Roles of F.B.I. and Informants Muddle the Michigan Governor Kidnapping Case
The defense attorneys using that very same chest of evidence product have actually constructed a totally different circumstance of what happened. They depict the implicated as hesitant puppets entrapped by the F.B.I. representatives and informants whom they say came up with the kidnapping plot.
Within weeks of joining, Dan took over the training workouts, introducing a much greater level of military techniques, defense lawyers said. They describe him as seeking advice from closely with his primary handler, Agent Jayson Chambers, on matters like who should take part in two security trips to Ms. Whitmer’s cottage.
The suspects going over violence on the recordings or in encrypted chats was just inflammatory rhetoric, the defense says. District attorneys say Adam Fox, 38, the group’s ringleader, was living in the basement of a friend’s vacuum store where he worked, discussing assaulting the Michigan statehouse just as “Big Dan” was getting involved.
The defense attorney in the federal case either declined or neglected requests to comment, while a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney in Western Michigan said the workplace would not talk about pending criminal matters. The F.B.I. referred questions to the U.S. attorney.
Sting operations using informants are a tough tactic in terror cases. In those established after the Sept. 11 attacks, F.B.I. agents often got involved when someone expressed interest in signing up with Al Qaeda or in fomenting some type of terrorist act. If the suspects had difficulty settling on a plot or acquiring weapons, the informants or undercover representatives would in some cases help them as a way of determining criminal intent.
Critics of such F.B.I. approaches like Michael German, a previous undercover F.B.I. representative, implicate the agency of acting like Cecil B. DeMille, producing complex, theatrical situations rather than pursuing the more complex job of uncovering actual extremist plots.
Mr. German, who is now a fellow at the Liberty & & National Security Program of the Brennan Center for Justice, said, “Rather than focus on those crimes and examining them, there appears to be more interest in this method of manufacturing plots for the F.B.I. to resolve.”