The FBI, already under fire for its handling of FISA warrants and confidential informants, is enduring more scrutiny as the Justice Department admits agents failed to disclose to a court that they had paid - to the tune of six figures - a white supremacist publisher for years to be an investigative source.
Cole's lawyers filed a motion to suppress evidence gathered against their client on the grounds that the FBI had failed to disclose in a search warrant application that a publisher of extremist literature had been paid about $144,000 over 16 years to be an informant, including $82,000 for work in the case against Cole.
The filings don't identify the informant by name but describe him as a publisher who "Owns and operates a publishing company that distributes white supremacist writings." "The CI began his long career as a professional informant in exchange for consideration regarding his sentence on a federal conviction for possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number and an unregistered silencer," Cole's lawyers argued in an Aug. 13 motion.
You can read that filing here: File motiontosuppressCalebCole.
"The omitted information was limited to the fact that the informant was well compensated by the FBI over a 16-year period, and was convicted of a firearms crime over 15 years ago." You can read the government's filing here: File gov.
DOJ's internal watchdog, Inspector General Michael Horowitz, has filed numerous reports in recent months slamming the FBI for failing to remove and punish sexual harassers, for mismanaging confidential human sources and repeatedly filing inaccurate search warrants in Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act proceedings.
New questions have emerged about the FBI's conduct during an investigation into an alleged white supremacist plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, after Buzzfeed News disclosed the FBI had more informants involved in the plot, 12 in total, than defendants.
Monday, August 30, 2021
FBI suffers another black eye, admits it hid payments to informant in white supremacist case
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