Judge wants FBI to explain possibly missing Oklahoma City bombing videotapes

A Salt Lake attorney's dogged pursuit of videotapes associated with the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that he believes the FBI has withheld from the public gained momentum from a federal judge Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups ruled Jesse Trentadue raised enough questions that he wants the government to explain why it hasn't searched all possible databases and evidence rooms where the tapes might be stored. He posed a list of questions he wants the FBI to answer by June 30.

"It's crucial that they don't deny they exist, only that 'we can't find them. Trust us,'" Trentadue said after the hearing.

At issue is whether the FBI adequately responded to Trentadue's Freedom of Information Act request for footage of Timothy McVeigh parking a truckload of explosives at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995. Specifically, Trentadue is after Murrah Building surveillance tape and dashcam video from the Oklahoma state trooper who stopped McVeigh 90 minutes after the deadly explosion.

"They can't just say we looked and looked really hard and we can't find it," Trentadue told the judge.

But Department of Justice attorney Kathryn Wyer said the FBI conducted a reasonable search of files where the records were likely to be stored and provided him 30 videotapes and 200 documents. She said he has no evidence that there is more, calling it "mere speculation."

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