This past week Buzzfeed ran a story, Watching the Watchmen, about the FBI informants involved in Michigan case, where some right-wing extremists, the Wolverine Watchmen, are charged in a plot to kidnap Gov. Whitmer and claiming the FBI entrapped them.
Many in the MAGA-sphere on social media leaped to attack the FBI, as did Glen Greenwald, who made the same allegations when the FBI was trying to hunt down ISIS/Islamist-inspired terrorists. Here’s a link to Greenwald’s piece: FBI Using the Same Fear Tactic From the First War on Terror: Orchestrating its Own Terrorism Plots.
Well, my go-to expert, in whom I place a whole lot more trust, than in Buzzfeed or Greenwald, is Andrew McCarthy, due to his extensive knowledge on both how the FBI conducts investigations in domestic terrorism cases and the FBI’s use of confidential informants. McCarthy discusses this case in a NRO podcast with Rich Lowry (at 22:40): Episode 136: Slow-Motion Train Wreck. This entire podcast is worth listening to, but if you’re pressed for time McCarthy’s primer of FBI confidential informants with regards to the Wolverine Watchmen blows past the partisan spin and explains the legal process. I’ve read several of McCarthy’s books, starting with The Grand Jihad: How Islam and he Left Sabotage America and I listened to the audiobook of his take on the Trump/Russian collusion mess, Ball of Collusion: the Plot to Rig and Election and Destroy a Presidency.
There you have it two very different takes on the same information. I really find FBI director, Christopher Wray, way too much like James Comey. Under oath testifying to Congress, Wray does these lawyerly tap dances, that remind me of Comey, where talks in circles and avoids answering most questions Republican officials ask, while being much more cooperative with Democrats. My trust level in the FBI plummeted in recent years, so I hope McCarthy’s take is closer to the truth than the rogue FBI take.
Update: Just clicked on National Review and Andrew McCarthy has written a piece on this Wolverine Watchmen story: Whitmer-Kidnap Case Enters ‘Entrapment’ Phase.
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