“It’s not just Muslims; it’s also people like McVeigh.”
When the stranger materialized a few years ago, nobody really knew much about him. He seemed like a suitably sympathetic figure and quickly ingratiated himself by offering whatever help he could. No task was too menial for him, and he had a way of finding just what the group needed right when it was required.
Most importantly, he seemed to share the group’s antipathy toward the government. If anything, he was just a bit more emphatic than the rest in denouncing official corruption and endorsing violent “direct action” against the state. He seemed eager to shepherd the group in a more militant direction, eagerly out-bidding every expression of outrage and hostility. One of his favorite recurring themes was the idea that a criminal state could only be fought through the use of criminal means.
When the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) staged an armed raid to arrest several members of the group, the helpful stranger was nowhere to be found. He did leave a parting gift, however, in the form of detailed allegations recorded in a federal indictment alleging that the group he had infiltrated on behalf of the JTTF was involved in extensive criminal activity – most of which was either suggested or directly facilitated by him – and an ambitious plot to wage war against the United States Government.
In broad outline, this is what most likely happened within Michigan’s Hutaree militia during the past couple of years, a period during which – as federal authorities now admit – the group was infiltrated by both an undercover FBI agent and a “cooperating witness.”
One of the FBI’s plants, significantly, “posed as someone who could provide the group with custom-made explosives,” observes the Detroit News.