In 20111, a group of Muslim men who became known as the “Newburgh Four” were convicted of plotting to blow up some Synagogues in New York and shoot down National Guard planes. It was a shocking plan, but sadly not all that surprising in the post-9/11 world. Last month, however, a federal judge in New York ordered them to be granted a compassionate early release after reviewing the FBI’s case that led to the men’s arrests. She described the men as “hapless, easily manipulated and penurious petty criminals,” saying that the real “villain” in the case was the paid FBI informant who lured them into the plot. She also described the FBI and the United States government as “the real coconspirator” in the case.

Now another convicted Muslim terrorist named Yassin Aref is seeking the same form of relief. The former Imam has spent 14 years behind bars after being convicted in an FBI sting of an alleged plot involving a stinger missile. According to his attorney, he too was the victim of a paid FBI informant with a long record of shady activities himself. And considering how the FBI has been behaving over the past few years, we should probably give some consideration to these claims. (Associated Press)

“Hopefully this will be the first step for the Justice Department to review all those cases of conspiracy and entrapment,” said Yassin Aref, a former imam who spent 14 years in federal custody in a case involving a business loan made to an Albany pizza shop owner and a made-up story about a Stinger missile.

Aref and the shop owner were arrested in 2004 in one of several FBI stings carried out by a paid civilian operative named Shahed Hussain, whose work has been criticized for years by civil liberties groups.

Hussain entered the U.S. with his wife and two sons in the 1990s after he was accused of murder — falsely, he once testified— in his native Pakistan. He settled in the Albany area and was working as a translator when he got caught helping someone get their driver’s license illegally. In exchange for leniency, he started working for the FBI.

Yassin Aref may have been guilty of something, but it doesn’t sound like the case had very much meat on the bone. It’s also unclear if there ever actually was a stinger missile involved. The informant is the one who came up with it and Aref said it looked like “a plumbing tool.” So if Hussain was the real driver of the “plot,” should Aref really be behind bars?

If this is how the FBI recruits paid informants, it’s difficult to argue that the Bureau should be given the benefit of the doubt by default. If law enforcement is going to employ third-party individuals for investigations, they should be highly motivated to prevent crime and maintain order. They shouldn’t be effectively bribed into being rats for the system to avoid jail time themselves. And that’s certainly what Shahed Hussain sounds like.

This is also not the first time we’ve heard about the FBI’s paid informants and even their agents being up to no good. You probably recall the alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The more that case came under scrutiny, the more obvious it became that there were more FBI informants (and at least one undercover agent) involved in the plot than actual conspirators. And it was the FBI who originally recruited the three other men and suggested the plan. They even supplied the fake “bomb” that was supposed to be used. In the end, it proved almost impossible to convict them.

Then there was yet another case of the FBI investigating “domestic terror organizations.” But we later learned that there were more FBI agents and informants in the group of Proud Boys they were investigating than actual Proud Boys. The Bureau has been investigating “radical traditional Catholics” and parents running for seats on local school boards. And don’t even get me started on how they have twisted and thwarted the investigations into Hunter Biden and his father.

There is clearly something very wrong at the FBI and these problems have been present since well before Christopher Wray took over and apparently turned the corruption dial up to eleven. For a judge to refer to FBI informants as “villains” doesn’t sound like hyperbole given everything else we’ve learned. That tag could probably be applied to some of their agents and most of the top leadership at the Bureau these days.

But what’s to be done about it? How do you investigate potential lawlessness inside what was supposed to be our premiere law enforcement agency? And even if you can prove it, what can you do about it when the current Justice Department will flatly refuse to prosecute anyone who is in any way associated with the Bidens, the Clintons, or the Obamas? The system clearly appears to be broken, but it’s broken in a way that serves the purposes of the permanent power structure in the Swamp. And they won’t let go unless they are eventually dragged out kicking and screaming. So that’s what needs to be done next year.