Thursday, December 22, 2011

Eric Holder Implicated In Murder Cover-Up

"[T]he Justice Department hid and destroyed evidence that would have exposed my brother's murders, and we believe that Mr. Holder was directly involved in those acts of obstruction of justice."

It's not a new accusation.  As a matter of fact, Attorney Jesse Trentadue made the above accusation back in December of 2008 in a letter to Senator Patrick Leahy, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, after Holder was nominated to fill the post of Attorney General of the United States; and Trentadue has been making the accusation for over a decade, to anyone who will listen.  Unfortunately, almost 20 years later, few are listening.

The sordid tale goes back to April of 1995, shortly after the infamous Oklahoma City Bombing.  Shortly after the bombing, FBI officials took Trentadue's brother, Kenneth (Kenny) Michael Trentadue into custody and on August 21, 1995, Kenny Trentadue died.  An official government report stated that Trentadue had hanged himself in his prison cell but multiple bruises on his body and lacerations on his face and throat, coupled with an initial request by the government to cremate the body (apparently a highly irregular request), led the Trentadue family to seriously doubt the government report. 

Of course, it should be stated that Kenny Trentadue was no angel.  He had a felony record for bank robbery, a heroin addiction,  and was allegedly picked up on a parole violation.  Still, there is no conclusive evidence that would indicate why the FBI took Trentadue into custody in connection with the Oklahoma City Bombing.

Jesse Trentadue believes that FBI agents mistook Kenny Trentadue for Tim McVeigh’s alleged accomplice, Richard Lee Guthrie, and simply went too far in their interrogations in an effort to get him to talk.  The contention seems plausible since it has also been reported that Timothy McVeigh, upon being shown a photograph of Trentadue, said: "Now I know why Trentadue was killed, because they thought he was Richard Guthrie."

Incidentally, approximately a year after Trentadue's death, Guthrie would also be found dead in his prison cell, the day before he was scheduled to give a television interview. Gutherie's death would also be ruled a suicide by hanging.  And in 1999, Alden Gillis Baker, one of Trentadue's fellow inmates, claimed that he had actually witnessed Trentadue's murder. In August of 2000, Baker also died.  His death was also ruled to be a suicide by hanging.

Coincidence? While it would be pure speculation to attribute Guthrie and Baker's deaths to a sinister plot; there's a great deal more than pure speculation to the contention that Trentadue's death was a suicide. 

Paul Craig Roberts, a former Treasury Department official in the Reagan administration, wrote: "When the Trentadue family received Kenneth’s body and heavy makeup was scraped away, the evidence clearly shows a person who had been tortured and beaten. His throat was slashed and he may have been garroted. There are bruises, burns and cuts from the soles of Trentadue’s feet to his head, wounds that obviously were not self-inflicted."

And according to an article published by the far-left Mother Jones: "Even Oklahoma City's chief medical examiner [Dr. Fred Jones] would later say, publicly, that it was 'very likely he was murdered.'" Jones wasn't the only expert who doubted the government.  It was also reported that Bill Gormley, of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, suspected that Trentadue was murdered.

Jesse Trentadue, a practicing attorney in Salt Lake City and the brother of the deceased, filed a wrongful death suit and the courts eventually awarded the Trentadue family $1.1 million in damages.  While Trentadue was not able to prove that the FBI did indeed play a role in his Kenny Trentadue's death, the court did find evidence of stonewalling and a massive cover-up. 

According to TheExaminer.com: "A federal judge later ruled the FBI had lied in court about the case and destroyed evidence." That finding lead to the awarding of 1.1 million dollars in damages to the Trentadue family for emotional distress.

But the Trentadue family is still not satisfied and in 2008 (allegedly using the proceeds from the settlement) offered a $250,000 reward for information leading to the identification and conviction of Kenny Trentadue's murderers, but the stonewalling continues.

The website Radiodujour.com reports that after Jesse Trentadue's December 2008 letter to Senator Leahy: "The Department of Justice, where Holder served as deputy attorney general under President Bill Clinton, referred a request for comment to the Presidential Transition Team (PTT). A statement issued by an Obama transition aide denied Trentadue's allegations. 'Multiple independent investigations have found that Kenneth Trentadue's death was a suicide,' the statement said. 'There is simply no evidence to support the claims in this letter.'"

And apparently, the matter was simply dropped.  It apparently wasn't the first time.  Jesse Trentadue also brought the matter to the attention of Senator Orrin Hatch back in 1997, when Hatch was Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.  At that time, Trentadue claims that Hatch promised to conduct hearings on the matter but never followed through.  And we do know that Hatch was aware of the matter because he referenced it on Oct. 10, 1997 on Fox News and stated "There's a lot wrong with this case."  Again, nothing happenned.

As far as the claim that Holder is knee-deep in this scandal, we only have Trentadue's allegations. In the letter to Leahy, Jesse Trentadue states:

"To this day, however, despite the efforts of my family, numerous journalists, and Congress, the Justice Department has been able to hide this terrible story — and its culpability in the death of my brother Kenneth. More importantly, then Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder was assigned to be the point man in blocking my family’s efforts to bring my brother Kenneth Trentadue’s murderers to justice. Now, President-elect Barack Obama has nominated Eric Holder to be the new Attorney General."

"The paper trail on Mr. Holder’s actions is scant. However, e-mails and handwritten notes by those working under Mr. Holder in the Justice Department have surfaced. These documents paint a clear picture of a wide-ranging and cynical scheme, run directly by Mr. Holder, to quash my family’s efforts to have my brother’s murder investigated, and to deflect congressional oversight and media attention from the shocking circumstances of his death.

"According to these documents, a significant part of this plan involved Mr. Holder convincing Congress not to inquire into my brother’s murder. The plan called for Mr. Holder to meet with Senator Hatch on October 9, 1997, just prior to the Justice Department’s issuance of a Press Release announcing that the federal grand jury supposedly 'investigating' my brother’s murder had failed to charge anyone with this crime.

"The stated purpose of this meeting between Mr. Holder and Senator Hatch was to defuse Judiciary Committee oversight and media inquiry into the circumstances of my brother’s death. In fact, one e-mail states that 'we ain’t looking for press on this. Hill takes priority.'”

While it would be premature to come to any conclusions at this point, Trentadue's accusations certainly fall well within the scope of things that need to be investigated.  There are simply too many unanswered questions.  What was the actual cause of Kenny Trentadue's death?  What did Eric Holder know? When did he know it?  And what steps did he (and others) possibly take to cover-up the matter?

It goes without saying that Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace rather than face impeachment... not over his role in what G. Gordon Liddy famously called "a third-rate burglary" but over his role in covering up the Watergate break-in.  Holder and officials at our Justice Department must be held to the same standard.
Posted By: Chris Carmouche