Three remaining Whitmer “kidnapping” defendants are acquitted
This is good news:
William Null, twin brother Michael Null and Eric Molitor were found not guilty of providing support for a terrorist act and a weapon charge. They were the last of 14 men to face charges in state or federal court. Nine were convicted and now five have been cleared.
The Nulls and Molitor were accused of supporting leaders of the plan by participating in military-style drills and traveling to see Whitmer’s vacation home in northern Michigan. The key players, Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr., were convicted of a kidnapping conspiracy last year in a different court.
In the latest trial, the jury heard 14 days of testimony in Antrim County, the location of Whitmer’s lakeside property, 185 miles north of the state Capitol.
These guys pulled out of all of it when talk of any sort of violence entered. But the prosecution insisted on trying them anyway. I haven’t read much about how the venue for this trial was chosen and whether it differed in political demographics from the areas in which the previous trials were conducted, but my guess is that the juror pool was significantly more to the right than for the other trials. The men may have been fortunate that Whitmer’s vacation home was so far north. And I am virtually certain that if this case had been tried in DC, like the J6 cases, these men would be going to prison for a long time no matter how weak the evidence.
Another interesting detail is that two of the three men took the stand in their own defense. That’s not all that usual in a criminal trial, but their lawyers must have felt they’d be good witnesses.
This was the scene when the verdicts were read:
Not a lot to celebrate related to American jurisprudence these days–so soak this in.
Verdicts announced in case of 3 men charged in Whitmer fednapping hoax. God bless this jury. pic.twitter.com/smBxXmB5eh
— Julie Kelly ?? (@julie_kelly2) September 15, 2023
NOTE: I’ve written a great deal about the Whitmer cases, which I consider to be government entrapment. Some of my posts can be found here.
1. The federal penal code needs to be much shorter and more precisely stated.
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2. The FBI needs to be broken into about ten pieces, the management level employees fired and banned from federal employment, and the line staff in the Washington headquarters fired and banned from federal employment.
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3. Federal prosecutors should have to seek an information from a panel of three judges before proceeding with a case, with adversary proceedings required in some cases. No more grand juries.
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4. The law should make clear that criminal solicitation by an agent provacateur invalidates any count.
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5. Federal prosecutors should be placed in a different department from federal police, and debarred from initiating investigations, operating only in response to referrals from other agencies.
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6. Anyone employed as a federal prosecutor for 12 of the last 14 years should have to leave federal employment.
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7. The salaried line employees of all inspector-general offices in the federal government should be over the age of 55 and debarred from federal employment outside of such offices once they’ve passed their six month probation.
It’s a shame the founders didn’t think of putting anti-entrapment in the Constitution. These days it’s much more likely to impact the average American than quartering troops.
Do any states have strong laws forbidding its law officers from exercising entrapment? I can understand law enforcement embedding moles in organizations to learn about them and their plans, but spearheading illegal and illicit activity? It invites immense potential for abuse.
“The FBI needs to be broken into about ten pieces, the management level employees fired and banned from federal employment, and the line staff in the Washington headquarters fired and banned from federal employment.”
I second that motion. In fact, apply it to every Federal agency.
This was in Antrim County, which went for Trump after they spotted the major error flipping maybe 20% of the votes for Biden. Apologies all around. “human error”.
If you can do it by accident, I don’t see why you can’t do it on purpose.
Yes. Plaid shirt, deer-hunting country. Usually like their local cops, not fond of others.
The charges are Null and void!
Kind of ironic that ‘Molitor’ was the Paris neighborhood where the Jackal’s contact lived.
Good.
Charges against Trump intensify.