Two Acquitted in Whitmer Case, FBI Misconduct Central

[Auburnfan91 1,408]

Two Acquitted in Whitmer Case, FBI Misconduct Central

In a huge defeat for the U.S. Department of Justice, a jury today acquitted two men accused of conspiring to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in the fall of 2020.

 

By Julie Kelly

April 8, 2022

 

In a huge defeat for the U.S. Department of Justice, a jury today acquitted two men accused of conspiring to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in the fall of 2020 and deadlocked on a verdict for two other defendants. The verdicts were announced at the Gerald R. Ford Federal Building in Grand Rapids after more than four days of deliberations; jurors heard 13 days of testimony in a case the government considered one of its biggest domestic terrorism investigations ever.

Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta of Michigan were found not guilty of conspiring “to unlawfully seize, confine, kidnap, abduct and carry away, and hold for ransom and reward, or otherwise, the Governor of the State of Michigan.” Jurors could not reach a unanimous decision for Adam Fox, the alleged ringleader, and Barry Croft, Jr., resulting in a mistrial.

Harris was also found not guilty on charges of conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction for allegedly attempting to build an explosive device to use in the abduction scheme and other firearms charges.

Jurors this morning notified Chief U.S. District Court Judge Robert Jonker that they had reached a verdict on several charges but were deadlocked on others. Jonker urged the jury of six men and six women to continue deliberating under a soft “Allen charge,” which instructs jurors to keep pushing for a unanimous verdict but they later notified Jonker the outcome was the same.

Defense attorneys had argued—successfully, it would appear—that their clients were entrapped by the FBI; at least a dozen FBI confidential human sources and undercover agents working out of numerous FBI field offices were deeply embedded in the plot. 

Jonker ruled before the trial began on March 8 that defense counsel could not raise the entrapment issue until the government rested its case, but that plan was quickly scuttled when it became obvious the four defense attorneys were unable effectively to represent their clients without demonstrating the FBI’s extensive involvement. To prove entrapment, the defense had to convince the jury that the government induced the criminal behavior and the defendants lacked predisposition to carry out the kidnapping conspiracy on their own.

Against the objections of prosecutors, Jonker notified the jury last Friday they could consider entrapment. Jonker advised jurors to ask themselves whether “the agent or informant persuade[d] the defendant who is not already willing to commit a crime to do something illegal?”

A roster of FBI agents and experts took the stand during the three-week trial, which was temporarily delayed due to one participant’s COVID diagnosis; Dan Chappel, the lead informant and government’s star witness known as “Big Dan,” explained how he brought the makeshift group of alleged “militia” members together after he was hired by the FBI in March 2020. Chappel created encrypted chat groups and organized excursions for field training and surveillance of Whitmer’s cottage. (He, along with other FBI informants, posed as leaders of two “militia” groups, at least one of which was created by the FBI.)

For his work over a six-month period, Chappel, a truck driver for a U.S. Postal Service subcontractor, was compensated at least $60,000 by the FBI in cash and gifts such as a new laptop, tires, and a smart watch.

Prosecutors mostly relied on conversations secretly recorded by FBI assets as evidence of wrongdoing; two men charged in the same indictment had pleaded guilty and testified for the government in exchange for lighter prison sentences.

Jurors heard defendants make inflammatory, and on some occasions, violent comments about the Democratic governor, who is up for re-election this year. Foxl lived at the time in the dilapidated cellar of a Grand Rapids vacuum repair shop with no running water or toilet; Chappel texted Fox at least 1,000 times between June and early October, cultivating a close relationship with the otherwise friendless and sparsely-employed outcast. On at least five occasions, Chappel offered Fox a $5,000 credit card, which Fox repeatedly refused.

In his closing remarks last Friday, assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler dismissed defense arguments that the evidence merely amounted to “crazy talk” by disgruntled misfits high on marijuana. “In America, there’s a lot of things you can do. You can criticize the government publicly, absolutely,” Kessler told jurors. “If you don’t like elected leaders, you can vote them out at the ballot box. What you can’t do is kidnap them, kill them, or blow them up. It wasn’t just talk.”

But defense attorneys angrily condemned the FBI’s sting operation. “When I look at what happened in this case, I am ashamed of the behavior of the leading law enforcement agency in the United States,” Joshua Blanchard, Croft’s public defender, said during his closing argument. Christopher Gibbons, Fox’s public defender, called the government’s conduct “unacceptable in America. That’s not how it works. They don’t make terrorists so we can arrest them.”

The case produced damaging headlines for Donald Trump in October 2020 just as millions of Americans were already voting for president, including in the crucial swing state of Michigan. During a dramatic speech on October 8, 2020, Whitmer blamed Trump for “stoking distrust, fomenting anger, and giving comfort to those who spread fear and hatred” and for refusing to condemn “hate groups like these two Michigan militia groups.” Joe Biden accused Trump of sending “dog whistles” to white supremacist militias, later telling reporters it was “despicable” and “beneath the office of the presidency” that Trump allegedly encouraged the would-be kidnappers.

Biden also thanked the FBI for a job well done—but the agency has been mired in scandal related to the case ever since. Richard Trask, the special agent in charge at the Detroit FBI field office, was fired last summer after he was arrested for assaulting his wife in a drunken rage following a swingers party. Reporters also found anti-Trump sentiment on Trask’s Facebook page.

Two other FBI agents who handled Chappel were removed from the government’s witness list amid accusations of unethical conduct. Stephen Robeson, a longtime FBI informant and convicted felon, also was fired for committing at least two other crimes while working on the Whitmer investigation. Known to the defendants as “Steve,” Robeson coordinated numerous events including a militia conference in Dublin, Ohio in June 2020 and training exercises in his home state of Wisconsin. After the government accused him of acting as a “double agent” and Robeson threatened to plead the Fifth, Judge Jonker denied defense counsel’s motion to compel his testimony.

Harris and Caserta, who have been incarcerated since their arrests in October 2020, were released from custody. Fox and Croft will remain in prison as the government decides its next move.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/04/08/two-acquitted-in-whitmer-case-fbi-misconduct-central/

[SaturdayGT 719]

Our FBI is kinda looking like the KGB at their worst...its the new American way....

[DKW 86 7,537]

The echo of this case will hang in the air in Washington for decades. There is going to be law and study of it from now on.

If i was Defense Counsel in an FBI case, I would spend the first 4-5 days of my time on the clock on the WARRANTS ALONE.

Seems you can see into their mind by how they went after the right to chase a suspect. I would also be looking for anything that would disqualify the warrant. It seems, after Clinesmith, that the FBI was John Wayning their warrant application process. I bet there are judges all across America ready to toss an FBI Cases over bad warrants. 

Just for drama, I would withold my objections until the day before the trial and likely get all or a major portion of the case tossed out.

Edited April 9, 2022 by DKW 86

[DKW 86 7,537]

9 hours ago, SaturdayGT said:

Our FBI is kinda looking like the KGB at their worst...its the new American way....

Gestapo....

[DKW 86 7,537]

10 hours ago, Auburnfan91 said:

In a huge defeat for the U.S. Department of Justice, a jury today acquitted two men accused of conspiring to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in the fall of 2020 and deadlocked on a verdict for two other defendants. The verdicts were announced at the Gerald R. Ford Federal Building in Grand Rapids after more than four days of deliberations; jurors heard 13 days of testimony in a case the government considered one of its biggest domestic terrorism investigations ever.

Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta of Michigan were found not guilty of conspiring “to unlawfully seize, confine, kidnap, abduct and carry away, and hold for ransom and reward, or otherwise, the Governor of the State of Michigan.” Jurors could not reach a unanimous decision for Adam Fox, the alleged ringleader, and Barry Croft, Jr., resulting in a mistrial.

Harris was also found not guilty on charges of conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction for allegedly attempting to build an explosive device to use in the abduction scheme and other firearms charges.

Defense attorneys had argued—successfully, it would appear—that their clients were entrapped by the FBI; at least a dozen FBI confidential human sources and undercover agents working out of numerous FBI field offices were deeply embedded in the plot. 

Jonker ruled before the trial began on March 8 that defense counsel could not raise the entrapment issue until the government rested its case, but that plan was quickly scuttled when it became obvious the four defense attorneys were unable effectively to represent their clients without demonstrating the FBI’s extensive involvement. To prove entrapment, the defense had to convince the jury that the government induced the criminal behavior and the defendants lacked predisposition to carry out the kidnapping conspiracy on their own.

Against the objections of prosecutors, Jonker notified the jury last Friday they could consider entrapment. Jonker advised jurors to ask themselves whether “the agent or informant persuade[d] the defendant who is not already willing to commit a crime to do something illegal?”

A roster of FBI agents and experts took the stand during the three-week trial, which was temporarily delayed due to one participant’s COVID diagnosis; Dan Chappel, the lead informant and government’s star witness known as “Big Dan,” explained how he brought the makeshift group of alleged “militia” members together after he was hired by the FBI in March 2020. Chappel created encrypted chat groups and organized excursions for field training and surveillance of Whitmer’s cottage. (He, along with other FBI informants, posed as leaders of two “militia” groups, at least one of which was created by the FBI.)

For his work over a six-month period, Chappel, a truck driver for a U.S. Postal Service subcontractor, was compensated at least $60,000 by the FBI in cash and gifts such as a new laptop, tires, and a smart watch.

WTF? $10K/Month I am in the wrong ******* business...

Prosecutors mostly relied on conversations secretly recorded by FBI assets as evidence of wrongdoing; two men charged in the same indictment had pleaded guilty and testified for the government in exchange for lighter prison sentences.

Jurors heard defendants make inflammatory, and on some occasions, violent comments about the Democratic governor, who is up for re-election this year. Foxl lived at the time in the dilapidated cellar of a Grand Rapids vacuum repair shop with no running water or toilet; Chappel texted Fox at least 1,000 times between June and early October, cultivating a close relationship with the otherwise friendless and sparsely-employed outcast. On at least five occasions, Chappel offered Fox a $5,000 credit card, which Fox repeatedly refused.

In his closing remarks last Friday, assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler dismissed defense arguments that the evidence merely amounted to “crazy talk” by disgruntled misfits high on marijuana. “In America, there’s a lot of things you can do. You can criticize the government publicly, absolutely,” Kessler told jurors. “If you don’t like elected leaders, you can vote them out at the ballot box. What you can’t do is kidnap them, kill them, or blow them up. It wasn’t just talk.”

But defense attorneys angrily condemned the FBI’s sting operation. “When I look at what happened in this case, I am ashamed of the behavior of the leading law enforcement agency in the United States,” Joshua Blanchard, Croft’s public defender, said during his closing argument. Christopher Gibbons, Fox’s public defender, called the government’s conduct “unacceptable in America. That’s not how it works. They don’t make terrorists so we can arrest them.”

The case produced damaging headlines for Donald Trump in October 2020 just as millions of Americans were already voting for president, including in the crucial swing state of Michigan. During a dramatic speech on October 8, 2020, Whitmer blamed Trump for “stoking distrust, fomenting anger, and giving comfort to those who spread fear and hatred” and for refusing to condemn “hate groups like these two Michigan militia groups.” Joe Biden accused Trump of sending “dog whistles” to white supremacist militias, later telling reporters it was “despicable” and “beneath the office of the presidency” that Trump allegedly encouraged the would-be kidnappers.

Biden also thanked the FBI for a job well done—but the agency has been mired in scandal related to the case ever since. Richard Trask, the special agent in charge at the Detroit FBI field office, was fired last summer after he was arrested for assaulting his wife in a drunken rage following a swingers party. Reporters also found anti-Trump sentiment on Trask’s Facebook page.

Sometimes you cant make this s*** up. Domestic Abuser, Swinger, Drunkard, FBI Agent.

Two other FBI agents who handled Chappel were removed from the government’s witness list amid accusations of unethical conduct. Stephen Robeson, a longtime FBI informant and convicted felon, also was fired for committing at least two other crimes while working on the Whitmer investigation. Known to the defendants as “Steve,” Robeson coordinated numerous events including a militia conference in Dublin, Ohio in June 2020 and training exercises in his home state of Wisconsin. After the government accused him of acting as a “double agent” and Robeson threatened to plead the Fifth, Judge Jonker denied defense counsel’s motion to compel his testimony.

Harris and Caserta, who have been incarcerated since their arrests in October 2020, were released from custody. Fox and Croft will remain in prison as the government decides its next move.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/04/08/two-acquitted-in-whitmer-case-fbi-misconduct-central/

By my count 5? FBI Agents have been removed from the case as well as an FBI Informant that committed two felonies while working for the FBI...

When you read all that remember: THE FBI WAS TOTALLY OUTCLASSED BY A COUPLE OF PUBLIC DEFENDERS. THAT IS HOW BAD THE FBI'S CASE TRULY WAS. MINIMUM PAY PUBLIC DEFENDERS HANDED THEM ONE OF THE WORST LOSSES IN THE HISTORY OF THE FBI.

Edited April 9, 2022 by DKW 86

[AUDub 11,286]

 

[bigbird 60,624]

13 hours ago, AUDub said:

 

I wish more people were slower in their rush to judgement. A lot of the hyperbolic takes and emotional responses would dissipate and we'd all be better for it. Thanks for posting that.

[homersapien 11,654]

4 hours ago, bigbird said:

I wish more people were slower in their rush to judgement. A lot of the hyperbolic takes and emotional responses would dissipate and we'd all be better for it. Thanks for posting that.

Including Hunter Biden's laptop?

[bigbird 60,624]

22 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Including Hunter Biden's laptop?

Exactly!

To just dismiss it without discussion or investigation is just plain dumb.

[homersapien 11,654]

8 minutes ago, bigbird said:

Exactly!

To just dismiss it without discussion or investigation is just plain dumb.

I agree. 

As is promoting it as a conspiratorial crime without any factual basis for doing so. 

Edited April 10, 2022 by homersapien

[bigbird 60,624]

Just now, homersapien said:

I agree. 

As is promoting it as a conspiratorial crime without any factual basis for doing so. 

Like Russia? Collusion? Coup?

[aubaseball 2,709]

1 minute ago, homersapien said:

I agree. 

As is promoting it as a conspiratorial crime without any factual basis for doing so. 

Just ask the big guy 

[homersapien 11,654]

34 minutes ago, bigbird said:

Like Russia? Collusion? Coup?

Are you saying there are no facts or evidenc to support  arguments that:

- Russia tried to help Trump in the election?

- Trump's campaign welcomed any such help Russia might offer?

- There was a good reason to conduct Mueller's investigation? 

- The 1/6 capitol break-in was a seditious attempt to alter the outcome of a legal election?

What are you trying to say? 

More importantly, that's all history.  Who's currently promoting any of this stuff?  Hell, I see "Hunter" signs on the hwy driving into town.

But like I said, I am all in for investigating Hunter's activities. The sooner the better.

 

 

Edited April 10, 2022 by homersapien

[DKW 86 7,537]

On 4/10/2022 at 2:05 PM, homersapien said:

Are you saying there are no facts or evidenc to support  arguments that:

- Russia tried to help Trump in the election?

- Trump's campaign welcomed any such help Russia might offer?

- There was a good reason to conduct Mueller's investigation? 

- The 1/6 capitol break-in was a seditious attempt to alter the outcome of a legal election?

What are you trying to say? 

More importantly, that's all history.  Who's currently promoting any of this stuff?  Hell, I see "Hunter" signs on the hwy driving into town.

But like I said, I am all in for investigating Hunter's activities. The sooner the better.

We endured 4 years of freakish over the top speculation and hyperbole from every news source etc. 

Hunter's laptop was instantly dismissed and then AFTER almost a year is suddenly being talked about. 

The two are in no ways comparable. One was an obscene rush to judgement that ultimately fizzled out. The other was an almost year long reflective  story development.  

Edited April 13, 2022 by DKW 86

[bigbird 60,624]

3 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

We endured 4 years of freakish over the top speculation and hyperbole from every news source etc. 

Hunter's laptop was instantly dismissed and then AFTER almost a year is suddenly being talked about. 

The two are in no ways comparable. One was an obscene rush to judgement that ultimate fizzled out. The other was an almost year long reflective  story development.  

How is that even up for debate?

[aubiefifty 17,470]

17 hours ago, bigbird said:

Exactly!

To just dismiss it without discussion or investigation is just plain dumb.

BIRD it would be close but i believe you could take homie.........................lol. at the least do a flyover over his freshly washed vehicle................snickers

 

[I_M4_AU 8,231]

23 hours ago, bigbird said:

Like Russia? Collusion? Coup?

 

[AUFAN78 3,952]

https://amgreatness.com/2022/04/09/justice-has-been-and-will-be-a-long-time-coming/

[I_M4_AU 8,231]

On 4/11/2022 at 8:17 AM, aubiefifty said:

BIRD it would be close but i believe you could take homie.........................lol. at the least do a flyover over his freshly washed vehicle................snickers

 

It appears @bigbird took your advise, but went full ballistic on the President.  Prove me wrong.

 

 

[aubiefifty 17,470]

18 hours ago, I_M4_AU said:

It appears @bigbird took your advise, but went full ballistic on the President.  Prove me wrong.

 

 

It's no secret President Joe Biden is unpopular in Iowa.

He came in fourth during the 2020 Iowa caucuses. And he lost the state by 8 percentage points to former President Donald Trump during the general election. Nearly 60% of Iowans disapprove of the job he's currently doing.

And now, according to some reports, even the birds in Hawkeye State have expressed their disappointment. A video of something falling on Biden's lapel at an Iowa ethanol plant Tuesday was widely characterized on the internet as bird poop.

 

Sorry, internet. That wasn't bird poop that fell on President Joe Biden when he visited an Iowa ethanol plant. It was distillers grain.

 

But it wasn't a "feathered fiend" relieving itself as characterized by the Daily Mail, a British tabloid. While there were birds in the "giant barn" where Biden spoke, according to a Des Moines Register photographer who was in the event in Menlo, Iowa, the substance that stained Biden's jacket was in fact distillers grains.

More: President Joe Biden in Iowa OKs more ethanol use to cut gas prices, pitches plan to improve rural America

Distillers grains is "a co-product of the ethanol production process," according to the Iowa Iowa Corn Growers Association. The grains were piled 20 feet high at the site of Biden's speech.

 

A 20-foot pile of distillers grains served as part of the backdrop of President Joe Biden's speech in Iowa Tuesday.

 

More: Here's what we learned during Biden's visit to Iowa

Biden announced he was directing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to use an emergency waiver to allow sale of gasoline with 15% ethanol, called E15, to help boost fuel supplies over the summer.

Biden and ethanol supporters say this will help lower gas prices, which have reached record highs.

[bigbird 60,624]

Not directed at you, 50

 

It's sad that there are articles trying to dispell/confirm whether a bird crapped on the president.  If so, big deal...nature. If not, who cares...

How we've descended to this type of thirst and reporting is mind boggling

[I_M4_AU 8,231]

2 hours ago, bigbird said:

Not directed at you, 50

 

It's sad that there are articles trying to dispell/confirm whether a bird crapped on the president.  If so, big deal...nature. If not, who cares...

How we've descended to this type of thirst and reporting is mind boggling

This reporting, whether true or not, reminds me of the VP debate in 2020.  The only thing reported on the day after was the fly.

[DKW 86 7,537]

Inside FBI’s probe and entrapment of a Michigan militia crew (nypost.com)

The FBI got walloped last week when a Michigan jury concluded that the bureau had entrapped two men accused of plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Those men and others were arrested a few weeks before the 2020 election in a high-profile, FBI-fabricated case that Joe Biden claimed showed President Trump’s “tolerance of hate, vengeance, and lawlessness to plots such as this one.” But the jury verdict exposes how the feds have created the monsters they parade to vindicate their vast power over Americans.

Michigan was a swing state in the 2020 election. When the arrests were announced, Whitmer speedily denounced Trump for inciting “domestic terrorism.” 

Biden won the 2020 election because of the early voting, and the Michigan kidnapping plot was one of the biggest stories in October 2020. Prior to the presidential election, Attorney General Bill Barr assured that news did not leak about multiple federal investigations into Hunter Biden. But the FBI felt no such constraints and trumpeted a ludicrous scheme that was shot down even by a jury that a federal judge had largely blindfolded. 

Pains of lockdown 

Whitmer enraged many Michiganders by placing the entire state under house arrest after the outbreak of COVID-19. Anyone who left their home to visit family or friends risked a $1,000 fine, and business owners faced 3 years in prison for refusing to close their stores. Unemployment soared to 24% statewide, but Whitmer’s policies failed to prevent more than 2 million Michiganders from contracting COVID.

Then Attorney General Bill Barr targeted states such as Michigan for imposing strict lockdown orders during the pandemic.

Michael Reynolds/Pool via AP, File

Whitmer was denounced at protests and on the Facebook page of the “Wolverine Watchmen,” where angry anti-government bluster poured forth. Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg testified to Congress in October 2020 that Facebook had “identified” the Whitmer kidnap plot “as a signal to the FBI about six months ago” regarding “suspicious activity on our platform.” 

But the plot didn’t exist at that point. 

That is, until multiple government-paid newcomers joined the group. Stephen Robeson, an FBI informant with a list of felonies and other crimes, organized key events to build the movement.

Dan Chapel, another FBI informant who was paid $54,000, became second-in-command and masterminded the military training for the group, even as he helped the feds wiretape their messages.

Citizens in Michigan had every right to demonstrate against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s lockdown orders.

AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File

Though several militia members explicitly opposed kidnapping the governor, Chapel and Robeson helped hatch a ludicrous plot to snatch Whitmer from her vacation home and take her away for trial. FBI operatives took the participants, who prattled idiotically about stealing a Blackhawk helicopter, for drives near Whitmer’s vacation home, which supposedly proved they were going to nab the governor and unleash havoc.

It was all a setup. Shortly before that excursion, an FBI agent texted instructions to Chapel: “Mission is to kill the governor specifically.” There were as many FBI informants and undercover agents as there were purported plotters in this case.

The conspiracy began unraveling even before the trial began last March. Robert Trask, the lead FBI agent and “the public face” of the kidnapping case, was fired after he was arrested for “beating his wife during an argument over an orgy that the two had attended at a hotel in Kalamazoo, Mich.,” The New York Times reported. Two other key FBI agents were sidelined from the case for misconduct (including creating a side hustle with his own cybersecurity firm). 

FBI chief Christopher Wray claims “far-right groups” are fueling domestic violence investigations.

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File

When the arrests were announced in October 2020, a top Justice Department attorney proclaimed that the case showed that “our state and federal governments are working together to keep us all safe.” But the case actually illustrated how the Supreme Court and federal judges have entitled federal agencies to create the crimes they claim to thwart. 

Prior to the 1970s, defendants often successfully challenged entrapment as a violation of due process. But in 1973, the Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, gutted most defenses against government entrapment by focusing almost solely on the “subjective disposition” of the entrapped person. 

If prosecutors can find any inkling of a defendant’s disposition to the crime, then the person is guilty, no matter how outrageous or abusive the government agents’ behavior. Justice William Brennan dissented, warning that the decision could empower law enforcement agents to “round up and jail all ‘predisposed’ individuals.”

FBI informant Dan Chapel allegedly conspired to help the “Wolverine Watchmen,” with military training.

Court Sketch by Forrest Miller

Legal loopholes 

Entrapment operations exploded thanks to those court rulings. Trevor Aaronson, author of “The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism,” estimated that only about 1% of the 500 people charged with international terrorism offenses in the decade after 9/11 were bona fide threats. Thirty times as many were induced by the FBI to behave in ways that prompted their ­arrest. 

Thanks to Supreme Court rulings minimizing entrapment defenses, federal Judge Robert Jonker blocked defense attorneys from informing the jury of almost all the evidence of federal misconduct in the Whitmer case. 

WTF!!!

As BuzzFeed’s Ken Bensinger reported, the jury refused to convict “despite the government’s extraordinary efforts to muzzle the defense . . . Prosecutors went to extraordinary lengths to exclude evidence and witnesses that might undermine their arguments, while winning the right to bring in almost anything favorable to their own side.” 

Even a batcrap crazy Leftwing pub like Buzzfeed saw the DEFENSE was hamstrung by the Judge.

FBI informants Dan Chapel and Stephen Robeson apparently convinced the suspects they could steal a Blackhawk helicopter to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Getty Images

BuzzFeed noted that the judge “ruled that defendants could not inquire about the past conduct of several FBI agents, though the government would be allowed to question the defendants about episodes in their own past.” But the jury saw enough to smell a federal rat. 

What else are they up to?

The Times reported in January that the Michigan case was “one of the most significant recent domestic terrorism cases, a test of Washington’s commitment . . . to pursue far-right groups who seek to kindle a violent, anti-government insurgency.” FBI chief Christopher Wray told Congress last year that the FBI has 2,000 ongoing domestic terrorism investigations. 

How many additional crimes or conspiracies is the FBI fomenting at this moment? Will Americans ever learn what role, if any, the FBI had in goading forward some of those arrested in the Jan. 6 Capitol clash? And what about Team Biden’s efforts to continually expand the definition of dangerous extremist to sanctify its power? 

FBI informant Stephen Robeson was the alleged mastermind behind attempting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

FBI

Last June, the Biden administration revealed that guys who can’t get laid may be terrorist threats due to “involuntary celibate–violent extremism.” 

That terrorist watch list is expanding faster than the list of White House “clarifications” after Biden’s verbal blunders. 

Who entitled the FBI to entrap anyone whose ideas they disapprove? Will the Michigan debacle derail Biden’s campaign to portray government critics as dangerous extremists who must be hounded and suppressed? 

 

 

 

 

 

After the arrests were announced in 2020, Whitmer denounced Trump: “When our leaders meet with, encourage, and or fraternize with domestic terrorists, they legitimize their actions. They are complicit.” But what about politicians who make no effort to control the law enforcement agencies they unleash to punish innocent Americans?

[DKW 86 7,537]

On 4/10/2022 at 6:08 PM, bigbird said:

How is that even up for debate?

I blame the Opioid Crisis myself....

[AUDub 11,286]

So 2 convictions today. For those keeping score, 2 plead guilty in exchange for their testimony,  2 were convicted, and 2 were acquitted.