New OKC Document Claims Prior Knowledge of Bombing

Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue filed a new document last week in his ongoing Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the FBI seeking documents related to the Oklahoma City bombing.

The filing submits an FBI FD-302 record relating to Mark Thomas, a former Christian Identity minister and Aryan Nations member, pleaded guilty in 1997 to conspiring with the Aryan Republican Army (ARA) bank robbery gang, which was led by white supremacists Richard Lee Guthrie and Peter Langan. The source of the document is not specified in the filing.

According to the document, Thomas' former girlfriend approached the FBI in early 1997 and told agents that Mark Thomas made the following statement to her in February 1995:

"We are going to get them. We are going to hit one of their buildings during the middle of the day. It's going to be a federal building. We will get sympathy if we bomb the building. ... [T]he people who will lose their loved ones, will realize how bad it feels."

The new filing reinforces a scenario described in documents obtained by Trentadue and posted here in March. An informant quoted in those documents claimed to have heard from a third party that Thomas indicated having prior knowledge of the Oklahoma City bombing.

The contents of the document have been previously reported by the Associated Press and others. According to the AP story, Thomas said he did not recall making the comments described herein.

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