Posted on 12/28/2021 6:56:55 AM PST by Mr. Mojo
The U.S. Department of Justice received an unwelcome Christmas gift from defense attorneys representing five men charged with conspiring to “kidnap” Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020: a motion to dismiss the case.
The Christmas Day filing is the latest blow to the government’s scandal-ridden prosecution; defense counsel is building a convincing argument that the FBI used undercover agents and informants to entrap their clients in a wide-ranging scheme that resulted in bad press for Donald Trump as early voting was underway in the key swing state last year. What began as random social media chatter to oppose lockdown policies quickly morphed into a dangerous plan to abduct Whitmer as soon as the FBI took over.
A Michigan judge delayed the trial, now set for March 8, so defense attorneys could investigate the misconduct of FBI special agents handling at least a dozen government informants involved in the caper.
As I reported last week, the lead prosecutor recently informed the judge that three of the FBI’s top agents involved in the case will not take the stand as government witnesses. Richard Trask, the FBI special agent who signed the initial criminal complaint against six men facing federal charges—one man pleaded guilty and is cooperating with authorities—was removed from the case and fired by the FBI after he physically assaulted his wife last summer in a drunken rage following a swingers party at a hotel near their home.
The agents who managed the day-to-day activity of the case’s lead informant also will not testify. FBI agent Jayson Chambers ran a security consulting business on the side; an anonymous Twitter account claiming to represent his firm, Exeintel, dropped hints of pending arrests in the Whitmer case, calling into question his motives as a lead investigator. His partner, FBI agent Henrik Impola, has been accused of committing perjury in a separate case.
“The government does not plan to call Impola, Chambers, or Trask as witnesses,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Birge notified the court on December 17. “[The] government requests the Court exclude evidence relating to Exeintel, the unfounded allegations against SA Impola, and Richard Trask’s domestic assault charges or alleged social media posts.”
Now the judge will consider defense counsel’s latest motion to drop the kidnapping conspiracy charges against Adam Fox, Barry Croft, Kaleb Franks, Dan Harris, and Brandon Caserta; in the April 2021 superseding indictment, which defense attorneys cite in the motion, the Justice Department described the defendants as domestic terrorists who attempted “to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.”
But the real conspiracy—as court documents, testimony, and communications between FBI handlers and their informants show—was concocted by federal operatives working inside and outside the FBI Detroit field office.
“In this Case, the undisputed evidence, as demonstrated in forty-four pages of statements already submitted to the Court, establishes that government agents and informants concocted, hatched, and pushed this ‘kidnapping plan’ from the beginning, doing so against defendants who explicitly repudiated the plan,” the five defense attorneys wrote in the December 25 motion. “When the government was faced with evidence showing that the defendants had no interest in a kidnapping plot, it refused to accept failure and continued to push its plan.”
The FBI funded and organized two “militia” conferences in the summer of 2020 to lure would-be kidnappers; handled all expenses so indigent defendants could attend surveillance and training excursions, which were photographed by the government to use as evidence; and paid cash to numerous informants, including at least $50,000 to the lead informant, known as “Big Dan” to the unwitting suspects.
A footnote in the 20-page filing explained how “Big Dan” and other informants acted as the monetary pass-through between the FBI and the Whitmer defendants. “The government was not going to be deterred by the fact that the defendants did not have the money to travel throughout the Midwest in order to play along with the CHSs and undercover agents. CHS Dan, while often claiming poverty, always had the resources to drive, feed, and house others whom he hoped to pull into the government plan. Another CHS convinced many that he would finance operations through a 501(c)(3) charity and would even provide debit cards to others, drawing on his accounts. So while the defendants had no interest in profit . . . the government’s exploitation of its virtually unlimited resources, poured into its investigation, further underscores entrapment as a matter of law.” This included informants’ picking up the tab for food, lodging, and gas among other expenses.
Defense attorneys cited several examples of exchanges where defendants pushed back on suggestions to kidnap Whitmer; at one point, “Big Dan” raised the idea of putting a “round of bullets” into a window at Whitmer’s cottage, the location of the would-be abduction, and suggested they “mail the casings to the news.” The agents and informants, according to defense attorneys, “continued to push to shape a kidnapping plan, even trying to elevate it to murder.”
And it isn’t just FBI agents causing headaches for the government. Stephen Robeson, a convicted felon and longtime FBI informant who planned several kidnapping-related outings including a militia conference in Ohio, recently pleaded guilty to illegally purchasing and possessing a sniper rifle in 2020. The government offered Robeson a sweetheart deal—time served on a felony charge with a potential 10-year prison term, two years probation, and $100 fine—and he will be sentenced in February, a month before the Whitmer trial is scheduled to begin.
The Justice Department won’t confirm whether Robeson will testify; given his central role in the plot and criminal history, including statutory rape, and the misconduct of his FBI handlers, it’s hard to see how Robeson’s testimony would help the government’s case.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, insist the suggestion that the FBI was responsible for the Whitmer kidnapping plot is a factless fantasy peddled by the same people who claim January 6 was an inside job. “The conspiracy theory that the FBI instigated the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol to entrap otherwise law-abiding citizens has been actively promoted by certain media outlets,” the government sneered in a recent motion, referring to Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
And therein lies the government’s biggest headache of all. If a trial showcases all the ways in which the FBI orchestrated the Whitmer kidnapping plan from start to finish—and the defense features the lowlife agents and informants who made it possible—the public will demand a similar reckoning about the FBI’s role in January 6.
At this point, perhaps the Justice Department should pray that the judge rules in favor of the defense and dismisses the case before the FBI is further embarrassed—and exposed.
The FBI that instigated it MUST BE EXPOSED AND PROSECUTED!!
The FBI has become a criminal organization. It should be entirely disbanded.
L
Wheres RAY EPPS?
Kinda makes you wonder who you can really trust doesn’t it?
You can’t make this stuff up because truth is stranger than fiction.
re: “Wheres RAY EPPS?”
Planning his next “insurrection” on a ranch in Arizona?
In order to be accepted into the FBI, you must meet the highest standards of dishonesty and incompetence. Good men anf women need not apply.
The case will be dumped before that has any chance of happening.
-My Cousin Vinnie
Ray Epps has made the Daily Mail.
dailmail.co.uk has an article on this today! go see.
If we take back the House and Senate next year, there needs to be serious ramifications for crooked FBI/DOJ officials who allowed themselves to become weaponized by the leftist.
This is insane and un-American at it’s core. The FBI is as corrupt as the day is long.
So, where are the whistleblowers within the agency? Hillary scandal coverups at State Dept., Uranium deal with Russia, Private server to circumvent congressional oversight, sensitive documents found on Pedo Weiner’s laptop, Hunter’s laptop with treasure trove of corruption evidence, FBI helping during the Russia hoax against a candidate/president. Perverting an American election and soft coup against a sitting president.
Damn...I could go on and on...but ya get the point. I know it is likely the FBI and or other intelligence is monitoring conservative websites. So there ya go!
Not ONE whistleblower with these agencies? Not ONE patriotic American who has witnessed corruption in the FBI/DOJ? No one went home at the end of the day, faced their wives and said...what I saw/heard today is un-American, illegal and goes against my oath to the constitution? Looking at themselves in the mirror while brushing their teeth thinking, man oh man, I’ve got to report this!
No, there is not. They’ve closed ranks to protect themselves.
Absolutely shameful!
What do you mean “we”? RINOs and Assistant Democrats are not “We”.
“I know it is likely the FBI and or other intelligence is monitoring conservative websites.”
More problematic is that they are surveilling politicians. Trump isn’t the only one they spied on. Remember that Hillary stole all those FBI files on her political opponents, and that was back in the 90s before everything was on the internet. One can only imagine the amount of dirt the FBI/NSA/CIA has on every politician today.
That’s why they will never be defunded or disbanded, no matter how many Republicans get elected.
If these alphabets know of corruption and hide it, they are accessories to those crimes. It’s just that simple.
Of course they are accessories. And of course they will hide it, because the information is useless to them if they release it to the public, but if they keep it secret, then they can wield the power of elected office without actually ever having to win an election.
Defund the FBI!
These people are such a joke. When this first got out there I was posting pics of the so called “kidnappers” and they were all leftists.
Did the incompetent FBI director Wray propose or sign off on this FBI sting operation?
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