Driving While Unfashionable
By Mitch Berg
What started out as a case seemingly designed to impugn the Tea Party and all dissent against government…
…is turning, so far, into a sign that Janet Napolitano really, really needed a diversion:
Federal authorities touted the arrests of nine members of a Michigan militia as a pre-emptive strike against homegrown terrorists, declaring at an initial court hearing that the suspects with “dark hearts and evil intent” wanted to go to war against the government.
Five weeks later, prosecutors are scrambling to regroup after a judge questioned the strength of their evidence by ordering the so-called rebels released until trial and saying they had a right to “engage in hate-filled, venomous speech.”
“The government is falling short,” said David Griem, a former federal prosecutor who’s not involved in the case. “The message that’s been sent to the community is there are problems with this case.”
During two days of hearings last week before U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts, prosecutors tried to show how dangerous they perceived the Hutaree militia to be by playing secretly recorded conversations. Those talks, however, revealed no specific plot. Under questioning by defense attorneys, the FBI’s lead agent on the case seemed unprepared.
Were the Hutaree a group of convenient “usual suspects” rounded up at a time the Administration needed to discredit all dissent outside the Beltway – Tea Parties, bitter gun-clinging Jesus freaks and Republicans all at the same time?
May 5th, 2010 at 7:58 am
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Charles Rutherford , NARN2. NARN2 said: Were the Hutaree Napolitano's "Usual Suspects?" http://bit.ly/cfDHXH #narn2 #hhrs – Gov't "Right Wing Terror" case unraveling. […]
May 5th, 2010 at 9:07 am
I bet a dollar that it will turn out that the Hutaree who originated all these violent conspiracies was the informer.
May 5th, 2010 at 11:16 am
I have no idea if these guys are innocent or guilty but this Administration seems desperately bent on finding a violent right wing group.
May 5th, 2010 at 11:48 am
You know, its good fun to mock the feds pathetic, keystone kops act here (to say nothing of the moonbats’ witless reactions), but when you add up all the botched investigations, bungled raids and outright criminal tactics we have witnessed from law enforcement agencies over the past 15 years it really is troubling.
I love to rub stool’s nose in the ever increasing number of local police agencies caught committing serious crimes, but it’s really not funny. Terry’s assumption is on absolutely solid ground.
These people have resources beyond your wildest imagination, and all too often, they are using them to fabricate cases against people and groups they have determined to target without an articulated, legal cause.
It a serious problem made all the more serious by the fact that the instances are so much more commonplace people are starting to take the crooked cop for the unredeemable status quo.
May 5th, 2010 at 11:59 am
Doggone it, Swiftee, why can’t we turn these law enforcement agencies loose on, y’know, Muslim terrorists?
I swear the Catholic Church has been criticized more in Nick Kristof’s latest op-ed column than Islam has been criticized in the entire history of the NYTimes, including the Sunday Supplement.
May 5th, 2010 at 12:29 pm
Speaking of buffoonery Ramsey County’s own Sheriff Fletcher has just spent a quarter million on a patrol boat. I guess because we have had to many terrorist attacks on grain barges.
May 5th, 2010 at 1:48 pm
10 to 1 it’s painted cammo and has a removable bullrush canopy, jpmn. The sheriff is a big waterfowl fan.