It was reported that there are major issues continuing to form with the federal case against defendants charged with allegedly plotting to kidnap Democrat Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Prosecutors already announced in December that they would not call on three FBI agents involved in the case after allegations of personal and professional misconduct. And one informant in the case has been charged with fraud in an unrelated case, also in December, The Washington Examiner reported.
And now, in a pair of stunning filings submitted on Christmas Day and on Wednesday attorneys for the defense showed evidence that they said proves that the FBI and confidential informants “conceived and controlled every aspect” of the plot to kidnap Whitmer.
“These defendants had no desire whatsoever to kidnap anyone,” the attorneys said.
The defendants, who are members of the Three Percenters and Wolverine Watchmen militia groups, would not have planned to kidnap Whitmer or blow up a bridge close to her residence if they were not entrapped by overzealous government agents, the attorneys said as they 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 attorneys said. “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.
Prosecutors disclosed earlier in December they would not call on three FBI agents at the center of the kidnapping investigation when the trial begins on March 8. Special Agent Jayson Chambers, who served as a handler for an FBI informant during the investigation, was dropped after Buzzfeed News reported he owned a private investigative firm unbeknownst to the FBI, in which he tried to parlay his law enforcement experience into multimillion-dollar private contracts.
