Today’s FBI……

So is there any reason why Trask can't be deposed by the defense?

I was going to ask the same question - why can't the defense call him as a material witness?

FBI fires Whitmer kidnap case agent amid wife beating allegations

https://www.detroitnews.com/st...egations/8295557002/

The FBI has fired one of the lead agents credited with thwarting a plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer after he was charged with beating his wife following a swingers party, The Detroit News has learned.

The firing of Special Agent Richard Trask earlier this week comes amid questions about agent misconduct and whether as many as 12 informants were driving the alleged conspiracy.

Trask was fired, according to a source familiar with his case, while awaiting trial on a charge of assault with intent to do great bodily harm and allegations he smashed his wife's head against a nightstand and choked her after a dispute stemming from their attendance at a swingers' party in July. Trask also was moonlighting as a personal trainer and it was unclear if his superiors at the FBI were aware or had approved the job.

The basis of Trask's firing were unclear and FBI spokesman Mara Schneider would only confirm Saturday that Trask is no longer employed by the bureau.

Trask's lawyer could not be reached for comment immediately Saturday.

Harry Truman, 1945:

quote:

We want no Gestapo or Secret Police. F.B.I. is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex life scandles [sic] and plain blackmail when they should be catching criminals. They also have a habit of sneering at local law enforcement officers.

Nothing has changed since then.

quote:

Originally posted by sig 226:

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Originally posted by RogueJSK:

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Originally posted by HK Ag:
So you can have a beard as an FBI agent?

Yes. Most of the agents I've dealt with have facial hair.

Our agency just authorized beards as well.. They still need to an pass an annual fit test but that is on the the individual officer..

I'm just waiting for the LBGT group to deem it sexist as many of the born-female members might have a problem growing a beard.

quote:

Originally posted by tacfoley:
I'm just waiting for the LBGT group to deem it sexist as many of the born-female members might have a problem growing a beard.

(Btw: ITYM* "cisgender-biased")


* I Think You Mean/Meant

So beating your wife and letting it get out that you're into "swinging" can get you fired, but lying under oath to a FISA court, falsifying evidence, leaking classified material, and targeting a factually innocent, honorably retired Army General to help remove the lawfully elected President of the United States gets nothing (except maybe accolades from the Democratic Party)???? This agency's lack of accountability screams for reform!!!!

Disband and defund the ATF and FBI.

We'd do best to fire them all and start over. The swamp is stinkiest and nastiest amongst the appointed persons who don't have to get confirmed or elected. The true abuse of power is amongst them.

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
...awaiting trial on a charge of assault with intent to do great bodily harm and allegations he smashed his wife's head against a nightstand and choked her after a dispute stemming from their attendance at a swingers' party in July. Trask also was moonlighting as a personal trainer...

Roid rage?

quote:

Originally posted by AKSuperDually:
Disband and defund the ATF and FBI.

We'd do best to fire them all and start over. The swamp is stinkiest and nastiest amongst the appointed persons who don't have to get confirmed or elected. The true abuse of power is amongst them.

Let's not forget our friends at DHS, the DEA & NSA either.....

I've got nothing against thinking big, but there may be something to be said for taking a methodical approach to one or a few agencies at a time.

quote:

Originally posted by akcopnfbks:

quote:

Originally posted by AKSuperDually:
Disband and defund the ATF and FBI.

We'd do best to fire them all and start over. The swamp is stinkiest and nastiest amongst the appointed persons who don't have to get confirmed or elected. The true abuse of power is amongst them.

Let's not forget our friends at DHS, the DEA & NSA either.....

DOI is hiring federal law enforcement officers right now in the town near me. Last year the IRS hired LE officers in Anchorage again.

I was told by a local LEO at a training a few years ago that we have more federal LE officers in Alaska than we do state/local. Frightening.

The above list doesn't even include falsifying evidence and perjury in FISA warrants to spy on and attempt to overturn the election of the president of the United States on behalf of the Democrat Party.

The FBI is probably beyond reform at this point.

And of course we now have yet ANOTHER act of deliberate incompetence, malfeasance and misconduct from the FBI’s TOP. MEN. as reported by Treehouse and elsewhere -

Rank and Vile Followup, FBI Director Chris Wray Says He’s Sorry For The FBI Systemic Corruption That Led to Sexual Abuse of Gymnast Victims

The FBI’s ‘FAFO’ Kidnapping Plot Unravels

https://amgreatness.com/2022/0...pping-plot-unravels/

In the spring of 2020, or so the government’s story goes, an Iraq War veteran named Dan Chappel was scouring social media to find like-minded libertarians devoted to the Second Amendment when algorithms prompted him to a Facebook group called the Wolverine Watchmen, an online “militia group” formed just a few months earlier.

Chappel reportedly became alarmed at violent “anti-law enforcement” rhetoric posted by some members of the Watchmen, so he notified police. Two weeks later, Chappel, under the code name “Big Dan,” became the lead FBI informant in a wild plot to “kidnap” Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, an act of domestic terror according to the Justice Department.

Four of the six men originally charged are now on trial in a Grand Rapids courtroom facing federal conspiracy to kidnap and weapons of mass destruction charges. The other two pleaded guilty and are testifying for the prosecution this week. But defense attorneys argue the FBI entrapped the men by using at least a dozen FBI confidential human sources (commonly described as informants) including Chappel and undercover FBI agents over the course of several months to concoct the plot.

During two days of testimony this week, Chappel struggled to maintain the government’s case while revealing what might be the most egregious example of FBI entrapment in decades. Chappel was paid more than $60,000 by the FBI for less than seven months of work; part of his compensation included a $3,300 laptop, a smart watch, and reimbursement for taking a loss after selling his eastern Michigan home that year.

And far from acting as a conduit between the alleged militia group and the FBI—the bureau’s alleged raison d’etre for hiring informants—Chappel methodically coalesced a random group of misfits angered by COVID-19 lockdowns and Black Lives Matter riots to form the gang of would-be kidnappers. The burly Iraq War vet—working for the U.S. Postal Service at the time—along with multiple FBI assets, “ingratiated” themselves, one defense attorney said, into the lives of seemingly isolated, destitute men. Some of the defendants referred to Chappel as “dad” as he used his age and military experience to assume a father-like persona. (Kaleb Franks, one of the original defendants who pleaded guilty to kidnapping, told the jury Thursday that he wanted to be killed by police in a shoot-out because “a large portion of my family had died” and he was “struggling financially and just wasn’t happy.”)

Chappel also took on another fake identity—a leader of the Wolverine Watchmen. Leveraging his imaginary leadership role for the Watchmen, Chappel acted as the “glue,” in his words, to unite the men. During two days of testimony this week, Chappel admitted he created group chats including one named “FAFO,” the acronym for “fuck around and find out,” on the encrypted app Wire and invited the defendants to join.

Chappel immediately gave the FBI direct access to the chats while deluging his targets with daily texts and calls; nearly 1,000 texts were exchanged over a three-month period between Chappel and Adam Fox, the alleged brains behind the kidnapping plot who lived alone in what one witness described as the “dark, dirty” cellar of a vacuum repair shop in a Grand Rapids strip mall with no running water, sink, or toilet.

With promises of free food and beer at nearby Buffalo Wild Wings—all paid for by the FBI—Chappel often enticed the defendants to meeting sites, training camps, and surveillance trips attended, and occasionally hosted, by multiple FBI informants and undercover agents. The FBI also paid for rented vehicles, gas, hotel rooms, and other related expenses to make sure the defendants could attend. Participants were usually drunk or stoned; during one event, Chappel admitted he drank six double Jack-and-Cokes to make it look like he was “going along” with the group. Every excursion and conversation was recorded then passed to the FBI. “Look at you, bringing people together,” Chappel’s FBI handler quipped in one text.

Chappel’s group, however, started to splinter by late summer so he asked the FBI how to “apply more pressure” to prevent anyone from bailing on the still-undefined crime-in-progress. An FBI agent separately directed a woman named Jenny, another FBI informant portrayed as the leader of a Tennessee militia, to stop the group from kicking out Barry Croft, one of the more vocal members who had been under FBI surveillance since 2019 for allegedly making “anti-government” comments on social media. “Remind them of all his good ideas,” FBI special agent Kristopher Long advised Jenny.

It worked.

But Chappel and the FBI had a bigger problem by August 2020; there was still no concrete plan to kidnap Whitmer, he told the jury this week. And time was running out for the FBI, which clearly wanted to publicize the caper before Election Day. So the agency accelerated its efforts by introducing another undercover FBI agent by the name of “Red” to act as an explosives expert who could help the men build a device to blow up a bridge near Whitmer’s cottage in upstate Michigan. At a training exercise on a weekend in September 2020, “Red” brought a video of how to make explosives and showed it to the group.

The video had been produced by the FBI.

In the end, for all the smoke and mirrors, all the fake identities and phony friendships, the best the FBI could do was concoct an outlandish plan that even the most sophisticated criminals couldn’t pull off, let alone a ragtag collection of broke—and broken—men with no resources.

Chappel explained to the jury that the scheme involved either stealing or borrowing two boats, anchoring them on the shore of Lake Michigan, driving to Whitmer’s remote vacation home, killing her security detail, abducting Whitmer, placing her in one boat with the defendants in the second boat, and either leaving her in the middle of Lake Michigan or taking her all the way across the lake to Wisconsin where she would stand trial for her anti-lockdown crimes.

Setting aside the ferociousness of Lake Michigan in October—which on its own made the plot totally inconceivable—none of the men involved was capable of executing such a violent, elaborate plan. Further, the FBI had installed cameras and other surveillance devices at some point around Whitmer’s property so she was never in legitimate danger—raising the question as to why the cameras were installed before the men were arrested. Were they installed to protect her or to collect evidence of the defendants scoping out the property during a “reconnaissance” trip organized by Chappel and other FBI assets?

The trial is expected to last at least a few more weeks and produce more fireworks. The defense filed a motion this week asking the court to compel the testimony of Stephen Robeson, a longtime FBI informant and convicted felon central to the Whitmer kidnapping scheme. Robeson, now accused by the Justice Department of acting as a “double agent,” was removed from the government’s witness list. But the defense wants the jury to hear from the informant responsible for organizing several meetings and trips. He reportedly plans to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Entrapment defenses are very hard to prove. Americans still want to believe that the country’s most powerful law enforcement agency handles its authority with care rather than recklessly ruining lives to advance a political agenda on behalf of the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, recent history proves the latter is true.

The name of Chappel’s group chat—“fuck around and find out”—ultimately might apply more to the FBI itself than to the defendants he helped entrap.

Bipartisan Senate group presses FBI over reports agents broke rules hundreds of times

https://justthenews.com/accoun..._campaign=newsletter

Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Judiciary Ranking member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote letters Monday pressing the Department of Justice for answers after an internal FBI audit found that agents violated rules at least hundreds of times over a year and a half.

A 2019 report published by The Washington Times earlier this month shows that of the 353 sensitive FBI cases audited, there were 747 "compliance errors," making it a ratio of slightly more than two problems per case.

Errors included agents' failure to get approval from FBI officials to begin an investigation and failure to communicate with prosecutors and create the proper pre-investigation documentation. The investigations targeted political candidates and religious and political groups, among others.

"These widespread and apparently systemic violations of approval and notification requirements make clear that the FBI has failed to rigorously adhere to the DIOG," or the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, Durbin and Grassley wrote in their letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray.

"The sheer number of FBI investigations that failed to comply with the DIOG’s rules suggests a pattern and practice of evading the rules, which consequently opens the door for political and other improper considerations to infect the investigative decision-making process," they said.

Grassley and Durbin asked Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz to conduct another audit on the FBI's compliance with agency requirements for sensitive investigations.

"Due to the nature of their subjects, these investigations present heightened constitutional and civil liberties concerns and therefore merit greater scrutiny and supervision," the senators wrote.

"Accordingly, we ask that the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) perform an additional audit of the FBI’s compliance with the DIOG’s requirements for conducting SIMs. Among other things, the audit should address the FBI’s compliance with relevant requirements during SIMs pending from July 2019 to the present day, including additional SIM-related guidance and requirements imposed by the FBI in response to OIG’s December 2019 report regarding Crossfire Hurricane," they stated.

Grassley has questioned the DOJ about Crossfire Hurricane before. He and Sen. Ron, R-Wis., Johnson sent a letter last month asking Attorney General Merrick Garland to declassify records related to the operation after then-President Donald Trump ordered the documents' release while he was in office.

If I was ever in a position to do so, the first thing I would ever do is to eliminate the FBI, the ATF and the EPA.

I'd also cut funding to the IRS by 80%

The FBI is a sad, pale shadow of what it once was and stood for. Having worked over the last 30 years in LE, their slide into partisanship, incompetence, and outright dishonesty at the leadership level on down is both disheartening and sickening. Orchestrating criminal investigations as above to illegally entrap seems to be a big part of what they’ve become. Violating their oath is to me tantamount to treason to the people they really work for- the American people.

I don't think the FBI can even be considered a legitimate law enforcement agency at this point - they're more a collection of un-managed hired thugs that have whored themselves out to the democratic party