Tucker Carlson returned from his vacation, invigorated, loaded for bear, and furious about what our federal government is doing.  Last night, he focused on revelations about the FBI's conduct in Michigan, which led to the October 2020 announcement that the FBI had arrested a paramilitary cell that planned to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer.  Thanks to an informant's testimony under oath, we now know that the plot was FBI entrapment from start to finish.  But here's something weird: a lot of the things that happened in the Michigan case reappeared in D.C. on January 6.

In October 2020, one month before the election, the FBI proudly announced that it had arrested 13 men who were planning to kidnap Michigan's governor, Whitmer, and overthrow the Michigan government.  The suspects, they said, were a far-right militia.  We now know that this was all a lie and that it was entrapment from start to finish.  We know this because the intrepid Julie Kelly, unlike the completely disinterested mainstream media, has been latched on to the case like a bulldog.

On Tuesday, Kelly put out a long series of tweets regarding the testimony coming from "Big Dan," the FBI informant in the case.  His testimony revealed that the FBI orchestrated the plot and blatantly entrapped the men it eventually arrested.  It's to be hoped that the man who pleaded guilty petitions to overturn his plea.  What should help that petition is that, during the retrial of the two men whose case ended in a hung jury, Dan "Big Dan" Chappel, the FBI's informant, got on the witness stand and spilled every bean about the FBI's gross malfeasance.

Image: FBI building entrance (edited) by Tim Evanson.  CC BY-SA 2.0; Inferno (edited) by Joseph Anton Koch (1825–1828; photo by Sailko; CC BY 3.0).

Tucker, after acknowledging Kelly's stellar work, described exactly what Big Dan's testimony covered when it came to what the FBI did to those 13 men, and it's just a sickening narrative.  The FBI repeatedly encouraged the men to engage in illegal activity, doing everything from setting up fake militia groups to trying to bribe them.  Watch Tucker for yourself.  Afterward, I want to cover a few similarities between Michigan and January 6.

Tucker Carlson: There's a reason the public's confidence in the FBI has plummeted | https://t.co/wP7osHGmgc

— American Thinker (@AmericanThinker) August 17, 2022

One can't help but be struck by some of the similarities between the Michigan case and certain things that happened on January 6:

In Michigan, there was an informant ("Big Dan") who aggressively and openly pushed innocent people into committing illegal activities.  In D.C., there was Ray Epps, repeatedly caught on camera, aggressively and openly pushing innocent people into committing illegal activities.  The DOJ and FBI, despite arresting over 900 people and leveling charges at more than 500 of them, are strangely disinterested in Epps.

I'm not saying Epps was FBI.  Indeed, in a careful denial, the January 6 committee says only that he wasn't acting for a law enforcement agency, but that leaves the door open for his acting on behalf of other agencies.  There are a lot of alphabet soup agencies.  It's just interesting that Epps's conduct mirrored Big Dan's.

In Michigan, the people entangled in the plot are law-abiding citizens who were manipulated into appearing like dangerous terrorists who represented a whole class of dangerous terrorists opposed to Democrats.  In D.C....well, ditto.

In Michigan, the FBI agent whose job it was to build the criminal case against the accused openly despised Trump.  In D.C....well, no one in the FBI or DOJ has any love for Trump.

In Michigan, the FBI agent charged with overseeing the entire investigation was Steven D'antuono.  In D.C., by January 1, 2021, the lead agent in the D.C. field office was...Steven D'antuono.  What a coincidence!

Oh, and there's one more thing about which Big Dan testified, which Tucker didn't cover but that you need to think of in connection with D'antuono's career trajectory.  Thus, in Michigan,

Dan Chappel testified Monday and Tuesday in Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr.'s retrial for the alleged kidnapping plot. He said the FBI specifically asked state police to allow armed protesters into the state Capitol for de-escalation purposes in the protest, which he attended with Wolverine Watchmen militia members during his informant tenure, Bensinger reported. (Emphasis mine.)

In D.C.,

Capitol police open doors for the protestors. They stand aside and invite them inside. pic.twitter.com/OnSd3KGzz5

— Christina Bobb (@christina_bobb) January 8, 2021

These similarities certainly are thought-provoking.  It's as if the FBI, having tried out some tactics in Michigan, saw the planned Trump rally on January 6 as an opportunity to try them again.

I'm not saying that's what happened because I have no evidence to make that case.  We all know that, sometimes, a cigar is just a smoke, just as, sometimes, a coincidence is nothing more than a coincidence.  Indeed, even several coincidences may mean nothing.  The human mind has a remarkable capacity to tie things together, whether or not they belong that way.

But still...