Too good to be true

I haven’t said anything, except privately and on Twitter, about Leland Yee. I’ve been extremely tempted but it falls into the category of “too good to be true”.

Ry also has a valid point:

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17 thoughts on “Too good to be true

  1. I expect that the “FBI arrests people with maps to the airport for terrorism.”
    thing is actually conspiracy to commit terrorism, and the elements of Conspiracy have long been, 1) an agreement to commit the crime, and 2) an overt act in furtherance. So if the crime is conspiracy to commit burglary, and I go to the hardware store and buy a 12″ pry bar, that’s all you need for a conspiracy conviction.
    Likewise, having the airport map is the overt act if they can prove the agreement.
    If they can’t, then the prosecutor over charges and hopes to intimidate during the plea bargaining phase.

  2. Wendy,
    I was reducing a complex series of thoughts into 140 characters in order to make my point. In order to do that, I made up a simplified event for illustration.

    The indictment is always the most impressive telling of events. Read Ken at Popehat’s posts about life as a federal prosecutor. Or don’t.

    • Sorry to give offense, but not every person showing up at the airport with a map is arrested for terrorism any more than every person with the chemicals you and I have in our garages and under our sinks are arrested for terrorism either. How that squares with the “Ham Sandwich Nation” we seem to be becoming is an open issue.

  3. Then there’s his political buddy arrested for murder-for-hire scheme, and Yee’s no stranger to the Cops. His priors include being booked & photographed in Hawaii for shoplifting, and also for soliciting prostitutes.

  4. He was ranting against the bullet button while arranging to have full-auto rifles and RPG s shipped through the US.

  5. Based on the detail of the FBI’s complaint report, their undercover guy is either really, really gilding the lilly. (There’s page after page of Yee acting like the Godfather).

    Or… Yee really was that dirty (drugs, guns, money laundering, ect)

    I will say the Under cover guy better have been wearing a good wire.

    • +1 There is a LOT of evidence being presented.

      Plus as much as we all hate it, there is NOT equal protection under the law. The FBI and ATF will certainly frame mentally ill losers as “Terrorists” or “Gun/Drug Runners” to pad their arrest records.

      But a California Senator in the midst of a state-wide campaign? That’s a DANGEROUS mark to frame.

      If this turns out to be a frame-job this is even better for freedom-lovers as it will do SO much damage to the FBI and ATF in their more silly indictments and stings.

      • If it is a frame up that leads to an interesting question.

        As you said this guy is a Cali State Sen aiming for higher office. He’s a connected and rather powerful man.

        AND he’s one that makes all the *correct* political noises.

        If the FBI is doing a frameup, of all the politicians why pick him?

        • Round up Democrats today, round up conservatives right before the election and let Democrats off.

          While I often take the most cynical position in such cases, I can’t take ownership of this one. I heard someone on the radio making this point several days ago.

          • If I recall Michel Malkin was presenting that theory.

            It has some sense to it. But that has the question of why Lee, and why let the undercover work get so “juicy”.

            Again if we accept the presumption that both the accusations and the timing are suspect why have the UC “evidence” be so juicy. Why even let it be something that goes against the gun control narrative?

            It’d be much easier to simply generate some financial shenanigans if both the charges *and* the timing were false.

            In short: I can see the evidence against Yee being faked or I can see Yee being thrown overboard as part of some dump and pump plan, but not both.

  6. Does anyone else see this story as kinda Fast & Furiousish?

    “SEE how EASY it was for this man to get all this military hardware?!! Obviously we need more international control on weapons trafficking….”

    Eh?

    • That should be Yee’s defense.
      “I was merely doing what Obama and Holder did in F&F, only I was doing my own operation and these FBI clowns got in the way and ruined it before I was finished.”

      • This could also be Yee’s bid for the Democratic nomination for president.

    • Except he already had organized crime ties.

      How many international mobsters do you know well enough to ask for these types of connections?

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