Questions Loom After Verdicts in Whitmer ‘Kidnapping’ Trial
What did top government officials know and when did they know it?
By Julie Kelly April 11, 2022
It’s impossible to overstate the significance of the verdicts handed down last week for four men charged with conspiring to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020 and use a “weapon of mass destruction” in the process.
Despite sworn testimony from several FBI experts and agents—including the primary FBI informant, Dan Chappel, who was compensated at least $60,000 by the bureau for his involvement—endless federal resources, and favorable rulings by the judge to withhold evidence and testimony, a jury of 12 Americans rejected the government’s case in cold fashion on Friday in a Grand Rapids courtroom. The Justice Department did not win a single conviction; two men walked free after 18 months in prison and two men remain behind bars as prosecutors prepare to re-try them after a hung jury could not agree on their guilt.
What the jury did agree on, however, is that the Federal Bureau of Investigation engaged in entrapment. Defense attorneys, with the consent of Chief District Court Judge Robert Jonker, argued that the FBI attempted to induce their clients into committing the alleged kidnapping crime.
Another defense attorney, Christopher Gibbons, said it was “unacceptable” that the federal government framed the men under the guise of thwarting a domestic terror attack. “They don’t make terrorists so we can arrest them,” Gibbons said.
That is, of course, precisely what the Justice Department and FBI did—and it was not just about a few rogue agents.
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