The new House oversight committee investigating the political weaponization of the Justice Department may want to bring on some additional staff and start putting in some overtime. Every new story that comes out about the FBI’s actions in recent years makes the Bureau look worse and worse. The latest story posted by our colleagues at PJ Media involves the ongoing “seditious conspiracy” charges being brought against leaders and members of the Proud Boys. The trial of chapter leader Zach Rehl was preparing to call a witness this week, but ran into a problem. Their “witness” turned out to be a confidential informant for the FBI who had been spying on the defense team. That brought the trial to a screeching halt “until these issues have been considered and resolved.” That’s putting it mildly, to say the least.

Critics of the harsh prosecutions in the January 6th debacle continue to be vindicated. Those who have said the whole thing was a setup keep getting proved right by our own Department of Justice. According to lawyers for Zachary Rehl, a Proud Boys chapter leader charged with seditious conspiracy, the government failed to disclose that one of the witnesses scheduled to testify was actually a confidential informant for the FBI. Surprisingly, the Associated Press reported it.

“Carmen Hernandez, a lawyer for former Proud Boys chapter leader Zachary Rehl, asked a judge to schedule an immediate emergency hearing and suspend the trial “until these issues have been considered and resolved.” Lawyers for the other four defendants joined in Hernandez’s request.”

Check out this pair of tweets from Julie Kelly.

Holy sh*t this is beyond dirty.

DC US Attorney Matthew Graves' office notified defense team TODAY that a defense witnesses has been an FBI informant since the BEGINNING of the case thru start of trial.

"The CHS participated in prayer meetings with…the defendants' families." pic.twitter.com/6bso3gpRef

— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) March 22, 2023

The informant in the case has been going by the name of Jen Loh, but her real name is Jennylyn Salinas. She has been involved in the cases against multiple defendants and has been working with their legal teams. She even participated in prayer meetings with the defendants’ families. She was supposed to be testifying as a witness for the defense, but all the time she has been working for the FBI.

As noted in the linked report, defense attorneys have been asking for a full list of FBI agents and informants who were involved in this investigation, but the Bureau has been stonewalling them. And if Salinas has been involved in talks with the defense attorneys as alleged, that is one of the clearest examples of a violation of the attorney-client privilege you could hope for.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with law enforcement using paid informants to gather information. But those informants are supposed to be reporting the presumed illegal actions of others. They are not supposed to be the ones planning illegal activity and they are most certainly not supposed to be spying on defense teams as they prepare to go to trial.

This is all too reminiscent of the supposed “kidnapping plot” against Gretchen Whitmer. The FBI’s people involved in that scheme outnumbered the supposed MAGA bros who were coaxed into it. The informants were the ones who came up with the supposed “bomb” that was to be used to blow up a bridge and basically directed the group’s activities in scoping out the scene of the proposed kidnapping. And yet they still somehow managed to come up with a few convictions out of it.

We’ve brought this up here before, but it bears repeating. There needs to be a thorough housecleaning at the Department of Justice, particularly inside the FBI. There is currently a bill under consideration that would limit how long unelected federal officials can serve. That might be a good start.