In the 1960’s, the word was that if you were in a group, the person who pushed hardest for illegal action was likely the FBI informant.
An informant is one thing - some scum bag who, in order to save themselves from jail time will infiltrate organizations and secretly report to a government agency - but according this judge these people are FBI agents.
That's a whole horse of a different color, and it's disgusting.
I thought the FBI was the last government law enforcement agency worthy of respect, but I see it isn't so.
Word from the 60s is the Klan in NC would have gone broke were it not for the undercover FBI agents, as they were the majority of the members who actually paid their dues.
The way it worked (and still works) is that if you get into legal trouble, you may be given an offer: "Do informant work for us, and you will get probation or a reduced sentence".
That's what happened to Randy Weaver. Some undercover FBI induced him to do some gunsmith work on a shotgun, which wound it up as being a fraction of an inch under the legal limit. Then they told him to join a white supremacist group and become an informant, and they would drop charges. He told them to go to hell. Things went downhill from there.