While we have not followed the case as closely as some, the original framework of the federal case against men accused in the kidnapping plot of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer seemed seriously sketchy from the outset. When it was revealed that twelve FBI operatives were involved in the plot {LINK}, well, it looked like a classic entrapment case.
Six total suspects were arrested of the group of 18 total plotters. Twelve of the eighteen were feds. Two men took a plea deal for lesser charges leaving four men to stand trial.
After four weeks of testimony, the jury was given the ability to consider an entrapment defense. Four days of deliberations have resulted in a not guilty verdict for two of the suspects and a hung jury on two more.
MICHIGAN – A federal jury didn’t find four men suspected of conspiring to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer guilty Friday.
Brandon Caserta, 34, of Canton, and Daniel Harris, 24, of Lake Orion, were found not guilty of conspiring to kidnap, a potential life offense. The jury was hung on conspiracy charges against Barry Croft Jr., 46, of Bear, Delaware, Adam Fox, 38, of Wyoming.
Harris and Caserta were additionally found not guilty on additional weapons charges and will be released from detention. […] The U.S. Attorney’s Office could retry Fox and Croft, who remain jailed, on their unresolved counts. (more)
Julie Kelly followed the case closely, and she posts the following article [SEE HERE]
(AmGreatness) – […] A roster of FBI agents and experts took the stand during the three-week trial, which was temporarily delayed due to one participant’s COVID diagnosis; Dan Chappel, the lead informant and government’s star witness known as “Big Dan,” explained how he brought the makeshift group of alleged “militia” members together after he was hired by the FBI in March 2020. Chappel created encrypted chat groups and organized excursions for field training and surveillance of Whitmer’s cottage. (He, along with other FBI informants, posed as leaders of two “militia” groups, at least one of which was created by the FBI.)
For his work over a six-month period, Chappel, a truck driver for a U.S. Postal Service subcontractor, was compensated at least $60,000 by the FBI in cash and gifts such as a new laptop, tires, and a smart watch.
Prosecutors mostly relied on conversations secretly recorded by FBI assets as evidence of wrongdoing; two men charged in the same indictment had pleaded guilty and testified for the government in exchange for lighter prison sentences. (read more)
Ken Bensinger, from Buzzfeed News, covered the trial extensively, and he has a lengthy outline showing just how sketchy the case was; including the extreme lengths the federal prosecutors took to stop the defense from presenting the most damning evidence of the federal involvement [SEE HERE].
(BUZZFEED) – Despite the government’s extraordinary efforts to muzzle the defense, a jury in Grand Rapids federal court on Friday acquitted two men on charges including conspiring to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on the other two who had been charged.
As a result, Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta are now free men, while Adam Fox and Barry Croft return to jail and await a decision by the Justice Department on whether to try them a second time.
The outcome of the trial is a stunning rebuke to the prosecution, which at times appeared to view the case — one of the most prominent domestic terror investigations in a generation — as a slam dunk. The split verdict calls into question the Justice Department’s strategy, and beyond that, its entire approach to combating domestic extremism. Defense attorneys in the case, along with observers from across the political spectrum, have argued the FBI’s efforts to make the case, which involved at least a dozen confidential informants, went beyond legitimate law enforcement and into outright entrapment.
It may also leave the two defendants who chose to plead guilty and testify for the government, Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, wondering whether they made the right choice. (read more)
From the outset in October 2020, everything around the “plot to kidnap” Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer seemed sketchy, almost silly. The goofy similarities and suspicions were familiar to those who remembered the sketchy October 2018 “mail bombing plot” that involved Cesar Sayoc.
It just didn’t seem coincidental that both 2018 and 2020 FBI exploits involved weird frameworks, odd suspects and obviously both operations just happened to culminate in October of an election year… Surprise!
Add to that suspicion all that was known about the FBI’s intense political motivations found in their activities over the past several years, including the sketchy attempt to frame candidate Donald Trump for a vast Russian election conspiracy, coordinated with the opposing candidate, Hillary Clinton, and well, suspicious cats were increasingly suspicious of the FBI engineered mess.
By the time FBI Director Chris Wray was questioned about the content of Sayoc’s Acme “mail bombs”, and he said they were comprised of: “energetic material that can become combustible when subjected to heat or friction,” yes, it could have been anything from matchsticks to coffee cream, well, eyes were rolling. When the DOJ then sealed the evidence against Sayoc and all court documents behind the shroud of super-duper national security secrecy, the FBI political motives again seemed transparent.
That’s the backdrop two years later for the FBI’s vast Michigan militia plot to kidnap Whitmer…. and the side-eye from anyone who has ever paid attention to these matters. Apparently, the results of the jury deliberations highlight the same likely federal intentions.
Yes, we live in rather remarkable times.
Exactly, and the Defense won in spite of the judge sabotaging every defense to the charges including ENTRAPMENT. They prevented the Defense from even mentioning the word ENTRAPMENT much less cross examine the informant witnesses regarding ENTRAPMENT and, unbelievably, refused the Defense’s request to call two government agents fired for misconduct who were in charge of the investigation!!! Typically judges will allow the Defense wide latitude to show their innocence. Not in this case!
The FBI’s Wray promoted FBI agent Steven M. D’Antuono for his use of as many FBI informants as were charged after they were framed by his department. D’Antuono is now in the DC office to apply his “skills” in the continued frame job of ONE6. See how the FBI promotes its own when they set up their political enemies? And still nobody in Columbia’s federal cesspool have done anything to stop the illegal prosecution of political prisoners while those federal employees who carried it out remain free, without any fear of being prosecuted. At the very least it may appear that some of the jurists aren’t working for them either; at least for now.
“He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.” ~ Declaration of Independence – 1776
2 FIB’s for every “perp”. Yeah, totally not entrapment.
Top! Men!
The FBI. The worlds premier law enforcement agency. The gold standard. Yeah, right. They might as well have been in the room as Larry Nassar abused and violated countless female gymnasts. They had Hunter’s laptop in its possession gathering dust for over a year. And now the latest feather in their cap…… they botched this and couldn’t even railroad these oh so dangerous ‘domestic terrorists.’ Who’s getting the promotion?
Our FBI spends a shitload of man hours chasing fraudulent cases into cul-de-sacs … WTF? I want a cost accounting for all their WASTED taxpayer dollars.
I’m praying that when the lawsuits start coming, the money awarded comes out of the operating budgets of the fbi/cia. No money-no agents.
Let’s not forget Sundances words regarding the FBI and CIA, were retooled by Obama and Holder to attack political opponents.
Those agencies are certainly full of tools … speaking of retooling
They also disappeared whistledicks laptop. Congress critter Wiener?
The deep state used this whole thing as a psychological operations against President Trump while running for reelection.
This whole entrapment scheme was designed to give major media wall-to-wall coverage of how “ Trump supporters “ were racist and anarchists and wanting to kill democrats.
The FBI is nothing more than a political modern day Gestapo.
It was also meant to tip Michigan back into the Democrats’ camp in the 2020 election. It was another election meddling operation, courtesy of the FBI.
“The FBI is nothing more than a political modern day Gestapo”
or…
a ‘Stasi’ or a KGB ;
once-upon-a-time, they investigated and apprehended real criminals….
bank robbers, kidnappers, extortionists, dangerous communist agents etc.
now: they’r just a ‘political police’….
doubt if they even could solve a real crime these days…….
They did solve the garage door pull rope ‘noose’ crime pretty quickly, though. Gotta give them credit for that..
it is time to treat them as such !
The FBI has never not been dirty. It is an unconstitutional agency that should be disbanded.
F the Federal Bureau of Instigators.
Those charges should have been thrown out from the beginning. No person in their right mind is going to go to prison for kidmapping that POS. Not worth it.
But it would sure be great to … talk about it … and make her wet her spanx
If the people of Michigan are smart, they will vote her out.
Voting is so 20th century.
Juries … next on the SCOTUS chopping block. The Framers of the Constitution never envisioned so many stupid people walking around. So … the highly educated (debtor students) leftist elites in our country should be the only designated Jurors. This is what the lunatic Left believes …
Can the 2 that won aquittal sue the DOJ for false imprisonment? They had been in jail since Oct 2020.
I think there is a clear case opening for something along those lines, yes.
Where is sydney Powell these days?
and speaking of, why hasn’t LTGEN Flynn sued DOJ/FBI and specifically james comey?
asking for friendS!
I’m no insider, but I think Sydney Powell was never working for out time. Several Red blogs parroted her chaos operation, and not a few dummies believed it.
Most people have only a casual and passing interest in this sort of thing and seek only to reinforce whatever opinion they’re already comfortable with. Everyone does some of the latter, a trait the skillful deceiver gets a ton of mileage from.
“For out time” was meant to be “for our side”
Criminal justice died with the OJ verdict. Civil suits are the way forward. Trump understands this now that he is gone.
give the FBI credit for at least entrapping people who looked the part
Haha! Definitely a motley crew.
You should see what the twelve FBI guys looked like!
I’m going to disagree slightly with Julie Kelly and argue that the Whitmer Kidnapping Plot was really just more Russiagate.
In April of 2019 Barry Croft received a pardon and was released early from prison by the Delaware Governor. Is it a coincidence that a year later he would be caught up in a kidnapping plot to kidnap the Governor of Michigan? Inquiring minds want to know.
Good to see a jury had the wherewithal to stand firm. God Bless Them
The jury managed to spot the Stasi’s stacked trial twice, despite so much railroading by the judge anliiied prosecutors.
The judge is still an embarassment to Justice.
Hopefully the two freed men can expose more of the lies, and the real political and coup conspiracies to public eyes.
it is a shame that juries can`t come back into the room say they have found the defendant not guilty then move for a vote on impeaching the judge and charging the agents .
Re: JoAnne Huls, Gov. Whitmer’s spox — can’t stand the cloying rhetoric of “compassion” from Lefty spokespeople. Every sentence is steeped in emotional adjectives, qualifying their latest policy as gift of love to humanity. And every jibe at the opposition has a scary word like “dangerous” somewhere in in the copy. They’re far worse than merely hypocritical; they are pathological liars and soulless con artists.
From the Michigan Governors statement “There must be accountability and consequences for those who commit heinous crimes. Without accountability, extremists will be emboldened.” Agreed! The FBI must be held accountable for – what should be their illegal activity. The FBI = Yesterdays KGB.
FBI. Easily in the top 5 of most corrupt government organizations in the world. Now mostly staffed with gays.
Why does that not surprise me … ?
Can the FBI really be this incompetent, or is this another bit of scripted drama to deter patriots from plotting against the regime?
not incompetence. FBI/DOJ has a very good record of targeting people, manufacturing threats and evidence and even entrapment. And typically this wins favor in courts and jury.
not so much now.
Don’t expect the FBI/DOJ to stop running this criminal scheme. They know they will still have a pretty good batting average by “tweaking” the scheme with a few touchups.
FBI = STAZI. Scum top to bottom.
Sorry Hannity … the rank and file are ALL corrupted. Dirty cops … the whole lot of em. Not a decent man or woman … oh Gawd … or Trans … in their ranks
Yes.
The weirdest-looking defendants had deadlocked juries … the most NORMAL-looking defendants acquitted. Moral of the story … try not to LOOK like a white supremacist. Me? I have kinda long hair … but it looks more like a movie stars than an axe murderers coif. My jury would acquit. I just hope they don’t my opinion of teaching 7yo’s about gender … “fluidity”
As pathetic as this whole operation was, they still gave the media an anti-right meme to screech about just prior to the election. It served their purpose.
That the left, which through most of my life has hated the FBI as much as they hated Nixon, has now infiltrated and co-opted it to use for their own political purposes is truly breathtaking, and until recently unimaginable.
There is not a brand, institution, or icon, built up over decades, that the left isn’t willing to destroy overnight.
By the time they are through with something it looks like what’s left after a flash mob loots a Gucci store.
Communists are expert infiltrations of government. And they are incredibly patient. They are like a cancer. They spread to every institution. The big difference between them and Nazis.
Carefully note the “gifts” the FBI lavished on their informant:
-a laptop (to track everything he did online)
-new tires (to track his vehicle)
-a smartwatch (to track him)
And probably a box of condoms in hopes of …
Things the FBI are notoriously good at. Losing evidence, destroying evidence, entrapment, framing, lying, coverup operations , wokeness, leaking information to media outlets, corruption and advancing a political agenda. Yet the American people are constantly being informed that the FBI is the worlds highest regarded law enforcement. We are the most advanced third world country in the world.
And not apologizing when they are caught in huge mistakes. Like Jewel. Like the poor woman they murdered at Ruby Ridge
I’m not very legally apt, but how can the 2 men with deadlocked juries be RE-TRIED?!? Isn’t that “double jeopardy”, which is illegal?!? Please correct me if I’m wrong on that. Thanks.
Also, this all just makes even clearer the fact that the FBI is sitting on who knows how much evidence, likely much of it proving their own guilt… We have to rely on THEM bringing it forward, or our finding out some other way that this evidence exists and then forcing them somehow to produce it… JUST LIKE W/ THE JAN. 6 FOLKS (re. Capitol Police).
And, WHAT PUNISHMENT WILL BEFALL THE FBI AGENTS & THEIR “SUPERIORS” FOR THIS TRAVESTY??? Nothing.
in a mistrial the prosecutor can (if they so choose) to file the case again and try them.
think of it like a game that ends in a draw. Some games end it right there and a draw is an actual final “score”.
in a mistrial, the prosecutor can if they so choose to seek another game to determine how the match is finally scored.
My prediction is that DOJ will try to move this trial somewhere else OR tack on new charges and add more BS evidence.
they are definitely NOT going to let this sit and do nothing about it.
and it’s not about reputation.
If you read Sidney Powells’ book: license to Lie, one of the revealing things she outlines is not simply corruption and a lack of any ethical principle but that prosecutors are rewarded financially for winning cases. Literally is a textbook case of a conflict of interest if you ask me. Should be unlawful to incentivize prosecution success. Promotion, okay..but not money paid in cash. That is outrageous.
Apparently, this practice has been part of DOJ policy for many years.
And apparently there is no set standard rate of payout. Imagine you are a DOJ prosecutor, and FBI investigator. Why wouldn’t you find a reason to hunt and even fabricate high profile cases?
sick.
thanks for that info
I wonder if Whitmer’s Chief of Staff had a cautionary word to her about the normalization of political violence and divisive rhetoric when Whitmer proudly displayed 86/45 on her desk, on national TV, during a Chuck Todd interview in October ’20.
The FBI planned or had informants in every major crime this century.
Same playbook as the Hutaree Militia 10 years ago.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSBRE82S1EX20120329
The FIB needs to be disbanded. The organization is corrupt, if I were called as a juror in a case involving the FIB, I’d be released. I would be unable to disguise my distrust of the organization and anyone who works for them. If I was an accidental eyewitness to something and the FIB wanted to question me, I don’t care what it was I’d plead the 5th. I’d rather spend time in jail for contempt than discuss anything with the FIB. They lie and they are the enemy.
FBI …Famous But Inept
The Ticker Guy makes some very intersting points about this case:
About That FBI Corruption….
“Entrapment” defenses almost never succeed because you can’t entrap a willing person. But in this case it did work and shows, by a jury verdict, that the jury determined that no crime took place because the persons in question did not have intent; the FBI had the intent and set up people who were otherwise not going to do anything illegal.
This raises a quite-fair question: Did the FBI do this to, in part, sway the upcoming election?
Oh, and that same person is now in charge of the January 6th prosecutions.
Make of that what you will.
https://market-ticker.org/post=245597
I think that Gretchen aided in this sideshow.
Liars! Liars. The FBLIE is more appropriate by the minute.
Gee, they look “normal”.
Those pics … that crew was two slices and a pickle short of a sandwich. There’s no way they could have formed a complete plan, much less carried it out without the FBI’s direction.