surveillance footage discussed in the memos does not exist. Trentadue is seeking to prove the existence of the footage in a separate, ongoing lawsuit against the FBI that has been sealed for the past seven years.
*Related story on Terrence Yeakey
The Strange Death of Terry Yeakey, OK Bombing First Responder - The Constantine ...
Continued:
Putting aside the surveillance footage controversy, the memos show that the FBI was receiving information from within NBC.
The first tip from NBC came on Oct. 27, 1995, when a confidential source, whose identity is redacted, said the NBC show Dateline had been contacted by an attorney. According to the FBI memo, the attorney represented an FBI agent in Los Angeles who was seeking to sell surveillance footage for more than $1 million.
“It was represented that the video tape would contain lapse photography of the arrival and then departure of a UPS truck. Then a Ryder truck pulls up and a male resembling Timothy McVeigh [sic] is seen exiting the driver’s side of the Ryder truck and then walking away,” the FBI memo says. “Next, a second male is seen exiting the passenger side of the Ryder truck and walking to the back of the truck. The second male then walks away in the same direction as the first male.”
The FBI received five more tips through Nov. 7 about the matter—including someone offering to provide a prepublication copy of a story about “negotiations between an unknown Los Angeles Agent of the FBI and ‘Dateline,’” the memo said.
Other records suggest that the FBI used reporters as sources of information—whether the reporter knew it or not. For instance, an April 25, 1995, FBI memo states that reporter Bob Norman, of the News Press, a daily newspaper in Florida, called the bureau to provide information.
The FBI memo said Norman “advised” a special agent that Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh had connections to Florida’s militia. But Norman, currently an active reporter who has recently written for the Florida Bulldog, said he was simply calling for comment on a story he was writing at the time.
“I’m sure the agent wanted me to share my source material and, as his own report shows, I correctly refused to do so,” Norman said in a statement to The Epoch Times.
The FBI memo indeed reflects that Norman declined to provide the bureau with a videotape—telling the special agent that “he was not convinced his superiors will approve of sharing this information with the FBI, and therefore he cannot provide a copy of the tapes or further information.”
“While I disagree with the agent’s characterization of the reason for the call, this is what journalists do,” Norman said. “We present our found information to authorities in order to get confirmation, additional information, context, denials, etc. It is, in fact, an essential part of the fact-gathering process.”
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