The FBI is about to have another day of bad press. Well, bad press sprinkled with healthy amounts of mockery because you simply cannot make this up. Remember the kidnapping plot against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer? It was during the COVID pandemic so you might have missed it or thrown this story down a memory hole. Look, there was a lot of hysterics during 2020, with the election being the least of it. One of the alleged plotters also wanted to hang Donald Trump. So, here’s a quick recap (via Associated Press):
A federal grand jury has charged six men with conspiring to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in what investigators say was a plot by anti-government extremists who were angry over her coronavirus policies.
The indictment released … by U.S. Attorney Andrew Birge levied the conspiracy charge against Adam Dean Fox, Barry Gordon Croft Jr., Ty Gerard Garbin, Kaleb James Franks, Daniel Joseph Harris and Brandon Michael-Ray Caserta. They are all from Michigan except for Croft, who lives in Delaware.
The charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, Birge said in a statement.
The six were arrested in early October following an FBI investigation into an alleged plot to kidnap the Democratic governor at her vacation home in northern Michigan.
Oh, but it gets worse. The confidential informants the FBI used hatched the plot. So, in a direct way, the FBI was involved in the kidnapping of a sitting governor. The FBI foiled a plot to kidnap Whitmer that was hatched by…the FBI’s own informants. What a mess (via Buzzfeed):
The government has documented at least 12 confidential informants who assisted the sprawling investigation. The trove of evidence they helped gather provides an unprecedented view into American extremism, laying out in often stunning detail the ways that anti-government groups network with each other and, in some cases, discuss violent actions.
An examination of the case by BuzzFeed News also reveals that some of those informants, acting under the direction of the FBI, played a far larger role than has previously been reported. Working in secret, they did more than just passively observe and report on the actions of the suspects. Instead, they had a hand in nearly every aspect of the alleged plot, starting with its inception. The extent of their involvement raises questions as to whether there would have even been a conspiracy without them.
A longtime government informant from Wisconsin, for example, helped organize a series of meetings around the country where many of the alleged plotters first met one another and the earliest notions of a plan took root, some of those people say. The Wisconsin informant even paid for some hotel rooms and food as an incentive to get people to come.
Look, the FBI has yet to recover from their involvement in the politically motivated Russian collusion hoax. It was a fake news plot to keep the Trump administration hamstrung. They spied on the Trump campaign. They falsified FISA documents to obtain illegal spy warrants on Carter Page, a former Trump campaign official. The deep state shenanigans have forever blackened the name of our nation’s preeminent law enforcement and domestic intelligence agency. I don’t trust them. Purge it. Burn it. And rebuild it. The damage is done. And now, their own informants are allegedly plotting to kidnap governors. It’s a mess over at the J. Edgar Hoover Building.