JOHN HINDERAKER: The FBI and the Proud Boys: “It also turns out that one FBI informant stayed in touch with the Boys after the demonstration and even talked to their defense counsel while trial strategy was being planned. Only within the last few days have defendants and their lawyers been told that a woman whom they considered a friend and who participated, to some degree, in discussions of how the case should be defended, was in fact an FBI informer. The government and the trial judge are maneuvering furiously to prevent the public from learning how deeply the FBI had penetrated the Proud Boys, and from learning what role FBI agents and informers played in the demonstration.”

Nothing to see hree, move along. This certainly isn’t a case where the defense was penetrated, and maybe controlled, by the prosecution or anything. Relax. That couldn’t happen in America because our rulers would never stoop so low.

Plus: “Suffice it to say that the real scandal arising from the January 6 protest was not the fact that a handful of demonstrators broke into the Capitol, while many more were freely admitted by guards. Rather, the principal scandal is the manner in which pro-Donald Trump demonstrators have been treated by law enforcement: held without trial in solitary confinement, ridiculously over-charged (e.g., insurrection vs. trespassing), forced to plead guilty to imaginary or over-hyped offenses by the prospect of long jail terms for offenses they never committed, and set up by FBI agents and informants loyal to the Democratic Party who, it seems, may have played key roles in encouraging the demonstration to get out of hand.”