The tangled web: more on the Whitmer kidnapping plot, the FBI, and entrapment
Viva Frei sums it up for you so far:
The Michigan case is especially important because it increasingly appears similar to what may have been going on and what may still be going on with the January 6th “insurrection.”
I also noticed a few interesting details about the Michigan case in this article, such as:
Initially the group focused on discussing police abuse and fantasizing about fighting back, nurturing what an FBI agent in the case later described as ‘a grievance and hatred towards law enforcement,’ BuzzFeed reported.
They were angered by the police killing of black people such as Breonna Taylor and Eric Garner, and white people like LaVoy Finicum, a rancher killed by law enforcement during a standoff in Oregon in 2016.
Certainly not white supremacists.
More about FBI informant “Dan” and the group’s activities [emphasis mine]:
[“Dan”] first wore a wire on April 30, 2020 – when the group attended an anti COVID lockdown protest at the Michigan state Capitol, in Lansing.
The men wore ballistic body armor and held pistols and AR-15 assault rifles.
[Dan] heard chatter about storming the building, and, panicked, surreptitiously informed the FBI who were listening.
To his astonishment, the Capitol guards then stood aside to let the group inside the building, where they were photographed, fully armed, outside the offices.
At that Capitol demonstration the group met another protestor, a man named Adam Fox. They got the idea to invite him to join their group, and it was Dan (who was now second in command) who vetted Fox for the group by talking to him on the phone – from an FBI office. Fox became the most violent and militant of the plotters, and Dan was well aware of his attraction to planning violence from at least the time of that phone call. Not only that, but Dan took him under his wing against the later objections and doubts of some of the group:
One of the founding Watchman, Bellar, became convinced that Fox was out of his mind, BuzzFeed reported, and repeatedly shared those concerns with Dan, court testimony shows.
Morrison, the group’s commanding officer, also expressed reservations about Fox.
But Dan was sure to include Fox in group meetings and to develop his own personal relationship with him.
Fox began referring to Dan as his ‘brother,’ according to Fox’s former fiancé.
Dan’s role in the plot and in the recruitment and retaining of Fox is extremely disturbing.
Still more:
A few weeks later, Dan drove five Watchmen and 6,000 rounds of ammunition to Cambria, Wisconsin, for a national training exercise organized by Stephen Robeson – another person working for the FBI, who had organized in June 2020 a ‘national militia meeting’ in Dublin, Ohio.
Dan rented a Suburban for the weekend, paid for gas, and subsidized food and lodging for the group – all with money from the FBI.
Another FBI informant who was a leader and organizer of militia activities. Would these groups have remained much more loosely affiliated and disorganized had the FBI not been leading the show? I strongly think so.
Speaking of which [emphasis mine]:
By the end of July, Bellar told his fellow Watchmen he was buried in debt and leaving Michigan to move in with his father in South Carolina…
Morrison told the group that he too was temporarily stepping away from the Watchmen, owing to marital issues.
Dan was then left in charge.
The FBI then asked Dan to bring in as many people as possible to the kidnap plot.
Which he then proceeded to do, including some more informants as well.
Dan brought in two more FBI informants – ‘Red,’ a supposed explosives expert, and a man known as Mark.
The group surveilled Whitmer’s home again, with Red talking to the group about the explosives they’d need to pull off the kidnapping.
The FBI informants were the movers and shakers here.
The relevance to January 6th:
On June 15, Congressman Matt Gaetz wrote a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, asking three questions regarding the ‘extent … [to which] the three primary militia groups … [were] infiltrated by agencies of the federal government.’
He wanted to know ‘how many federal undercover agents or confidential informants were present at the Capitol or in the Capitol during the ‘siege,” and ‘how many [of the unindicted Jan. 6 co-conspirators] worked as a confidential informant or as an undercover operative for the federal government.’
He has asked for a response by August 1.
When I first read about the Michigan plot the strong possibility of entrapment occurred to me, probably because of my legal training in the 70s. Going back to what I think was the only post I wrote at the time of the Michigan arrests (October 2020; note the timing in terms of possibly influencing the 2020 election) about the kidnap plot, it’s interesting in particular to look at the comments there.
The first one was from commenter “Richard Aubrey” and it went like this (October 9):
So the fibbies got a dozen nutcases to talk big. I feel better already. Somebody tell the folks in Wauwatosa that their troubles are over.
Could have been worse; five years ago, the fibbies got two jihadis to shoot up a cartoon exhibition in Garland, Tx. It being Texas, they were both dropped on the spot.
That comment certainly has withstood the test of time. And I wrote in that same thread (October 9th):
In many of these conspiracy cases that are halted before they are carried out, an undercover operative is part of the planning stage, and there often is a question of entrapment. The agents tend to know how to get around the charge of entrapment. It’s important to make sure the ideas don’t originate with the agent.
And Richard Aubrey also had this to say at the time:
Wouldn’t be the first time the feds have made use of a mental case to beef up their arrest numbers.
Wiki on the Garland, Texas shooting has a lot on the lawsuit against the feds. It was defeated when the court decided the agent was operating within the rules. Gives you an idea about the rules.
So we can pat ourselves on the back, for what it’s worth – which isn’t very much, unfortunately.
However, the extent of the involvement of the FBI in the Whitmer kidnap plot seems to be even bigger than I suspected. And significant FBI involvement in the Capitol “insurrection” of January 6th doesn’t seem the least bit implausible at this point.
The truly despicable Chris Wray is highly unlikely to provide a truthful response to the important questions being asked by Matt Gaetz, one of the very few Republicans in Congress (along with Gosar of AZ and The Notorious MTG) who seem to care about any of the critical issues surrounding 1/6 being discussed on this blog, or by Julie Kelly at American Greatness, or by the brilliant Darren Beattie at Revolver, whose reporting first alerted Tucker Carlson to the possibility of serious malfeasance by the FBI on and before that day, supposedly the “worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.” In response to the ever-important question of “Cui Bono?”, one can only conclude that it was not Trump or Trump-supporters who benefited from the events of January 6th, but only the corrupt members of our thoroughly corrupt ruling class, i.e. the kakistocracy.
This is big only because it involved Whitmer.
The FBI has been doing this since at least 9-11.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/07/22/fbi-agent-at-center-of-michigan-gov-whitmer-kidnap-probe-assaulted-wife-after-swingers-party-authorities-say/
Morally depraved POS in my opinion.
I live in Michigan and was convinced the day news of the Whitmer kidnap plot came out that the whole thing was a setup by the FBI. It has been clear for a while that the FBI is completely corrupt. What surprises me is that the facts are actually starting to come out.
I’m equally convinced that the FBI had a hand in the events on January 6th. Let’s hope that those facts eventually come out as well.
What was written above about the FBI actions at the Michigan Capital protest reads like a beta-test for Jan. 6th. They had, I believed then and now even more, hoped to get some blood spilled but it didn’t happen.
The closest to murder that happened with any that were involved in the Michigan part was the FBI agent out of Kalamazoo who is charged with beating his wife half to death recently.
Texas Dude:
They were already doing it in the 1970s, when I was in law school.
Gosh, I’m honored. I’m also awed by Neo’s card-file retrieval system. Or maybe it’s her incredible mind.
I had followed some other examples. It also included the fibbies dissing red flags handed to them by ordinary citizens.
Goes back a ways. Knew a couple of guys in high school who did the guns/woods thing during deer season as training in case…this, not the Russians…happened. Our school those years was 7-12 before jr. hi was built. And so we knew a lot of people for some time. They would only talk to people they’d known since seventh grade.
Never thought to ask what actual situations got their attention.
Sixty years ago.
On a side note Viva Frei (real name David Freiheit) has announced he is running for parliament from Montreal in what sounds like the libertarian party. Seems like a good guy who has been really politically activated by the response to Covid.
Lolbertarian Party, please.
Low Empathy Libertines’ Party also acceptable.
Richard Aubrey:
Easy-peasy to find it. I just did a search on the blog for “Whitmer” to see if it would lead me to the previous post I wrote about the incident, when it first happened. Once I found the post, I read it, and then I read the comments there to see what people were saying back then.
neo. I remain honored.
Richard Aubrey:
Well, you certainly hit the nail on the head the moment the news came out about the arrests. It was quite something to see how spot on your comment was back then.
When the incursion into the Capitol occurred, it just didn’t make sense to me. The Trump rally was going to be yuuge. The security should have been massive. The National Guard was offered and refused. The security arrangements were not much more than for a normal day in D.C.
The thing that ticked me off was that Hawley and Cruz were going to offer evidence as to why there should be a short delay in the certification of Biden while an audit was done in the swing states. That never happened because the House and Senate were evacuated. At least the MSM would have had to report the evidence they presented. No more brushing it off as “baseless.”
In many videos I saw there were intruders who were kitted up just like ANTIFA rioters that we saw last summer. There weren’t huge numbers of them, but it appeared they were provocateurs. Were these some of the unindicted co-conspirators?
It’s all very smelly and smacks of a entrapment.
Why would any jury ever take an FBI witness at face value ever again.
They appear more & more corrupt to the core.
“When I first read about the Michigan plot the strong possibility of entrapment occurred to me, probably because of my legal training in the 70s.”
I was tangentially involved with the Michigan Militia back in the 90’s, attended some rallies. Mostly the Brass Roots rallies in conjunction with the LP and gun rights organizations. It’s really trippy seeing a peaceful political protest being watched by cops from surrounding roof tops through rifle scopes, by the way.
It was commonly said at the time that if anybody in a group started talking about committing serious crimes, you’d identified your FBI infiltrator, and you needed to throw them out immediately.
I guess the FBI have solve the problem of their infiltrators being tossed out, by getting them to work their way into leadership positions before proposing crimes? Sounds like it.
At this point, when I read of some plot being foiled by the FBI, my default assumption is that it was entrapment, though I’m open to having that disproved. And the events of Jan. 6th sure look like a typical “FBI fails to swoop in in time.” screwup, especially given how incredibly rapidly they had all that information on the key participants.
John Guilfoyle said:
“Why would any jury ever take an FBI witness at face value ever again.”
But if you let on any of that in the juror questioning as they select jurors you will be kicked off.
Kidnap Gretchen Whitmer? Really? Sounds like it’s own punishment.
Entrapment was part of the plan to get the pointless Ruby Ridge crime going.
John Guilfoyle: After the trial of the wife of the Orlando night club, one of the jurors mentioned skepticism regarding FBI witnesses.
A police officer friend of mine told me if I ever joined such a group, out of three members two would be FBI.
So does this mean that when “Biden” warns us about White Supremacists being the NUMBER ONE SUPER DUPER threat to America, “he” ‘s really warning us about the FBI—yep, THAT FBI—which is working in tandem with (i.e., under the auspices of) “Biden”?
Hmm. Thought so….
A dozen unemployed retards being led around and encouraged to commit crimes by half as many FBI agents and their 1099 form contract flunkies.
Anybody who even glanced at the original accusations would have immediately asked (as I and I am sure many others did as well) : what could the ostensible perpetrators of such a plot – pretending for a moment that it was real – have hoped to actually accomplish?
Are people who are so stupid as to dream of such a thing working, even intellectually capable of the marshaling of resources and the implementing of logistical programs even approximately adequate to pulling off their ludicrous day-dream on their own?
The FBI has basically just demonstrated that for the most part, leftist academics aside, they are not.
they were arrested in october 2020
-an election year-
remember what happened in october exactly two years prior
-another election year-
the cesar sayoc fake pipe bomb attacks
remember how the fbi caught him
not witnesses not video not cell phone data
his dna was on the packages
remember where he worked
at the same strip club stormy daniels worked
remember stormy daniels
SHE WAS THE ONLY STRIPPER IN THE WORLD AT THE TIME SUING THE PRESIDENT AND HOW EASY WOULD IT HAVE BEEN TO GET HIS DNA AT A STRIP CLUB TO PLANT ON EVIDENCE
the chances of it not being an fbi operation:
100 thousand trillion to 1