A clear case of entrapment. Classic FBI. Find a group of mopes. Use informants and agents to lead them into a conspiracy to commit a crime that they would never have carried out on their own. Expose the plot manufactured by the FBI. Nail them to the wall in court. Another brilliant page in law enforcement courtesy of the guardians of America, the FBI! (Cue the theme music.)
This usually works because the culprits are usually poor and have to rely on bored and, often indifferent, Federal public defenders, as they are railroaded to decades in prison. In this case the Defendants had highly able attorneys who exposed to the jury that the architects of this plot were the G-Men.
This taxpayer paid villainy has been going on for decades. We need statutes making entrapment a criminal offense, and the FBI needs to be reformed root and branch or abolished.
That they manufacture crimes which they then ‘solve’ is an indicator it’s an agency full of people who do not have real work to do or it’s an agency dedicated to anarcho-tyranny. Either way, it’s an agency which should no longer exist. Peel away the parts which employ technically sophisticated sorts (laboratories and such), subject them to outside audits, and shut down the rest.
There is real work for the FBI to do, like cracking and rounding up the drug cartels that are making a circus of our southern border and poisoning our citizens (the DEA reported Feb. 22,2022 an estimated 100,000 US citizens died of fentanyl intoxication in the prior 12 month period ending in spring, 2020, or nearly 2000 deaths per week) or confronting and apprehending the gangs making a shooting gallery of cities like Chicago, St. Louis, Baltimore, and New Orleans—but I get the feeling they don’t have the stones for really dangerous work like that.
Better round up some quasi-indigent hapless middle-age fall guys instead.
FBI: Formerly Believable Institution. i don’t trust a thing that comes from the FBI these days.