The attorneys of four men charged with attempting to kidnap Michigan Gov Gretchen Whitmer claim that the FBI informants supplied their clients with drugs and then entrapped their clients. The informants rented hotel rooms, supplied food, liquor, and food to the four men in an effort to convince them to take part in the plot.
Although two of the plaintiffs pleaded guilty, the lawyers for the four men claim the operation was classic entrapment. Entrapping someone to commit a crime is illegal. The lawyers did not deny that their clients made remarks about Whitmer during the meetings, but denied that any of their clients had agreed to join in the kidnapping. The lawyers asserted that the planning and the recon all came from the informants.
Then the prosecuting attorney defended their position in such a way to imply he was admitting those facts but that they didn’t matter. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Roth that giving someone the opportunity to commit a crime does not make an entrapment case. let’s see. You rent a hotel room and supply four men with alcohol, drugs, and food. You plan a crime. You do the recon to commit a crime and you supply the weapons to commit the crime. WTH did the plaintiffs actually do? Nothing since the FBI arrested them before any attempt was made to carry out the plot.
Roth claims that the four men were willing participants in the plot. Gee, someone getting free drugs didn’t object to their benefactors’ ideas? Roth claimed the four men were planning to kidnap Whitmer before they were set up. Hold on a second while I check out this month’s receipts. Just as I thought. I didn’t buy any of the FBI’s BS.
The plot involved multiple firearms and bombs, and in such cases, the FBI needs “more investigators to control that because lives are at risk,” Roth told the court. The evidence would show, Roth said, that the defendants were “willing, eager, if not already preparing” to kidnap the governor.
Roth claimed that the defendants sought to create a “warzone,” kidnapping the governor and blowing up a bridge to block police pursuit.
Attorney Julia Kelly suggested that her client, Harris, a Marine veteran who was 23 at the time of his arrest in October 2020, was led astray and taken advantage of by the FBI informant who served as his superior in the militia group with which the four defendants were involved, the Wolverine Watchmen.
