From National Justice.
Defense lawyers yesterday filed a brief detailing the FBI’s extensive role in a Michigan militia’s plot to supposedly kidnap Gretchen Whitmer.
The document, obtained by National Justice, severely undermines the narrative prosecutors and FBI agents have constructed against the six defendants in USA v. Fox, et al, who are accused of multiple serious crimes related to organized terrorism.
In a motion to compel disclosure, lawyers for Kaleb Franks are asking the court to force the government to identify their informants by name, their criminal and mental health histories, and how much money they were rewarded for infiltrating and setting up the defendants.
According to the brief, prosecutors have already identified at least 12 paid informants who were involved in driving the kidnapping plot forward by their Confidential Human Source (CHS) numbers. These informants worked in conjunction with undercover FBI agents, revealing that the small Wolverine Watchmen militia had over a dozen government infiltrators pressuring them into engaging in violent criminal activity.
In the case of Franks, his lawyers cite exculpatory evidence showing that when presented with the idea of kidnapping the Governor, he told government agents that he was “not cool” with the idea and that he only attended a training camp — which was also organized by the FBI — just for the fresh air, fellowship and training.
Franks, who previously struggled with heroin addiction but provided help to his community by getting clean and becoming a professional drug counselor, never intended to break the law. Lawyers accuse the FBI of setting a “hide and seek” standard, where Franks is guilty simply because he was unable to avoid FBI informants that were committing crimes and working together to pressure individual men into doing illegal things.
According to the testimony of Special Agent Hank Impola, who led the investigation, the men in the Wolverine Watchmen expressed negative feelings when Adam Fox, a homeless man informants convinced to think kidnapping Governor Whitmer was a good idea, broached the subject. An informant put on the stand even testified that the men alleged to be at the center of the plot stressed that they did not want to break the law.
Lawyers for the defense have been able to identify payment to at least one infiltrator for his work in propelling the plot forward, a whopping sum of $54,000 dollars. Some of the other informants, mostly ex or current criminals, have been employed as government snitches for decades, including one man who became an informant in 1985 after obtaining information that was later used against his cellmate in prison.
With federal snitches having already confessed to hosting the “training” events where the plot was allegedly concocted, the entrapment defense is growing stronger by the day.
Prosecutors are already scrambling to save their case, primarily by withholding evidence, conscripting the mainstream media to meddle in the case, and even indicting one of their own crucial informants.
Lawyers are also complaining that the FBI and US Attorney are engaging in malicious compliance in the discovery process by deliberately overwhelming them with countless copies of the same pieces of audio and video evidence in hopes of wasting their time and running up the legal fees of the accused.
In another court filing, lawyers are asking for a change of venue due to the media’s role in poisoning the public against the defendants. The defense is also working to suppress a number of pieces of evidence that were outside of the scope of the FBI’s search warrants.
What is now clear is that the Michigan militia plot was not an act of legitimate law enforcement, but instead a political stunt to aid Democrats in a swing state a month before a presidential election.
