Did you hear about the group of right wing nuts who plotted to kidnap Democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer?
If you were paying attention to the mainstream media about a year ago, you likely would have believed that a group of crazed right wing psychos plotted to kidnap Whitmer- who had become a COVID lightning rod- while a group of heroic Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents did a complex investigation and busted the plot.
Here is just one example.
Federal authorities say six men helped orchestrate a plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer from her vacation home before the Nov. 3 election. The six were arrested and placed in custody, charged with multiple felonies that could result in life in prison for some if convicted.
State officials also charged seven different men in connection to related activities of the Wolverine Watchmen, a militia group accused of attempting to commit several crimes, including kidnapping public officials.
All 13 defendants or their attorneys could not be reached immediately for comment.
State law enforcement authorities wrote in court documents that "the Wolverine Watchmen have called on members to identify law enforcement officers' home addresses in order to target the officers, have made threats of violence to instigate a civil war leading to societal collapse, and have engaged in planning and training for an operation to attack the Capitol of Michigan, and kidnap Government officials including the Governor of Michigan."
There’s just one problem. In a stunning verdict yesterday, a jury found the defendants not guilty- or it was a hung jury. Here’s more.
Jurors acquitted two men Friday accused of plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and deadlocked on charges against the two alleged ringleaders, delivering a staggering blow to the government in one of the largest domestic terrorism cases in recent U.S. history.
Chief U.S. District Robert Jonker declared a mistrial on kidnapping conspiracy charges against accused ringleaders Adam Fox, 38, of Potterville, and Barry Croft, 46, of Delaware. Accused plotters Daniel Harris, 24, of Lake Orion, and Brandon Caserta, 34, of Canton Township, were being freed Friday afternoon after nearly two years behind bars.
"Best birthday gift ever," Caserta told supporters as relatives yelled "Happy Birthday" inside the federal courtroom in downtown Grand Rapids.
It’s noteworthy that this verdict happened despite Buzzfeed reporting that the prosecutor and the judge both went out of their way to keep evidence favorable to the defense out of the case.
Both before and during the trial, prosecutors went to extraordinary lengths to exclude evidence and witnesses that might undermine their arguments, while winning the right to bring in almost anything favorable to their own side. As a result, defense attorneys were largely reduced to nibbling at the edges of the government’s case in hopes of instilling doubt in the jurors’ minds, and to making claims about official misconduct with vanishingly few pieces of evidence to support them.
Over and over during the course of the trial, the prosecution objected to any attempts by defendants to provide context for the often shocking soundbites and text messages shown in court — objections sustained by a judge who agreed that such material risked confusing the jury.
Note: when I had Martin Lynch on to talk about his idea of jury trials for parents in the State of Arizona who are threatened with their parental rights being terminated, I made the argument against his idea that judges have all sorts of power to manipulate juries by what they allow into a trial.
I stand by that argument, despite this verdict.
Since the verdict, and even before, many are raising the argument that the FBI entrapped the defendants in Michigan.
The whole thing reminded me of a case I examined for another article which was denied.
Given the implications of this verdict in Michigan, it’s worthy of reexamination.
You may have heard of a guy named Jerry Varnell. He’s a bad guy if you read anything about him. He was convicted of trying to blow up a bank in Oklahoma.
An Oklahoma man was arrested over the weekend after plotting to detonate a 1,000-pound bomb in a vehicle parked outside a bank — a plot investigators say was modeled after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
Jerry Drake Varnell, 23, of Sayre, Oklahoma, was arrested Saturday following a monthslong undercover investigation that culminated in his attempt to detonate the bomb outside a BancFirst in downtown Oklahoma City.
According to a criminal complaint filed in federal court, Mr. Varnell made repeated statements during the course of the investigation saying he was angry at the government and hoped to start a revolution. In one conversation, he said he agreed with the Three Percenters ideology, an American anti-government movement that believes the federal government has infringed on the Constitution.
I was introduced to the informant who helped the FBI make the case.
When I say helped, I mean he did just about everything.
Varnell had made some startling comments to the informant by some sort of text app. He talked about starting militias and taking up arms.
The informant brought along his lawyer and went to the FBI with what he had.
At that point, the FBI offered for him to go undercover to lure Varnell into a plot.
They paid him, he told me, $15,000, with him receiving partial payments as certain tasks were accomplished.
But the informant had grown weary and frustrated by the FBI tactics.
“But he’s coming forward because of the experience, he believes the FBI entrapped Varnell, is far more criminal than Varnell, and he’s more afraid of their behavior than his.” I said in my pitch from 2017.
I continued, “Varnell is basically a slacker who didn’t have the financial resources, wherewithal, means, opportunity or anything to commit this crime.”
These two often smoked weed together, something the FBI was aware of and encouraged, if it meant tightening the relationship.
They, “spent some time smoking pot together: opportunistic, yes, and it was not encouraged or discouraged it was 'don't smoke botanicals in this car'” I noted further in my pitch.
Here is more from the pitch.
That soured him on the operation but also his handler, {FBI agent}, is a homophobe (Varnell is gay and {the FBI agent} made all sorts of references to it), who suggested a lot of shady stuff, like doing off book operations in Panama and suggesting he might kill Varnell; the combination made him come forward.
{the informant}- very importantly- spent three and a half years in prison (for threatening violence to cops during his custody battle over his son) and he has mental health issues flagged, but 1) the FBI recruited him knowing this and 2) another way to look at it is he’s 30, he’s spent time in federal prison, he’s a proficient hacker (he doesn’t like that term), and now he ran this undercover operation.
He’s also paranoid, so he secretly recorded people. I’ve attached some of his recordings and flagged critical points.
Indeed, the podcast at top is one of those recordings.
I thought I had a great story, given that the FBI agent’s own informant had soured on them and was willing to step forward and blow up their case.
I received this story while Varnell was still charged, though he would later be convicted.
However, the editors saw it differently.
“Maybe speak with a legal expert to get a decent definition of entrapment. If something here is not by the book, I would be interested in a piece, but this sounds like fairly standard practice for the FBI in an undercover investigation.” One editor stated.
Another one responded, “FBI routinely flirts with this kind of thing and they know the line well. As a result, so should we. I second Paul here. Would need an outside voice, particularly one who has either successfully prosecuted or defended entrapment.”
I doubt editors would be so deferential to the FBI today.
I did look into it and legal experts told me it was a grey area. Here’s what I told them.
You’re right, the issue of entrapment is gray and the FBI may have been straddling the line but I have another angle you might like. As to entrapment, it’s defined as when the government induces someone to commit a crime they would not have committed otherwise. While on the surface, this appears to be a clear cut example, if the government can prove predisposition to commit the crime that wipes out entrapment entirely. In a text which the FBI has, Varnell said, “I’m out for blood. When militias start getting formed, I’m going after government officials when I have a team.”
That statement maybe enough, and one law professor said he’s seen case law which argues that if the crime is serious enough you can’t argue entrapment because you can’t be entrapped into a heinous enough crime. The consensus was that this would go to the jury with strong arguments on each side.
But here’s my alternative. The headline would be: How the FBI bungled a winnable case and a promising asset. Paul said if the FBI did something wrong you’d want it and here’s what they did wrong. First, they immediately recruited him to be a long-term asset. They made all sorts of promises they never kept. They promised to help him with his criminal thing. They promised he’d go after pedophiles. And the guy wanted to get him involved in all sorts of shady stuff: off the books operation in Panama, managing some marijuana farm. And he talked suggestively about killing Varnell.
{The informant} isn’t necessarily that stable; I think he has a self-destructive streak, but he’s very street smart and could have made a great asset. But they ate him up and chewed him. Used him for their own purposes without a thought about what this will do to his mental state. Brian Martin was his handler, and he mishandled him big time: proof is that {the informant} going to the media to tell his story.
In fact, if {the informant} says- which he will- that he believes Varnell would not have committed this crime but for him and the FBI, that’s very strong evidence in a court of law of entrapment.
So, {the FBI agent} acted terribly unethically and possibly illegally; I think that’s a story.
If you’re reading in stunned silence, I should note that this story was eventually covered in Oklahoma.
In fact, the jury was made aware of it at trial.
Varnell has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and experiences delusional thinking and paranoia, she said.
An FBI informant who posed as Varnell’s friend, also plied him with marijuana, further influencing him to take part in the bomb plot, Franklin said.
{The informant} and Varnell smoked marijuana in each of their meetings, although the FBI instructed {the informant} not to do anything illegal. The FBI later admonished {the informant} for smoking marijuana with Varnell.
“This was a bomb plot invented by the FBI,” Franklin said. “They took a 22-year old schizophrenic who has paranoid tendencies and dupe him into following through with their operational plan.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Matt Dillon argued that Varnell spoke of wanting to overthrow the government and build bombs online long before the FBI ever became involved. Dillon read several messages that Varnell sent to Elisens where he talked about blowing up banks and other buildings.
This was not a matter of law; that was for a jury to decide. The jury found Varnell guilty.
Also, in the audio in the podcast, you can hear them talking about smoking weed. If the FBI admonished its informant, it was long after they were aware.
Starting at about 15:30, “If Varnell wants to come out and get in the care, that’s fine. Just tell him the car is for a buddy’s of yours, just don’t smoke no weed in the car.”
Starting at about five minutes in, the FBI agent tells him how the FBI will set everything up.
“We introduce the undercover, the undercover, Varnell, and you all start making this massive plan. The substitution unit provides the undercover with some of the stuff. Varnell, the undercover, and you go out in the field,” the FBI agent states, “We provide him with a Ryder truck and it’s got ten barrels of ammonium nitrate in the fuel. He thinks in the truck. You guys put these things together and he drives it somewhere. He dials the numbers and blows this thing up.”
Obviously anyone willing to dial the number, as Varnell did, is a criminal, but this crime was entirely concocted by the FBI.
Is this what we want the FBI to do? Varnell made some comments about joining a militia and before he knows it someone is befriending him, smoking weed with him, and introducing him to other supposed conspirators.
The FBI gets the truck, the supposed bomb parts, and even drive him to the location.
All Varnell did was go along and press the button on the cell phone he was provided.
Of course, that’s criminal and probably, he should be in prison, but how much time did the FBI spend putting this operation together for someone who would have done absolutely nothing on his own?
How often does the FBI try to entrap people into crimes they would never commit on their own? It’s a good question to ask in light of this verdict and the affair I described in Oklahoma.
My Experience with Entrapment at the FBI