At one point Wright asked the undercover FBI agent "if there was any work he could do" to pay for the items he was going to purchase" from the agent. Later, Connor Stevens told Wright that he no longer wanted to be part of the plan, but wanted to know if the informant might hire him to do some work on his house.
At another point, Wright told the informant that he and others thought one of the individuals involved was an undercover cop (which he was). To allay his fears, the informant said he would help provide the explosives.
Clamoring to Thwart "Terrorist Plots"
U.S. Attorney Dettelbach called this a violent terrorist plot, and said: "The defendants stand charged based not upon any words or beliefs they might espouse, but based upon their own plans and actions."
What's troubling is that the government has had a heavy hand in creating the very plot it thwarted.
And on top of that, the defendants, by the admission of the FBI, said repeatedly that they had no intention of harming anyone. At one point Baxter and Wright "stated they don't want people to think they are terrorists."
This isn't an isolated instance.
The criminal complaint reads like the spitting image of the case of Eric McDavid, who was coaxed by an undercover FBI operative named "Anna." In that case, like this one, the FBI supplied bomb making recipes, bomb making materials, and attempts to distill activist boasting and hyperbole into a coherent plan.
McDavid did nothing, and was arrested on conspiracy charges, like these defendants have been. As readers of this site know, conspiracy charges are the fall-back for the government when there is not enough evidence to get anything else to "stick."
Demonization of Anarchism
In addition to a continuation of undercover informants and FBI-manufactured plots, this case also reflects on an-going focus on demonizing anarchists.
The government's press release proclaims that the defendants are "self-proclaimed anarchists." The affidavit notes that they attended anarchist protests and carried anarchist flags.
The affidavit also says that the defendants talked about anarchists "rioting and destroying each city" that holds May Day protests, and that it will be "off the hook."
Demonizing anarchists has gone one for over a century, of course, but in recent years the rhetoric has dovetailed with "War on Terrorism" hysteria.
For example, in Scott Demuth's case, the government argued that: "Defendant's writings, literature, and conduct suggest that he is an anarchist and associated with the ALF movement. Therefore, he is a domestic terrorist."
In another case, the government sought a high cash bond against environmentalist Hugh Farrell because "the defendant has been observed advocating literature and materials which advocate anarchy."
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