Trevor Aaronson, a reporter for The Intercept, says the FBI’s involvement in an alleged plot to kidnap and kill Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) was “very similar” to sting operations targeting Islamic extremists.
Aaronson joined Hill.TV’s “Rising” to discuss Buzzfeed News’s reporting on the plot, which revealed that FBI informants were involved in every aspect of the alleged plot from the beginning.
Aaronson said the plot would “most likely not” have unfolded the way it did given “the large number of informants involved and their place within the conspiracy.”
He drew comparisons to previous sting operations targeting Islamic extremists.
“To me, this strikes me as very similar to the type of sting operation we’ve seen targeting Islamic extremists where the people involved either don’t have the capacity on their own, and/or don’t even have the idea on their own. And it’s the FBI undercover agent or informant who is either providing the idea and/or all of the means necessary to commit this crime,” Aaronson said.
Aaron further said it would be interesting to see if a jury would be more open to the argument of entrapment given the circumstances.
“I think what will be interesting in this case is whether a jury will be more open to arguments of entrapments given that this is a group of white defendants compared to the largely Muslim and Black defendants we’ve seen in terrorism stings. And whether they’ll be any difference because of the ideology,” he said.
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