Michigan Governor Whitmer Kidnap ‘Plot’ Smells Like FBI Entrapment

Oct. 9, 2020 (EIRNS)—The post-9/11 history of FBI anti-terrorism arrests against Muslims in this country, whom they deemed radical, often stunk to high heaven of entrapment. As accurately described by the Counsel on American Islamic Relations,

“In the trial of the Newburgh Four, a group of Muslim men were lured by an informant bearing expensive gifts into plotting to blow up synagogues in the Bronx, N.Y. and shoot down a military jet. One of the defendants, Laguerre Payen, who suffered from schizophrenia, was repeatedly disruptive during his trial, and engaged the judge in a rambling dialogue about his conviction at the time of his sentencing.

“In another case, Ahmad Ferhani, unemployed and in and out of mental institutions for many years, was convicted of plotting to blow up synagogues after being approached by an informant linked to the New York City Police Department.”

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and her Democratic allies blamed President Donald Trump for the alleged kidnapping plot against her, in an Oct. 7 press conference, involving the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan and the Michigan Attorney General. Six people were charged federally for the claimed kidnapping conspiracy; seven others were charged with state crimes. The group involved is the Wolverine Watchmen, a brand new group on the Michigan militia scene, unknown to people familiar with local groups.

Michigan is a battleground state in the election, and Democratic Sen. Gary Peters is locked in a close race with Republican John James. As usual, Whitmer’s claims are a full load. One of the key members accused in the plot is Brandon Caserta, who rants against Trump as a tyrant on his Facebook account, standing in front of an anarchist flag.

The affidavit of the key FBI agent investigator, Richard J. Trask II, revealed that the FBI had been investigating those charged federally since January, based on plots to kill police. That is, before the COVID pandemic and the focus by many on Whitmer’s lockdown measures, which the Michigan Supreme Court has held illegal. The Wolverine Watchmen group charged by the state had a declared goal of bringing about civil war.

The FBI had the entire group covered with two informants and additional agents penetrating the group undercover. Trask’s affidavit catalogues the complete buffoonery of those charged federally. Attempting to build IEDs, they seem to have only crafted a large amount of duds—none worked. Typical of the fantasy life of alienated, delusional, and extremely poor white men (the profile of most of the defendants), the group first proposed storming the state capitol and taking Whitmer hostage, and then decided that they would take her from her north Michigan vacation home. How much of this was at FBI suggestion will be a critical issue for the defense.