"Through confidential sources, undercover agents, and clandestine recordings," the Justice Department announced in October 2020, "law enforcement learned particular individuals were planning to kidnap" Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and "acting in furtherance of that plan." But it turned out those individuals included the government's "confidential sources," who pushed the half-baked scheme and orchestrated acts "in furtherance of that plan" even when the defendants resisted it.
The appearance of entrapment, coupled with the difficulty of distinguishing between fantasy and criminal conspiracy, explains the embarrassing outcome of a federal trial that ended last week, when jurors acquitted two alleged conspirators and failed to reach verdicts for the other two. It was a well-deserved rebuke of investigative methods that crossed the line between prevention and invention.
