Forum

Dinesh D’Souza: There’s a new revelation that the FBI, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had at least 20 undercover agents embedded in January 6, in the crowd or in the groups involved in January 6th. And here we’re talking particularly about a single group, namely the so-called Oath Keepers.

Now, how do we know this? Well, it comes out of a filing by a defense attorney in the Oath Keepers’ case. So interestingly here, the government does not put out information. It doesn’t tell you what they did, but the defense gets this information from discovery. And they look through the discovery and the government admits, yeah, we had more than 20 agents. And so the defense puts that into their motion. That’s how we know about it, because the motions are official documents.

Now, at least 20 — could mean more than 20, we don’t know how many more. And the case that’s going to trial — the judge is Amit Mehta and this a Democratic appointee, a guy who’s been very hostile to the January 6th defendants. So, you’re dealing here with the D.C. establishment, D.C. judges, D.C. juries. This is part of what I think is giving the January 6th defendants a raw deal. Not really a jury of their peers, certainly not a jury in any way sympathetic to their ideas or even their motivation for why they might have gone to D.C. in the first place.

“The government infiltrated organizations like the Oath Keepers and they were essentially spying on them.”

Now, when the government admits that it’s got all these agents, they also admit, according at least to these documents, that these agents were embedded prior to January 6th. So that means that the government infiltrated organizations like the Oath Keepers and they were essentially spying on them and monitoring them before January 6th.

And on what basis? I mean, were these people guilty of breaking any laws? If they weren’t, what possible justification can the government have for doing this?

Well, the government’s justifications were “we’re monitoring,” you know, “hate groups,” we’re monitoring this kind of “troubling activity,” and it’s given the government a kind of open license to sort of penetrate these groups with true informants and monitor them.

Now, as we know, all of this is coming in the wake of an exoneration of two defendants in the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping case, where the FBI seems to have had a large role in orchestrating the so-called conspiracy in helping to plan it and helping to organize it, and then helping to carry it out, upon which they turn around and bust these guys. So, that’s the background against which you have to look at what’s happening in January 6th.

And in fact, the chief at FBI agent in Michigan and Detroit who was overseeing this operation, this frame-up operation, this entrapment operation, is a guy who was subsequently transferred to D.C. and given a high position in the January 6th matter. And that’s where he is now.

Now the Oath Keepers’ defense in this “seditious conspiracy” case, and the whole idea that they were planning sedition is just inherently absurd. But again, when you have a D.C. jury of D.C. judges, things that are absurd on the face of it or absurd to the normal outsider suddenly become very plausible. “Yeah! D.C. was under the greatest attacks since 1812!” This is the kind of stuff that these jurors and judges have been reading about in The Hill and in The Washington Post and hearing on NPR.

So in their a cubicle of knowledge, this is actually what happened. That’s the interpretive framework that they’re bringing to these events.

Now, very interestingly, as you read the documents produced by the Oath Keepers in their defense, they offer us sort of an ingenious argument. I have difficulty believing that this is going to work, but it is kind of clever. And I want to share it with you. The argument is that the definition under the Title 18 of the U.S. Code, Seditious Conspiracy is this: You have to somehow conspire or plan to forcibly obstruct a person authorized to execute a law while that person is trying to execute the law that is opposed by the defendant. So, this is what it means to carry out a seditious conspiracy — you have to have a public official, they have to be executing a law, they have to be in the process of doing it, and you have to act forcibly to stop them.

“The Oath Keepers’ argument is that there is a difference between the legislative branch and the executive branch.”

The question is, did the Oath Keepers do that? Now, the Oath Keepers’ argument is that there is a difference between the legislative branch and the executive branch. And the legislative branch, including members of Congress — their job is not to execute any laws. In fact, they are, by definition, part of the legislative branch that makes laws, so says the Oath Keepers’ lawyers. Certifying an election is not an executive function. It’s a legislative function. The Constitution says that members of Congress will, in fact, certify the election. And so, what they’re basically saying is, listen, we’re by definition not guilty of this because sedition involves the executive act, the executive branch, the execution of the laws and not the legislative function that Congress is empowered by the Constitution to carry out.

As I say, this is a clever distinction, but it looks to me one that the judge is going to probably give short shrift to.

But the broader issue here is that — and I think this is really, if I were a defense lawyer, I would be pushing this idea: To what degree did the FBI actually push this case, push January 6th forward in the exact same way that they did with the Gretchen Whitmore kidnapping?

I’m not sure if it’s going to be possible to bring the facts of that situation in here. It could be challenged on the ground of relevance, but if you could show that the FBI having infiltrated groups like the Oath Keepers was egging them on, “Hey guys, you thought of going to the Capitol? Hey guys, you don’t have any money. Well, listen, how about if we advance you some dollars? How about if we make your hotel reservations? Hey, listen, we’re all going to go down to the rally, but what are we going to do after the rally? How about if we mosey over to the Capitol? Listen, I know a door that might be open. How about if we go through that door?”

“This would be a clear-cut case of the FBI informants not acting as mere informants, but as participants and, in fact, as drivers of the plot.”

So this would be a clear-cut case of the FBI informants not acting as mere informants, but as participants and, in fact, as drivers of the plot. I think that’s what made the Michigan case so interesting. The FBI was driving forward a plot that probably would’ve not gone forward if the FBI had not been involved. And so, the jury saw that and they were like, no, we are not going to convict. The FBI couldn’t get a single conviction in that case. And it seems to me that provides an illuminating model for the defense to pursue in the events of January 6th.