[Update] FBI Screws UP Yet AGAIN

Y’all remember that retired Green Beret that posted video and audio recordings of the FBI trying to recruit him as a Confidential Informant, to spy on the Oathkeepers?

The FBI raided his house and arrested him Thursday morning at 3:45 AM. I don’t know just how many people were there, but the feds alone reportedly had 20 vehicles. Pinellas County was also on hand for the festivities. All for what seems to be a single misdemeanor trespassing charge. Brown reportedly never entered the Capitol building but may have been outside on Capitol grounds.

TGP’s Jim Hoft thinks this was retaliatory.

Jeremy Brown refused to be an informant for the dirty FBI — So they stormed his home at 3:45 AM and arrested him on bogus charges.

I’m not so sure about that. If there is anyone at the FBI or District Attorney’s office with enough brain cells to maintain breathing reflex, Brown is the last guy they want talking in court. His attorneys would start by introducing as evidence Brown’s video and audio recordings of the FBI encounters, along with all his writings and interviews on the subject. Then…

Your honor, a crime — in this alleged case, misdemeanor trespass — requires criminal intent: mens rea. The defendant was obviously — as evidenced by all these hours of recordings, and FBI agents’ own recorded statements, aware that he was under active FBI surveillance.

Knowing that he in particular was being actively watched, Mr. Brown was hardly going to knowingly commit a criminal act. Mr. Brown never entered the Capitol, and believed that his nonviolent, otherwise noncriminal presence outside the building was lawful.  There was no criminal intent.

At that point, we get to watch the judge try to weasel around mens rea, and unconstitutionally keep Brown in jail.

All this arrest did was ensure that a lot more people who had never heard of Jeremy Brown, or the FBI’s attempt to recruit him, will learn about it. And disapprove. And this will just highlight the FBI’s and Capitol Police infiltrators in the riot proper.

I’m wondering at what level — high or low — some frickin’ moron thought charging and arresting Brown was a good idea.

Update: I called it.

UPDATE: Court Denies Bail to Jeremy Brown Until Next Tuesday – Former Green Beret Was Arrested Thursday After He Earlier Refused FBI Request to Be Informant Plant at Jan. 6 Rallies

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