For those too young to remember, it was thirty years ago this month that the DOJ entrapped Randy Weaver for his Christian beliefs, issued a death warrant, killed his dog, son, and wife, and shot Weaver and his friend.
Surely, the DOJ doesn’t just execute innocent people. Yet, as we learned at trial:
He had no propensity to commit crimes. Never even had a traffic ticket. Never been charged with a crime of any kind and honorably served his country.
While living in Iowa, Weaver learned it was illegal to homeschool his children independently, so he moved his family to a cabin in remote Idaho, Ruby Ridge.
Weaver attended Aryan Nation meetings three times, meeting not far from Ruby Ridge, “to exchange ideas, talk to people, I usually ended up arguing.” That’s where Gus Magisano befriended Weaver and tried to involve him in illicit activity. Weaver refused. But after three years of coaxing, Weaver finally agreed to make two sawed-off shotguns. Magisano was a fed.
What the feds really wanted was an informant, so they blackmailed Weaver: inform or face prison. Weaver refused; he was no “snitch.” With facts withheld, a grand jury indicted Weaver but, instead of simply arresting him, the feds concocted an elaborate ruse. Taking advantage of Weaver’s good nature, agents feigned being a family with car trouble stranded on a snowy bridge:
When I walked up to help, several agents jumped me and threw me to the ground. A female agent, posing to be the stranded wife, threw Vicki [his wife] to the ground.
Weaver’s probation officer erroneously wrote to Weaver that his court date was a month after the actual date. Because of the error, Weaver failed to appear, and the judge issued a bench warrant. To his shock, Weaver read about the warrant in the newspaper and later read a denial that the probation officer’s letter existed. Despite the letter’s veracity, a U.S. Attorney convened a grand jury, withheld the letter, and received an indictment for failing to appear. Weaver testified “this just added on to everything; we could not trust anything that was going on. I wanted reassurance that I would get a fair trial.”
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