FBI Involvement in Michigan Governor Kidnapping Case Raises Questions of Entrapment
Defense attorneys in the high-profile case depict their clients as reluctant puppets entrapped by the F.B.I. agents and informants whom they say came up with the kidnapping plot.
Landwebs
Defense lawyers for the five men charged with plotting to abduct Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer as payback for her Covid-19 lockdown measures want the case thrown out on entrapment grounds, accusing investigators of “egregious overreaching” by manipulating the accused men to drive the plot forward through the actions of four men who were either government informants or undercover FBI agents, reports the New York Times. One of the most significant recent domestic terrorism cases in history is now bogged down in more than 1,000 hours of secretly recorded conversations as both critics and the defense accuse the FBI of manufacturing complicated, theatrical scenarios rather than pursuing the more complex task of unearthing actual extremist plots.
Prosecutors will attempt to prove that the suspects were inclined toward the violence from the start, their position relying heavily on the testimony of a star informant known as “Big Dan” or “Confidential Human Source-2,” who was paid about $54,000 over the course of the roughly six-month investigation and whose interactions with the suspects are rife throughout the court documents. The F.B.I. deployed at least 12 informants, as well as several undercover agents, some of whom have since been implicated or charged for crimes including domestic violence, perjury, and illegal weapons possession. Defense attorneys depict their clients as reluctant puppets entrapped by the F.B.I. agents and the informants whom they say came up with the kidnapping plot, describing discussions of violence on recordings or in encrypted chats as just inflammatory rhetoric.
