May 15 — ABCNEWS has learned that the FBI asked its field offices for materials relating to the Oklahoma City bombing case on 16 separate occasions, including one request from the FBI director requiring written and verbal confirmation of compliance.
Details about the FBI file fiasco continue to emerge as his lawyers pore over the thousands of pages of withheld documents and consider their client's legal options.
The FBI found seven additional documents in the Baltimore field office, a discovery that forced the bureau to order all of its branches to look for more documents — again.
Politicians have clamored in recent days to find out how the agency could have bungled the case.
In Washington today, FBI Director Louis Freeh attended a closed hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee on the subject of Robert Hanssen, an FBI agent accused of spying for Russia, but the topic of the McVeigh files was discussed. Special Agent in Charge Danny Defenbaugh, the Oklahoma City agent at the center of the file fiasco, accompanied Freeh to the hearing, but apparently did not address the senators.
After the hearing, Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said the FBI had committed "too many failures, too many blunders."
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Perhaps some letters to Mr. Shelby re: Flight 800!
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