An Insider’s View on INFORMANTS
Terri Linnell is known as “Mama Bear” to the Patriot community. She has been an activist since 2008, when her sleeping giant started to awaken. Terri has been to Washington DC three times for redress of grievances, and participated in the Bundy Ranch Standoff in Nevada.
She is known as “Betsy Ross” to the FBI community. She was given that name by the FBI when she agreed to be an informant at the Malheur Wildlife Protest in Burns, Oregon, during January 2016. Linnell later testified for the defense, stating clearly it was just a protest, protected under the first amendment.
Terri’s time as an informant was under 6 months, yet she will give you some insight to the inner workings of the FBI, and their handling of “Confidential Human Sources” and how the government is absolutely watching citizens.
In a Redoubt News exclusive series, Linnell has agreed to go on record recounting her experiences, combining her time protesting with her knowledge of the subtleties of the games being played against the people of our great country.
Informants: A Necessary Evil Or Illegal Act?
By Terri Linnell
After being in the Oregon Standoff Trial it’s been pretty easy to see the role of the 9 informants who were inside the refuge, and the 6 more informants outside the refuge. 15 total informants to tell the FBI what they couldn’t gather with their license plate scanners, aerial surveillance and tape recordings, drone surveillance, and other technology.
But the question is: how useful were these informants in the end? Did they show a non-biased view of what was going on? Did they avoid the pitfalls of agents trained to avoid entrapment? Well, in order to know these answers, we must examine the data.
Mark McConnell
was clearly biased against the protesters. He also led a militia group in his home state, where the group was well-known. This leadership role in Arizona gave him automatic control of protesters who were volunteer security.
Furthermore, it was McConnell who led the organizers to their arrest, and the death of LaVoy Finicum in the most un-routine “routine traffic stop” the FBI has ever claimed to conduct.
Wolf, aka Allen Varner, ran one of the three security teams, as a co-leader with two others. This clearly created entrapment, since he was in the decision making process for the security volunteers who were arrested. The two other co-leaders were also arrested for crimes, yet how much influence did this informant have in decision making? A great deal.
Marshal Smith pretended to be a real US Marshal for ‘Judge Bruce’ who everyone believed to be a real judge, there to insure the protest didn’t break any laws. Impersonating a police officer gave credibility to the protesters that what they were doing was perfectly legal. Over the top? Absolutely. We are supposed to trust police.
Fabio Minoggio
showed up for a brief period and had the security do drills and even some target practice down at the boat docks. The prosecuting attorney paraded the spent rounds from the target practice in front of the jury to show how dangerous these protesters were. Entrapment once again.
This is 4/9 informants inside the refuge creating entrapment and undue influence. That’s 44%, 11% each. A pretty big number, but let’s see how it’s really even higher.
I was another informant, and I volunteered as a kitchen cook. Although I did not create entrapment, the agent contacted read these other reports while I was at the refuge. Some of the data in the reports was not my data, but information the agent read in other reports, specific information duplicated from Marshal’s report. This was evidenced while I testified, as I had to deny time and again the prosecutor’s questions about ‘my’ reports since I did not report those facts at all.
This now puts 55% of the reports in jeopardy of either entrapment or poor data gathering techniques. Does anyone really believe the other 45% of the reports were done any better? Or should all the reports be thrown out?
Well, we can go one step further on informant reports. Informants gather their information through hearsay.
A statement made out of court that is offered in court as evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted.
It is the job of the judge or jury in a court proceeding to determine whether evidence offered as proof is credible. Three evidentiary rules help the judge or jury make this determination:
- Before being allowed to testify, a witness generally must swear or affirm that his or her testimony will be truthful.
- The witness must be personally present at the trial or proceeding in order to allow the judge or jury to observe the testimony firsthand.
- The witness is subject to cross-examination at the option of any party who did not call the witness to testify.
In keeping with the three evidentiary requirements, the Hearsay Rule, as outlined in the Federal Rules of Evidence, prohibits most statements made outside a courtroom from being used as evidence in court.
Hearsay is gathered through informants, placed into evidence as fact, and a defendant cannot face his accuser. Therefore one can easily argue the removal of the informant program as a whole.
Please realize the informants have no legal training or required education, yet their testimony is heavily protected in court. Furthermore, none of the informants knew who the other informants were. None of the informants saw their own reports for final approval for accuracy.
Informant’s agents were reading other reports, some biased, some clear entrapment, which skewed the results of the overall accuracy of the data in a manner well over 50%. This is called good police work? Not in any sense of the word could it be considered ‘good’.
To top it all off, the journalist who researched these ‘sealed’ reports, and exposed the entrapment, Gary Hunt, is now sitting in jail. How dare he get a hold of public hearing evidence and dig for the truth! How dare Gary get a hold of redacted reports, where mass data is blocked out to hide the informant’s identity, in a public… let me repeat, PUBLIC trial, where the redacted reports remained sealed from the public even after the trial!
It’s amazing to me that we even have a Bill of Rights with all this constant hiding of evidence. I say how dare the government even think this is acceptable in America.
Let’s look at the patriot community. Some suggest that I am an informant. What, in my writings has created division in the patriot community. I have reported facts that most don’t have access to. I get those facts because I am trusted by those who provide me information, or I dig until I get what I need. I will suggest that there are very, very few who extend the effort to prove what they write about.
Now, let’s look at the ugly side of the community. I’ll name some names, here. Mollie Powell and Bryan Sweetwood. They are creating division. They are trying to define who is good and who is bad, but they have nothing to prove what they say. That speaks a lot of their intentions. Division!
Now, as to Terri Linnell. The government could never use her as an informant, again. She, at best, would be a source which disinformation could be fed to the government. That information couldn’t be in the least, reliable. However, she has given me a lot of insight as to how the government works their informants.
Some suggest that she should give the name of her handler. She wouldn’t divulge that name, only that she was known as “Martha”. She had given here word to “Martha” as I have given my word to my sources. That, to those who may not quite understand, is something called “honor”. Try it, sometime.
However, since you have jumped to a conclusion, you have simply demonstrated your “knee jerk” perception of truth. Terri wouldn’t tell me, however, the government did tell me. So, if you read what I have written, you would know what here agent/handler’s name was. You see, I didn’t give “Martha” my word, as Terri did. However, I did prove what I said.
Now, let’s look at those who profess to be Christians, yet are more than willing to bear false witness. It doesn’t matter if you say that you “think” or that you “know”, either is false witness, unless you can prove it. Your “beliefs” are as disruptive as you are, and you have no honor, nor do you have respect for the community that you endeavor to divide.
Mollie and Bryan, you should be ashamed of yourselves. You provide for the government, intentionally or unintentionally, by what you say/write, just because you want to create division, or are so ****** stupid that you do so without knowing what you are doing.
Dayam! your honor, I rest my case.
Hahaha! So Jaime says that, does she? Total BS, as usual. But what’s the motive of her outlandish story? Is this a psyop to distract ppl from the content of the article? Because I made it clear in the article, informants are used in order to add heresay into a court hearing, and bypass our right to face our accusers. Does anyone disagree with my analysis??
The feds have very few ‘rules’ that are rigid for the game of ‘infiltrate, divide, confuse and entrap’. We have nothing but limits to each and every possible direction or action promulgated as means to ‘restore’. I wonder how long it will be before someone with some kind of sway in the ‘patriot’ community grows the balls needed to state the obvious, we will never beat ‘their’ system playing by ‘their’ rules. We also will never ‘restore’ anty thing resembling the Constitutionally constrained, limited government of lore because it has never exited to begin with. Ryan Payne stated it clearly last year; “if you want the politicians to stop being corrupt, you’re going to have to make them fear being corrupt; if you want Constitutional government, you’re going to have to start one like the founders did, because the one they started is gone; if you want the soldiers and “peace officers” to uphold and defend the Constitution, you’re going to have to reinstate it as the law of the land and institute severe punishment for those who violate their oaths”
…. is it time?
Jaime Spears Aldazabal has been clear about Linnell’s role in setting patriots up during Operation American Spring in D.C. in 2014 which resulted in the arrest and conviction of John Hildinger. Linnell was called out as an informant along with Sheryl Tumey who was also in attendance in D.C. on Mark Hoffmann’s radio show shortly after by witnesses there.
More convictions by informants happen after FBI set ups. Keep that in mind on social media. Look at the great effort Gary Hunt has gone to to keep Linnell in the Patriot Movement since her testimony to keep her embedded. After her testimony, she became even more of a presence on Facebook posting on pages devoted to LaVoy in my opinion to get Patriots to threaten her. Why would any decent human being who was an active and willing participant in helping inform on good Americans to appear on these pages? I was also recently sent a photo of Terri Linnell smiling with Greg Whalen at LaVoy’s funeral. SHE WAS AT LAVOY’s FUNERAL. Let that sink in. Remember, the county sheriff of Kanab had barred FBI from coming into the county for he funeral. So they sent in their informants instead. She is a liar when she says she volunteered to testify. She was CALLED to testify. Her handler came up with that bs story that she volunteered to keep her in the patriot movement. “Make her look like a victim and the Patriot Movement will rally around her.”
She is still an informant. Gary Hunt is an informant. Anyone affiliated with Hunt is an informant. His recent arrest is BS as well and creating him into a victim to make him look like he’s oppressed like one of us. Remember. Hunt has been working on militias for DECADES. He’s on recently moved over to the unarmed, average everyday Patriots who the Feds are directing him at. Patriots are playing with fire. The motorcycle clubs have been dealing with this dog and pony show by the Feds for years. Listen to them! They know all the tricks!
Thank you Mollie for finally saying something about Gary Hunt. I have been considering writing to the staff here at Redoubt News about their support of him and allowing him to publish on this site. True patriots have been warning about him since at least the Massacre in Waco. There is even some supposition and possible evidence (I am still trying to verify everything) that he was in Oklahoma City the morning that the federal building was bombed. No one should trust this man. He has been bouncing around the country through militia and patriot circles for decades with absolutely no verifiable source of income. He claims to be a surveyor, and yes they can make good money, but that would require full time survey work and he would have no free time to do what he has been doing for decades.
While I have heard many rumors about Gary, I have yet to see any substantiated. What I have seen is credible reporting and consistent veracity. He refuses to make allegations without validating them, unlike most who try to discredit him. I have worked with and met the man. I have followed him and trusted him during times that all I had was my faith and gut to guide me. I am not and have never been an informant or agent of any type for the federal or state governments and have no cause to try to mislead anyone. The evidence speaks for itself and is backed by witnesses and the sheer volume of work Gary has contributed. Just about everyone I have met that has been in some way involved and vocal has been attacked and smeared as a ‘fed’. The most belligerent and ‘credible’ of these, as it turns out, have been feds or informants themselves. What am I saying exactly? Put up, or shut up. Show some evidence to your claims or quit spreading rumors.
Complete BULLCRAP. Terri Linnell was at Operation American Spring in D.C. 2014 and was an informant then. She’s been informing on Patriots for years and continues to do so.
Amen! Total crap. She had already been a snitch before Malheur. According to NV State Rep Michele Fiore:
“She (Terri Linnell) informed me (Michele Fiore) that the FBI had paid her to infiltrate the Oath Keepers and paid her $100 a meeting.”
Watch Fiore’s video here: https://www.facebook.com/OKNational/posts/1336644043035925
And according to a man from CA, she was STILL a snitch and a provocateur AFTER Malheur. Here is what “Ammodog” posted as a comment on the Oath Keepers site:
https://www.oathkeepers.org/confidential-informants-malheur-protest-trial-redoubt-news/#
Ammodog:
“Terri Linnell came to our chapter meeting in Southern California right after the whole Malheur thing went down. She tried encouraging chapter members to trespass on federal property as some sort of protest. She was subsequently banned from the chapter.”
So, she was still out there, working for the FBI, trying to entrap others. This woman is no kind of patriot. She is a snake, and will always be one.
I wouldn’t be surprised to learn she was on the FBI payroll at Bundy Ranch, and even long before, as Mollie Powell condends. Molly, please provide details. Linnell is just trying to cover her own rear end, and trying to worm her way back into the good graces of the patriot community. Don’t fall for it.
she voluntarily outed herself and provided testimony in the trial that ended with acquittals. That is more than many ‘legit’ ‘patriots’ were ever able to do. Just my thoughts.
I am, however, very curious as to whom the remaining informants are and what organizations they are affiliated with, and the roles they played in both events. If the government didn’t fear our awareness of it, they wouldn’t be hiding it. Eventually, the truth will be known.
Stewart Rhodes? Is this the real Stewart? If so, I think we’d ALL like to know why you haven’t legally defended any OathKeeper as a real lawyer? Jerry Delamus wasn’t even at the NV Standoff, yet you put him in charge days later and he was arrested. He’s completely innocent. I remember when you finally showed up, a couple hours after the standoff, right before the cattle were released. Susan Delamus has a fine question… why weren’t you arrested? You were there, you even went on stage and took credit for your ‘crucial’ role. I dearly wish we still had those videos of that day. Jerry would be cleared, and you would be yelling about a drone attack at your house.
Those videos are still out there and as I recall, Stewart ordered ‘OKs’ to stand down. Not engage. I also vividly remember some of the Oks ripping their patches off with disgust and going to the wash. I am not judging anyone here but I remember wondering just what exactly was it that the OathKeepers were upholding. I’m just one of those ‘fruits and nuts’ … as Mr Rhodes eloquently referred to those of us who were there, and did what had to be done. He sure was good at grandstanding and becoming the face of success after the fact though. OKs did fill a need with logistics later, but if it had been an OK operation there would have likely been only a quiet protest within the ‘first amendment’ area.
I believe she did go to OAS in D.C. But she also made it to Bunkerville, near the end of the operations out their. I SAW HER. She freaked out when she saw me there. Because I was calling her out, as a DHS Psy-Ops agent, when we was posing as an Oath Keeper.
She was REALLY Psy-Oping me to prevent me from deploying American Militia Freedom Forces troops to vital Ops like Bunkerville, Sugar Pine Mine, and Malheur.
Yes she was and I know of someone who was arrested because of her ” informant” ways.. Terri Linnell is just doing all this I’m really the good guy ******** because she got busted as an informant .. Anyone who believes she is an innocent American loving protester is a dumb as the rock they live under!!!
Let’s call it what it really is: An Informant’s view on Informants”.
Terri Linnel likes to make it appear she has come clean with the patriot community. In reality she has not done that at all. The $3000 plus expenses she was paid for her informant activity at the Refuge morally belongs to the defendants she was informing on. She has made no effort to pay this debt to the defendants.
Any other money she has received for informing on patriots should be turned over to the patriot community. All of it.
Neither has she revealed the name of the FBI agents she was in contact with. This may well be classified information, but it’s information owed to the patriot community, if Ms Linnel truly wishes to come clean.
Until she comes clean on these points, from the patriot viewpoint she remains an informant.
Bill, I understand and agree with your points though I will say this… If Terri hadn’t of cooperated with them, any number of other nefarious or coerced individuals likely would have in her place. What is needed more is a revival of common law jurisprudence in civilian matters. we are at the mercy of Courts that have shown themselves to be merciless in the manner they prosecute those whom they are sworn to protect. If the underlying issue, i.e. federal over-reach, can never be addressed and only the actions taken in seeking redress are ever allowed into the courtroom, there is very little we can hope to affect or effect in terms of ‘restoring’ proper limits to an unrestrained, illegitimate and arrogant system that has become the anti-thesis of the original intent of ‘limited government’. For her willingness to disclose what her role was in the federal case against the defendants, particularly in comparison with the other ‘torries’, (particularly those who vehemently denied and divided, such as McConnell), Terri has redeemed herself in a sense, and I do not foresee her in a position of trust able to cause more damage. The unidentified and still complicit, possibly antagonistic informants are the ones that concern me. I do agree with your point about the proceeds she received being very much needed by those she helped incarcerate though. I hope she considers it.
Terri – I knew her as “Momma Bear’ worked with us in the kitchen. She provided one of the most surreal moments in one of the wildest legal proceedings on record – an FBI informant who testifies for the defense ! Unheard of! I had taken her appearance on the stand as an act of contrition, that whatever her motives may have been in going to Malhure, the infectious spirit and camaraderie she felt there had changed her heart. Terri does not mention this transition from informer to defense witness in the article above, and her account of how it happened would be engaging..
Neil, I honestly didn’t think I’d live long enough to make it to trial. They’d proven themselves capable of murder.
Terri, good on you for coming clean and providing us with a view of the police state we’ve all known to be the reality. I was disheartened to find out how many informants were a part of Malheur, though not surprised. Your forthcoming willingly as a defense witness is commendable even if your original intent was otherwise. I do wish you’d have given me a ride though.
I’m glad I didn’t! We need as many as we can on the outside of jail now!