Note to readers: The following special report is reprinted with the permission of Oklahoma City bombing researcher Richard Booth, whose work can be found here.
(Richard Booth, OKC Facts) An otherwise obscure FBI 302 report recently sourced from records in the 2004 Terry Nichols State Trial adds an interesting dimension to the theory that the April 19th, 1995 Oklahoma City bombing may have been a sting gone awry.
The memo, which describes a Ford Bronco driving slowly around the Murrah Federal Building at 2:30 A.M. between two to three times — 15 miles per hour, seems innocuous enough.
However, that is only if you’re not familiar with the notion that the Oklahoma City bombing may have been connected to a sting operation—one in which a team of FBI and ATF agents were out all night expecting the delivery of a bomb in the middle of the night.
The theory is not a new one. For years, critics and investigators have pointed out glaring contradictions in the investigation, including specific warnings given to the federal government by informants prior to the bombing.
The most well-known of these informants is Carol Howe, whose reporting to the ATF was specific and detailed, with Howe telling Diane Sawyer at ABC News “I gave them warnings of targets, specific targets, addresses of targets, names of targets.”
Informants reporting on matters related to the bombing are not exclusive to Howe; reports from at least two others seemingly confirm her information: that a group of white supremacists based out of Elohim City, including a gang of bank robbers and a German national named Andreas Strassmeir, were plotting to blow up the Murrah building and had even cased the building with one of the informants. Strassmeir may hold the key to unlocking the mystery concerning the failed sting operation.
Andreas Strassmeir, when interviewed by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard for his 1997 book The Secret Life of Bill Clinton, revealed what can only be said to be “insider knowledge” of the bombing operation—indeed—knowledge of a sting operation that was underway. Strassmeir’s disclosure jibes with what ATF official Lester Martz told reporter J.D. Cash—that his own ATF agents were not at the Murrah building in the morning because they had “been out on an all-night surveillance operation.” A sting operation?
The below excerpt, from page 90, lays out the scenario:
In this passage, we have Andreas Strassmeir stating that, according to his source, a sting operation was underway, expecting a bomb delivery between 2 and 3 in the morning.
This is where our recently discovered 302 report comes into the story; it concerns a Ford Bronco that approached the purported FBI and ATF surveillance site during that time, when agents would have been on high alert for any activity at the bombing site:
Bronco Would Have “Lit Up” Fed Comm Chatter from the Sting Team When It Rolled Up at 15 Miles Per Hour
So, at the exact moment when the bomb is expected, a Ford Bronco approaches.
It is driving 15 miles per hour, very slowly.
The Bronco circles the building two to three times, according to roofers working across the street atop the courthouse. This is highly irregular, and the vehicle would have been under intense scrutiny as it passed through the area. Any surveillance team operating there would have taken immediate notice of the approaching Bronco, made notes concerning the vehicle, and it is also highly likely there would be radio chatter among the sting operation team about the vehicle’s slow movement into the area, including its parking for a moment, shining it’s lights at the Murrah Building.
The waiting agents would have been very concerned.
With this in mind, let’s take a look at what Roger Charles had to say to Headline USA editor Ken Silva on February 9, 2022 (in his last interview before succumbing to a heart attack just over a week later). In this wide-ranging interview, Charles tells Silva about the Aryan Republican Army—purported by J.D. Cash and David Paul Hammer to have been McVeigh’s “ground crew” in OKC for the bombing.
Charles describes how ARA members Richard Guthrie and Peter Langan utilized top-quality scanners and frequency countermeasures devices to, for example, (1) tune to FBI and law enforcement frequencies before, during, and after their crimes, and also (2) use a scanner to detect any nearby FM transmitter device (of the type used for vehicle tracking devices in 1995):
Find below the full audio of the February 9, 2022, interview with Roger Charles, starting with a story in which Roger describes J.D. Cash’s off-the-record interview with Tim McVeigh.
Cash’s first question to McVeigh was, “how’d you get past all that surveillance that was out there that night?”
Cash says McVeigh just rocked his chair back, crossed his arms, and put on a big “shit eating grin” — like “wouldn’t you like to know.”
Well, we now may understand how McVeigh knew: because his security team went through the area and likely found chatter on specific frequencies in use (meanwhile the ARA was said to have had a list of FBI and ATF frequencies—from where?) and they discovered the sting operation’s communications channel, recognized the area was under surveillance, and had even by that time already found a tracking device that was to be put on the Ryder truck, which the bad guys had other plans for (put it on a decoy truck and send that one off to Fort Smith or elsewhere).
This is Headline USA editor-in-chief Ken Silva, and you’re about to hear an interview I conducted on Feb. 9, 2022, with the late great Roger Charles, a U.S. Marine, an award-winning journalist, and an investigator whose work included a stint on OKC bomber Timothy McVeigh’s… pic.twitter.com/QmtkWaIqSx
— Headline USA (@HeadlineUSA) February 25, 2025
A Hypothetical Scenario – The Bronco Arrives During the Surveillance Op
Assume this Bronco is entering the scene of the sting operation, slowly pulling in at 15 miles per hour at the exact moment the delivery of the bomb is supposed to occur — between 2 and 3 AM.
The streets are vacant; it’s the middle of the night on a weekday. Nobody is out here.
What if the person inside that Bronco circling the Murrah building is operating a BearCat scanner (or any number of other excellent frequency scanners available at that time to hobbyists—I’ve had a few myself) and is either scanning local frequencies for traffic—to identify the sting operation’s frequency—or is already tuned to the sting operation’s channel?
Well, they would know immediately that they had entered surveillance… and would leave after making their circle around the building 2 to 3 times.
And so maybe that’s how “Tim knew that Danny Coulson and the FBI were waiting on him” that night.
Was it because Richard Guthrie or someone else on McVeigh’s 4/19 on-the-ground “security team” confirmed it using a frequency scanner?
Richard Guthrie of the Aryan Republican Army just so happened to own a Ford Bronco, per this January 3 1996 FBI memo from Omaha to Director, FBI:
For more information on the FBI’s failed Oklahoma City sting operation, see kennethtrentadue.com, libertarianinstitute.org/okc, and visit @BlowBackBook on X to read about an upcoming book which may shed some light on the cover-up of what was supposed to be a simple sting.
Grand juror: “We were never allowed to see the photo evidence from the cameras on the Murrah Building that would have shown the truck being parked and the people who got out of the truck. That’s all on tape, and we were authorized to see all of that, but we weren’t allowed to see… pic.twitter.com/Zp4iZJLoft
— Margaret Roberts (@BlowbackBook) April 12, 2025
