Whitmer 'kidnapping' case looks suspect

Washington Examiner:

Problems continue to pile up for federal prosecutors in the lead up to the March 8 trial for the five men charged with plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Prosecutors confirmed in mid-December they would not call on three FBI agents closely linked to the investigation due to allegations of personal and professional misconduct. Also in December, a key undercover informant involved in the case was charged with fraud in an unrelated case in Wisconsin.

In a pair of explosive filings submitted on Christmas Day and on Wednesday, defense attorneys presented evidence they said proves the FBI and its confidential informants "conceived and controlled every aspect" of the plot to kidnap Whitmer.

"These defendants had no desire whatsoever to kidnap anyone," the defense attorneys said in their filing.

The defendants, members of the Three Percenters and Wolverine Watchmen anti-government militia groups, would have never plotted to kidnap Whitmer and blow up a bridge near her home had they not been entrapped by overzealous government agents, the defense attorneys argued in the filing. They also asked a federal court to dismiss the case.

"The government wouldn't drop the idea, and the CHSs [Confidential Human Sources] continued to broach plans — despite official government admonitions barring the suggestion of such plans," the defense motion read. "The CHSs' handlers pulled the puppet strings the entire time."

New evidence in the defense attorneys' filings, which include details of communications between FBI agents and their sources embedded in the militia groups, marks another setback for federal prosecutors. Prosecutors previously rejected allegations the defendants were entrapped by the FBI and maintained they were predisposed to carry out the kidnapping scheme.

...

Similar allegations have been made about government operatives in the Jan. 6 riots.  These cases portray the FBI pushing a rogue operation.

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