Blowback Is Coming... 7/22/25
New Book on Oklahoma City Bombing Debuts This Month
NOTE: This book preview was published on LewRockwell.com July 7th.
From 2024 into 2025, over roughly 9-10 months, I worked with journalist Margaret Roberts on her upcoming book, titled Blowback: The Untold Story of the FBI and the Oklahoma City Bombing. My role was that of a research consultant—a friendly resource available to help with a project that I viewed as significant and a righteous undertaking. It was both a pleasure and an honor to collaborate on this project.
Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue connected me with Roberts, whom he knew for years (read all about that in the book), to help with the book: reading, fact-checking, providing sources and documents, answering questions—I’d be her “foxhole buddy” in what we saw as a mammoth battle not unlike David versus Goliath: after all, the full power of the federal government has been used, over the years, to stop and silence investigation into Kenneth Trentadue’s murder and any probing of America’s deadliest domestic terror attack.
Over the years, investigations that were supposed to be conducted went by the wayside—the Senate Judiciary Committee’s proposed hearings on Kenneth’s murder were sabotaged; Bombing-related stories set to air on ABC News 20/20 were canceled after DOJ pressure, and witnesses in the case suddenly went missing or became reluctant to speak after visits from the FBI.
We knew it would be an uphill battle. Knowing this to be true, I had no reservations: from the moment Jesse called me in February 2024 and told me about the project, I said “count me in.”
After that phone call, I was introduced to the author, and we started having weekly discussions. I went into it excited, having just finished serving in a similar capacity for HBO/Max’s Emmy-nominated documentary film “An American Bombing: the Road to April 19th” where I was a research consultant—providing documents, questions to ask witnesses, and detailed information that the documentary filmmakers needed to tell the story right.
I was eager to jump right into the fray and do it again, because if anything, I’m all about collaboration and sharing material if it will advance the mutual struggle to bring truth to the forefront.
America’s Most Wanted Alumnus Tackles The Story
Margaret Roberts is an award-winning journalist. One of her early stories for the Chicago Lawyer detailed the case of a man wrongly convicted of abducting and murdering a couple, along with three other men. They were called the ‘Ford Heights Four,’ and Roberts’ initial story focused on one of them, Dennis Williams, who was sentenced to death.
Roberts and editor Rob Warden’s reporting on the case uncovered the truth and helped ensure justice was achieved — a challenging feat, especially after a man is condemned to death by the justice system. With the stakes as high as they were—a man’s life in the balance—the man’s only recourse turned out to be not our judicial system, but the combined efforts of dedicated investigative journalists.
Roberts’ story, co-bylined with editor Rob Warden, “Will We Execute an Innocent Man?” won journalism awards in Chicago, and later Newsweek featured it as a cover story on the death penalty. Thanks to Margaret Roberts’s reporting, an innocent man was exonerated along with his three co-defendants. Cook County, Illinois, ended up paying $36 million to the four wrongfully imprisoned men, the highest settlement ever paid at that time for such a case.
Following her time in print media, Roberts went on to become News Director for America’s Most Wanted — a TV show all about capturing the bad guys. As a reporter, and a news junkie, it was a perfect fit for Roberts. The very first episode of the show led to the apprehension of a violent criminal, and she knew a thing or two about broadcasting leads to the public—and covering the facts to help pursue the guilty.
By 1995, Roberts had moved on from America’s Most Wanted and was working on other projects, but the bombing story caught her attention as an avid news junkie—especially the unknown and unidentified suspect “John Doe #2,” something that she and I both shared a fascination with. We had both independently investigated this case for over 15 years when we were introduced, diligently following it with determination.
Working on The Book
I would like to share some of my thoughts about the process of writing the book, working with Margaret Roberts, and how our successful partnership was personally fulfilling for me. I did not see it as ‘work’—to me, it was ‘fun’!
Like the fictional characters from TV’s ‘The X-Files’ called “The Lone Gunmen” (pictured below), I saw this as an opportunity to bring a really “out there” truth into the mainstream, even though the odds were against us, just like the fictional muckrakers. Margaret Roberts was exactly what we needed to bring the truth to a new audience.
One of my tasks during the writing process was to keep track of the endnotes for the book. Margaret (or ‘Mars’ as I’d call her) would identify passages she wanted citations for, and I would add and keep track of our sources. Many times, she knew the source for the citation, and other times, I would go look it up in my archive (consisting of thousands of news clippings, magazine articles, transcripts, FBI documents, etc.) The Archive proved to be useful when working on the book both by making it easy to locate source materials, but also in allowing us to incorporate previously unknown (or forgotten) details found in related clippings.
As we worked on the book, I came across instances where I believed we could document a little-known or underreported fact that was directly related to the text. To that end, some items in the book are there because I brought them to Mars’s attention, and we worked together to capture the essence: after informing Mars of one thing or another, I would explain why I thought certain details were relevant and essential—and, doing her due diligence, Roberts required me to prove the authenticity of whatever I was saying.
I’d provide the background documentation and my overview, but basically, I needed to ‘prove’ my case to her, which shows just how careful and analytical she was being. Everything I introduced had to be solid and provable—no theories. As Roberts wrote on X, our collaboration involved “the careful process of weighing the evidence” — and getting it right.
Additionally, I also learned many new facts from Roberts’ investigation—in no small part because she is the only journalist to have ever interviewed Terry Nichols—one of McVeigh’s co-conspirators in the bombing—and possessed many letters, writings, and documents given to her by Terry Nichols’s attorney, Jesse Trentadue.
I had not seen this material before, and reviewing it added significant context to information that was, in some cases, entirely new for me. We called this material “The Nichols Dossier.” It was a sizable collection of Terry Nichols’s writings, where he details various aspects of the bombing plot, and the material is central to one of the book’s chapters.
Through Terry Nichols’s writings, Roberts uncovered a wealth of material that sheds new light on the case — at least to the public — and for the first time in print.
Roberts also interviewed Aryan Republican Army founder Peter Langan in prison, as well as McVeigh's death row cellmate, David Paul Hammer.
This collection of exclusive prison interviews is just one component among several compelling pieces that are woven together to reveal a bigger picture, one that has largely remained untold until now.
Behind The Scenes: Kenneth Trentadue’s Brutal Murder
The book is not just about the Oklahoma City bombing — it also tells the story of the prison murder of Kenneth Michael Trentadue—a man we believe was a John Doe #2 suspect to the FBI, and who was obviously murdered in what appears to have been an ‘enhanced interrogation’ gone horribly wrong.
The authorities at the prison deemed it a suicide by hanging.
Judge for yourself if that’s the case, and notice all of the blood from a so-called “hanging”:
Readers can find a motherlode of evidence relating to the Murder of Kenneth Michael Trentadue and the Cover-Up of that Crime at kennethtrentadue.com including never-before-seen long suppressed crime scene 35mm photos and polaroids long hidden by the DOJ.
This book reveals the inside story of what happened to Kenney Trentadue—how he was murdered and why—and how his attorney brother, Jesse Trentadue, faced obstacle after obstacle while trying to investigate the crime. You’ll learn how evidence continually vanished, cameras malfunctioned, and corrections officers committed perjury during their cover-up. The story also connects to the Oklahoma City bombing. It’s all told within these pages, better than anywhere else, because Jesse Trentadue was there every step of the way to provide crucial context, insight, and documentation.
Readers will feel like a fly on the wall during Jesse Trentadue’s quest for justice, witnessing how he uncovered that his brother’s arrest—in a brown pickup truck at the U.S./Mexico border during the height of the FBI’s John Doe #2 manhunt—and subsequent interrogation and murder were connected to the FBI’s bombing investigation. You will also learn about the struggles Trentadue faced when trying to uncover hidden details about what forces killed his brother.
Trentadue provided damning documentation supporting the fact that his brother was murdered. Furthermore, he explained that his efforts to investigate were blocked at every turn by individuals within the Department of Justice. In fact, Trentadue turned over emails from the White House and DOJ — obtained through the Freedom of Information Act — demonstrating that he faced direct opposition from the highest levels of the Clinton administration’s Justice Department officials. This struggle is detailed in the book, along with the evidence to support it.
Inside Roger Charles and J.D. Cash’s Investigations
Readers will also gain a unique inside perspective on the groundbreaking reporting on the bombing case by journalists J.D. Cash and Roger Charles. Both began investigating the case early, and by 1997 each were deeply involved in following the story, though working independently of one another. Around 2001, a partnership developed and J.D. and Roger began collaborating with several co by-lines in The McCurtain Gazette, where J.D.’s stories had always been published. Roger’s partnership with J.D. lasted until Cash’s death, at 55, in May 2007. The book does a good job in covering both their individual investigative efforts, and their later collaborative pieces from the 2001-2007 period.
For me, the behind-the-scenes story of Roger Charles’ involvement in the investigation was especially meaningful, as Roger had been a close friend for nearly a decade before he tragically passed away in February 2022.
As one of Roger’s many friends said on the tribute wall, “Roger would find the good in others, and mentor them, so as to bring out their best,” and that is exactly what he did with me for the Oklahoma City bombing case—and others. Within the pages of this book you’ll catch glimpses of Roger’s early work for ABC News 20/20 as an investigator with producer Don Thrasher. The book goes on to chronicle Roger’s time working as an investigator for the Stephen Jones defense team—and what ‘secrets’ he found out in that capacity. It’s all material guaranteed to keep the reader glued to the page as J.D. and Roger’s investigation(s) unfolded.
These “behind the scenes” details are made possible by Roger Charles’ reporters notebooks. You see, Roger wrote everything down—he had over 40 notebooks filled with notes from conversations he’d had since 1996. Roger would always write down details of phone conversations, as well. So the chronological notebooks serve to provide a direct insight into details never before reported.
Roger’s notebooks from 2011 to 2014 were especially crucial to the book — where Roger describes a PATCON whistleblower who enters the story — and it’s through Roger’s notebooks that the story comes to life on the pages of the book, bringing with it many troubling questions left unanswered today by the FBI.
If anyone is interested in the true facts concerning the murder of Kenneth Trentadue, this book is for you.
If you’re even slightly curious about the Oklahoma City bombing—and why, today, we still don’t know who John Doe #2 is, this book is for you.
In the era of ‘fake news’ - the weaponization of the FBI - FBI entrapment operations like the Whitmer kidnapping hoax, and the still-unsolved mystery of the January 6th pipe bombs, the book details scenarios that are not too distant from today’s headlines.
As William Shakespeare wrote: “what’s past is prologue” — and as Oscar Wilde so wrote: “the truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
Blowback is coming.
Published by Bombardier books, an imprint of Post Hill Press, and distributed by Simon & Schuster, you can find Blowback anywhere books are sold on July 22, 2025.
On Amazon and Audible
📖 Blowback will be available in hardcover (5.5 x 8.25” 400 pages), 🖫 Ebook/Kindle (381 pages) at $14.99, and 🔊Audiobook via (MP3-CD & Audible) narrated by listener-favorite Cassandra Campbell.
Sign up for updates at blowbackbook.com and follow Mars on X at @BlowbackBook
Can anyone tell me if there were any reports at OKC that match the descriptions given by survivors of the London Billingsgate bombing in 1993 of a huge cloud of water vapour coming from the detonation of the device?
Jesse Trentadue has been fighting for a long time. I had him as a guest on my radio show on 100,000 watt station WRJM in, I think, 2005. His kind of dedication and tenacity is vital for truth and freedom.
Also worth mentioning is the good work done by William F. Jasper and others at The New American Magazine in real time as the investigation (SP) of the OKC inside job was unfolding.
TNA is where I first heard of Jesse Trentadue, and was quick to invite him on The Joe Fondren Show. My listeners found what he had to say very interesting. God speed, Jesse.