FBI Releases Redacted Informant Manuals In Response To FOIA

Documents obtained by Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue reveal new details about the FBI's rules of conduct for informants.

The FBI released 147 pages of heavily redacted manuals and policies related to the use of informants, in response to a FOIA request by Trentadue, who is engaged in a years-long lawsuit with the FBI over documents related to the Oklahoma City bombing.

Read the documents here

The documents pertain to unspecified training for "confidential human sources," including chain of command, dispute resolutions and other topics. The vast majority of direct guidance to informants is redacted, including even chapter headings.

Trentadue filed a related complaint alleging that the FBI has engaged in a practice of using informants within the news media to receive advance notice of potentially unfavorable stories.

As an exhibit in that complaint, Trentadue submitted an FBI FD-302 record related to a previously reported claim that the Oklahoma City bombing had been carried out by Iraqi intelligence agents, a lead that was of dubious origin and that did not ultimately pan out. The document was previously published on INTELWIRE.

The document states the FBI received information about the Iraq allegation from "a senior official employed by ABC news for over fifteen years," The source had been assigned an identification number and "had provided highly accurate and reliable information in the past."

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