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 For Immediate Release
May 30, 2001 Contact: Press Office
202-646-5172
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT AGREES TO EXPEDITE JUDICIAL WATCH REQUEST FOR MCVEIGH DOCUMENTS

Public Interest Law Firm Investigating Oklahoma City Bombing Document Handling and Search


(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch, the public interest law firm that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, received assurances last week from the Bush Justice Department that Judicial Watch’s request for documents concerning the untimely production of documents to Timothy McVeigh concerning the Oklahoma City bombing would be responded to on an expedited basis. Judicial Watch requested the documents under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) on May 16, 2001.

Judicial Watch had asked for the expedited handling of its FOIA request in the public interest. The Bush Justice Department agreed in a May 22 letter that the request implicated “possible questions about the government’s integrity which affect public confidence.” In Judicial Watch’s long experience with the Freedom of Information Act, it is a rare occurrence when a government agency agrees to expedited handling of a FOIA request.

Judicial Watch is seeking to investigate the mishandling of the documents by the FBI. In recent years, the FBI and its parent Justice Department have been embroiled in a number of scandals concerning evidence and documents in such matters as Ruby Ridge, Waco, communist China’s efforts to subvert our democracy with illegal campaign contributions to Clinton-Gore and some Republicans, the Olympic City bombing, and the FBI files of hundreds of Reagan and Bush (I) officials (Filegate).

“The Bush Justice Department has taken an appropriate step in granting expedited treatment of Judicial Watch’s FOIA request. The next step, of course, is to clean up the FBI. Justice for the mass murder of Americans in Oklahoma must be clean and free of reasonable doubt. And those FBI and other government officials who have harmed America’s faith in its judicial system must be held to account,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

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