Judging Freedom - Gov. Gretchen Whitmer Kidnapping trial update

Episode Date: March 24, 2022

Hello there everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, March 24, 2022. It's about 1125 in the morning here on the east coast of the United States. And today, or yesterday began, today resumes the trial of four members of the Michigan Wolverines. other things, not to her, but to the area around where she was to be kidnapped in an effort to cause a disturbance and arouse other militias around the country. That's at least what the government wants you to believe. The government has bribed a witness and put the bribed witness on the witness stand. Judge, what are you talking about the government bribed a witness? Well, the government cut a deal with one of the defendants, and in return for his saying what the government wants to hear,

they will ask the federal judge in this case to lessen his time in jail. Now, this deal was cut, obviously, so that this fellow could testify against his former friends. But if he doesn't tailor his testimony to what the government wants to hear, then his deal will explode in his face. His sentence occurs after the trial at which they'll presumably be convicted. If they're acquitted or if he breaks down on the witness stand and tells the truth, those prosecutors bribed me, then obviously his deal falls through and he's not going to get the lighter sentence. This is a despicable process and procedure that prosecutors love to use. You're prosecuting a group of people. The best way to convict them is to flip one of the group, offer them a deal, offer them a bribe.

And it is a bribe. The federal statute prohibits offering a witness anything of value in order to tailor the witness's testimony. Isn't freedom anything of value, defense counsel would be indicted along with the witness for perjury or attempted perjury. I wrote a book, my first book, called What Happens at Constitutional Chaos? What Happens When the Government Breaks Its Own Laws? And there's a section in there on bribery, and my favorite case is one where the federal government is trying a federal judge for bribery, and they bribed a witness to testify against the federal judge. He was convicted, but the Court of Appeals threw it out. I don't know what will happen in this case.

There are many, many issues that the judge has taken off the table. There were more FBI agents and undercover agents involved in this alleged plot to kidnap Governor Whitmer than there were defendants. The FBI organized, orchestrated, trained these people, it paid their expenses, but the judge will not let defense counsel argue to the jury that it was entrapment. It was a classic case of entrapment. The danger with entrapment is how does the government decide who to entrap? How do they decide who to nail? How do they decide who to bribe? And why does the government get away with breaking its own laws? Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.