"Letting the prosecutors know I was aware of pharmacist’s disparate treatment was likely instrumental in getting my guy a misdemeanor plea offer as well."
This sounds kinda like you 'blackmailed' the prosecution - "Give my guy a misdemeanor or I let everyone know that the pharmacist is an informant".
Is that what happened or do I misunderstand? If that's what happened, is that normal practice?
Prosecutors pay very close attention that every case they handle is more or less uniformly/equivalently. Their offices provide guidelines that everyone is expected to follow closely because it's embarrassing to have a hodge-podge of arbitrary decisions by deputy prosecutors. So if you accuse them of or imply that they're treating someone selectively they tend to take that very seriously. Defense attorneys talk amongst each other and when we negotiate cases, we regularly use "you gave this deal to this other guy" argument because it's very effective.
If the pharmacist was indeed an informant, I had no idea if he was working for the feds or the state, so I didn't know if the state prosecutors I was dealing with would know or even care. So I admit there was a small element of me wondering whether they'd give my client a good deal just to shut me up, but they also never asked nor could they have stopped me from investigating it further (and I did indeed continue investigating ^_^).
Thanks for delving into this so we don't have to. That's as much attention as I care to give this matter.
I do have one side question. You call this circular reasoning:
> "Epps was treated leniently because he was a fed, and we know he's a fed because he was treated leniently."
I honestly don't see that as circular. Before sentencing, the suspicious say "we think he may be an informant, in which case he won't be charged as stringently". After sentencing, they say "as we predicted if he were an informant, he was indeed treated leniently, which supports our suspicions".
I don't see what's circular about that. If being an informant is correlated with lenient treatment, then lenient treatment would be correlated with being an informant. Bidirectional association or correlation is common (indeed typical) and is not circular reasoning. What am I missing?
TO BE CLEAR, I'm not questioning your conclusions about Ray Epps (whom I had not paid any attention to, and will not), I'm just zooming in on the logic of that small fragment (which was not critical to your conclusion anyway).
I appreciate the detailed objection! Bidirectional association is indeed very common but I describe this as circular because it arbitrarily closes off alternative explanations for either phenomena and creates an infinitely recursive reference chain. Defendants can be treated leniently for a wide landscape of different reasons, and similarly there is a wide landscape of different indicators to conclude someone is an informant. So if someone is absolutely an informant you won't necessarily see them receive lenient treatment, and conversely someone who absolutely received lenient treatment is not necessarily an informant.
The way the circular logic can be broken would be if the suspicions were grounded in something more than just each other, so for example "we think he may be an informant because of X reason, in which case we also expect to see see Y reason". Consider for example if someone said "We know Joe ate the cookies because he's fat, and we know he's fat because he ate the cookies"
I get your point, and I don't want to get too deep into a minor point, but... I find some interest in the challenge of clarity when engaged with an intelligent correspondent so I'll go a bit further.
Let's distinguish between circular reasoning, versus ignorance or poor logic.
As I'm understanding your account, Epps not being charged early on, despite being highly visible doing things others were charged for, created the initial suspicion. The longer he remained uncharged, the more suspicion. It would be shoddy thinking to conclude that "proves" he was an informant (because as you say, other explanations have not been ruled out), but the suspicion in itself is rational and not circular.
Then if Epp is eventually charged but is perceived to receive lenient treatment, that might reinforce suspicions. Again, I don't see that as circular. It could be ill informed (lack of knowledge about charging statistics) or based on flawed logic (if they think the case is "proven" thereby), but those are not circular.
Eagerness to believe something one want to believe has been "proven", is a common pitfall, a variant of confirmation bias. But it's not inherently circular.
If we say "We believe Joe fired the gun because he has powder residue on his hands, and we believe he has power residue on his hands because he shot the gun" is not circular reasoning, it's just restating the same assertion in two ways. Ie: we believe that:
* The cause of Joe's powder residue is his firing of a gun
* Joe's firing of a gun is the cause of his powder residue
An example of circular reasoning would be:
A: "Any disparity in criminal arrest rates between races is due to the ubiquity of systemic racism
B: "How do we know that systemic racism IS in fact so ubiquitous, though?"
A: "We know that systemic racism is ubiquitous because of the differences in arrest rates"
Aka, begging the question. And avoiding discussion of the implied premise that in the absence of systemic racism, all races would obviously have identical arrest rates.
I really appreciate your sharp scalpel, and I concede the phenomena described above is not necessarily circular. It *does* become circular if the basis for either premise is latched upon the other premise, but this was an assumption I did not explicitly state in my post. The companion Bailey episode is likely much more apparent on this issue: https://ymeskhout.substack.com/p/the-bailey-podcast-e035-ray-epps
The short of it is that Tarrio used his leadership position to recruit people with the explicit aim of engaging in violence (called Ministry of Self-Defense) in order to disrupt government proceedings. He wrote a detailed "strategic plan" and operative instructions to his underlings. Even though he wasn't present at the scene on J6, he was in constant contact with his deputies on the ground.
I should also say that I agree their treatment was extremely harsh, and do not agree with their sentences. The severity unfortunately is not unusual or disproportionate compared to the baseline American criminal justice system.
I had a perfect set up to say something thematically similar regarding Ali Alexander's penchant for teenage boys, but I refrained because I really dislike the common practice of adding denigrating but irrelevant adjectives to someone's name. For the record, there's nothing wrong with being a virgin and nothing wrong with being proud of that! Fuentes's line about "having sex with women is gay" is just too funny to forget.
When a plot is hatched behind closed doors, we can't know much about it at first except for the FBI's version of events, and they have an incentive to puff it up. That's less of a concern if a plot is enacted out in the open.
J6 took place out in the open. If the Whitmer kidnapping plot had been broadcast just as publicly, I would have been been much more inclined to believe the FBI's narrative at face value.
This dynamic pretty much tracks with the Kennedy Assassination conspiracy theories which are popular on the left, primarily. People didn’t want to believe a communist/left-wing fellow traveler had done it, so they invented a conspiracy that their domestic political enemies were responsible. And that theory is still going strong 60-odd years later, so there’s that to look forward to.
"Letting the prosecutors know I was aware of pharmacist’s disparate treatment was likely instrumental in getting my guy a misdemeanor plea offer as well."
This sounds kinda like you 'blackmailed' the prosecution - "Give my guy a misdemeanor or I let everyone know that the pharmacist is an informant".
Is that what happened or do I misunderstand? If that's what happened, is that normal practice?
Serious question - not shit-stirring...
Prosecutors pay very close attention that every case they handle is more or less uniformly/equivalently. Their offices provide guidelines that everyone is expected to follow closely because it's embarrassing to have a hodge-podge of arbitrary decisions by deputy prosecutors. So if you accuse them of or imply that they're treating someone selectively they tend to take that very seriously. Defense attorneys talk amongst each other and when we negotiate cases, we regularly use "you gave this deal to this other guy" argument because it's very effective.
If the pharmacist was indeed an informant, I had no idea if he was working for the feds or the state, so I didn't know if the state prosecutors I was dealing with would know or even care. So I admit there was a small element of me wondering whether they'd give my client a good deal just to shut me up, but they also never asked nor could they have stopped me from investigating it further (and I did indeed continue investigating ^_^).
Thanks for delving into this so we don't have to. That's as much attention as I care to give this matter.
I do have one side question. You call this circular reasoning:
> "Epps was treated leniently because he was a fed, and we know he's a fed because he was treated leniently."
I honestly don't see that as circular. Before sentencing, the suspicious say "we think he may be an informant, in which case he won't be charged as stringently". After sentencing, they say "as we predicted if he were an informant, he was indeed treated leniently, which supports our suspicions".
I don't see what's circular about that. If being an informant is correlated with lenient treatment, then lenient treatment would be correlated with being an informant. Bidirectional association or correlation is common (indeed typical) and is not circular reasoning. What am I missing?
TO BE CLEAR, I'm not questioning your conclusions about Ray Epps (whom I had not paid any attention to, and will not), I'm just zooming in on the logic of that small fragment (which was not critical to your conclusion anyway).
I appreciate the detailed objection! Bidirectional association is indeed very common but I describe this as circular because it arbitrarily closes off alternative explanations for either phenomena and creates an infinitely recursive reference chain. Defendants can be treated leniently for a wide landscape of different reasons, and similarly there is a wide landscape of different indicators to conclude someone is an informant. So if someone is absolutely an informant you won't necessarily see them receive lenient treatment, and conversely someone who absolutely received lenient treatment is not necessarily an informant.
The way the circular logic can be broken would be if the suspicions were grounded in something more than just each other, so for example "we think he may be an informant because of X reason, in which case we also expect to see see Y reason". Consider for example if someone said "We know Joe ate the cookies because he's fat, and we know he's fat because he ate the cookies"
I get your point, and I don't want to get too deep into a minor point, but... I find some interest in the challenge of clarity when engaged with an intelligent correspondent so I'll go a bit further.
Let's distinguish between circular reasoning, versus ignorance or poor logic.
As I'm understanding your account, Epps not being charged early on, despite being highly visible doing things others were charged for, created the initial suspicion. The longer he remained uncharged, the more suspicion. It would be shoddy thinking to conclude that "proves" he was an informant (because as you say, other explanations have not been ruled out), but the suspicion in itself is rational and not circular.
Then if Epp is eventually charged but is perceived to receive lenient treatment, that might reinforce suspicions. Again, I don't see that as circular. It could be ill informed (lack of knowledge about charging statistics) or based on flawed logic (if they think the case is "proven" thereby), but those are not circular.
Eagerness to believe something one want to believe has been "proven", is a common pitfall, a variant of confirmation bias. But it's not inherently circular.
If we say "We believe Joe fired the gun because he has powder residue on his hands, and we believe he has power residue on his hands because he shot the gun" is not circular reasoning, it's just restating the same assertion in two ways. Ie: we believe that:
* The cause of Joe's powder residue is his firing of a gun
* Joe's firing of a gun is the cause of his powder residue
An example of circular reasoning would be:
A: "Any disparity in criminal arrest rates between races is due to the ubiquity of systemic racism
B: "How do we know that systemic racism IS in fact so ubiquitous, though?"
A: "We know that systemic racism is ubiquitous because of the differences in arrest rates"
Aka, begging the question. And avoiding discussion of the implied premise that in the absence of systemic racism, all races would obviously have identical arrest rates.
I really appreciate your sharp scalpel, and I concede the phenomena described above is not necessarily circular. It *does* become circular if the basis for either premise is latched upon the other premise, but this was an assumption I did not explicitly state in my post. The companion Bailey episode is likely much more apparent on this issue: https://ymeskhout.substack.com/p/the-bailey-podcast-e035-ray-epps
Interesting.
Just curious, what do you think about the two defendants who got 17 and 20 years, respectively?
By comparison, their treatment seems extremely harsh compared to most defendants.
I think you're referring to Stewart Rhodes and Enrique Tarrio? I haven't looked at Rhodes' case closely, but you can read the detailed sentencing memo for Tarrio and others here: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/63142333/united-states-v-nordean/?page=4#entry-855
The short of it is that Tarrio used his leadership position to recruit people with the explicit aim of engaging in violence (called Ministry of Self-Defense) in order to disrupt government proceedings. He wrote a detailed "strategic plan" and operative instructions to his underlings. Even though he wasn't present at the scene on J6, he was in constant contact with his deputies on the ground.
I should also say that I agree their treatment was extremely harsh, and do not agree with their sentences. The severity unfortunately is not unusual or disproportionate compared to the baseline American criminal justice system.
> present on the grounds that ay
Typo, missing "d".
"Proud virgin Nick Fuentes" casually dropped in this article tickles me in a particular way.
I had a perfect set up to say something thematically similar regarding Ali Alexander's penchant for teenage boys, but I refrained because I really dislike the common practice of adding denigrating but irrelevant adjectives to someone's name. For the record, there's nothing wrong with being a virgin and nothing wrong with being proud of that! Fuentes's line about "having sex with women is gay" is just too funny to forget.
I recall The Great Gretchen Whitmer Kidnap Plot ZOMG
When I heard of the arrests, the first thing I thought was "How many were FBI informants or double agents?"
The next thing I thought was "How many of these agents will develop sudden amnesia regarding their role in developing the idea in the first place?"
And 11 of the defendants walked.
My immediate reaction to the Whitmer kidnapping plot was to discount it, because of the FBI's long history of using informants serving as the central instigators: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/j5dqwd/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_october_05/g889imv/
When a plot is hatched behind closed doors, we can't know much about it at first except for the FBI's version of events, and they have an incentive to puff it up. That's less of a concern if a plot is enacted out in the open.
Well, in this case, we don't know what went on behind closed doors.
J6 took place out in the open. If the Whitmer kidnapping plot had been broadcast just as publicly, I would have been been much more inclined to believe the FBI's narrative at face value.
The part of J6 that we saw did. As far as I can tell, the concern is that Epps may have reached an agreement which wasn't made public.
This dynamic pretty much tracks with the Kennedy Assassination conspiracy theories which are popular on the left, primarily. People didn’t want to believe a communist/left-wing fellow traveler had done it, so they invented a conspiracy that their domestic political enemies were responsible. And that theory is still going strong 60-odd years later, so there’s that to look forward to.