As attention turns to the Capitol riot on the first anniversary Thursday, evidence is mounting in the investigation of the alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer that has striking parallels to the Jan. 6 event.
Defense attorneys in the Whitmer case are piecing together evidence “that depicts an elaborate tale of FBI entrapment,” writes Julie Kelly, who has reported extensively on both cases for the website American Greatness.
She points out at least a dozen FBI informants were involved in the failed plot to kidnap the Michigan governor, amounting to about one FBI asset per defendant.
“FBI agents handling the informants directed every move,” Kelly writes. “They funded training and reconnaissance trips, and even organized a ‘national militia’ conference in Ohio in June 2020 to lure potential accomplices.”
But when several men were arrested in the Michigan plot in October 2020 after the lead informant drove them to meet an undercover FBI agent, Joe Biden, Whitmer and the establishment media blamed President Trump for inciting an attempted domestic terror attack.
That should sound familiar, writes Kelly.
On Thursday, President Biden will give a speech on the one-year anniversary of the Capitol riot in which he will place responsibility on Trump, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at the daily briefing Wednesday.
However, Kelly and Revolver News have led the way among the independent investigative reporters who have compiled evidence that suspected FBI informants worked in tandem to turn a peaceful rally on Jan. 6, 2021, into a riot.
She has noted that despite the repeated claims that Jan. 6 was an “armed insurrection” of “white supremacists,” not one person has been charged with carrying or using a firearm inside the Capitol building. The only person who used a firearm inside the Capitol was the Capitol Police officer who shot and killed an unarmed female veteran, Ashli Babbitt.
The FBI said in August it had not found evidence that Jan. 6 was the result of an organized plot to overturn the election, according to four current and former law enforcement officials.
‘Collapsing narrative’
Kelly believes that if the Whitmer prosecution fails, “it would deliver a huge blow to the already collapsing narrative about January 6.”
“The two events are inextricably tied with numerous intersections— not the least of which is that the head of the FBI’s Detroit field office, Steven D’Antuono, was promoted to run the FBI field office in Washington, D.C., one week after the arrests in the Whitmer plot were announced.”
The Washington office is the one running the bureau’s Capitol investigation.
Significantly, several figures seen in multiple videos directing the breach of the Capitol on Jan. 6 have not been arrested or indicted, including Arizona man Ray Epps. Epps mysteriously was dropped from the FBI’s Most Wanted list related to Jan. 6 one day after Revolver New reported the FBI was protecting known Epps associate and Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes. The evidence, Revolver News showed in its first report, includes videos showing Epps urging Trump supporters on the eve of Jan. 6 to go into the Capitol building the next day as the people gathered around him booed and chanted “Fed, fed, fed!” On Jan. 6, he was seen at the initial breach of barriers outside the Capitol, apparently directing operatives.
In a follow-up report last month, Revolver News presented evidence, backed by videos and images, that there were others who worked in tandem with Epps. Yet, like Epps, they have not been pursued by the Justice Department.
Similarly, Kelly points out that the Justice Department notified the court in the Whitmer case on Dec. 17 that all three of the top FBI agents in charge of the investigation will not testify in the March 8 trial.
However, she writes, defense attorneys have attached a detailed chart to a new defense filing with messages and recordings proving extensive planning and coordination between FBI agents and their confidential sources.
The attorneys say the communications also show the would-be kidnappers pushed back on the FBI’s kidnap plan on several occasions.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson has produced a three-part documentary on Jan. 6 called “Patriot Purge” that concludes growing evidence points to “incitement by federal agents” and the “intentional entrapment of American citizens.”
Garland: ‘We will follow the facts’
In a live address Wednesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department has only begun to take action against “January 6 perpetrators.”
“The actions we have taken thus far will not be our last,” he said. “The Justice Department remains committed to holding all January 6th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law — whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy.
“We will follow the facts wherever they lead,” he vowed.
See Garland’s remarks:
Attorney General Merrick Garland on #January6th: “The actions we have taken thus far will not be our last. The Justice Department remains committed to holding all January 6th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law…” pic.twitter.com/l0qbBKfQT3
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 5, 2022
In a House hearing in October, Garland was questioned by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., about Epps, without naming him, after playing videos of him urging protesters to enter the Capitol building and then shepherding crowds through the barriers.
“As far as we can determine,” Massie said to Garland, “the individual who was saying he’ll probably go to jail, he’ll probably be arrested, but they need to go into the Capitol the next day, is then directing people into the Capitol the next day, is then the next day directing people to the Capitol. And as far as we can find. You said this is one of the most sweeping in history. Have you seen that video, or those frames from that video?”
Garland replied, “So, as I said at the outset, one of the norms of the Justice Department is to not comment on pending investigations, and particularly not to comment on particular scenes or particular individuals.”
Massie pressed further, telling the AG he was “hoping today to give you an opportunity to put to rest the concerns that people have that there were federal agents or assets of the federal government present on January 5 and January 6.”
“Can you tell us,” Massie asked, “without talking about particular incidents or particular videos, how many agents or assets of the federal government were present on January 6, whether they agitated to go into the Capitol, and if any of them did?”
Garland again said he would not “comment on an investigation that’s ongoing.”
Kelly, for her part, doesn’t appear to be confident that Garland will “follow the facts wherever they lead,” having written a book published one week ago titled “January 6: How Democrats Used the Capitol Protest to Launch a War on Terror Against the Political Right.”
I questioned Attorney General Garland about whether there were Federal Agents present on 1/6 and whether they agitated to go into the Capitol. Attorney General Garland refused to answer. pic.twitter.com/RHq3Yd2pbu
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) October 21, 2021
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