How many government informants were involved in the Michigan kidnapping case 2020?

1. What defendants and lawyers have said about the number of informants

Defense attorneys in the cases seeking dismissal and arguing entrapment have explicitly claimed the FBI deployed at least a dozen confidential informants and several undercover agents in the probe; The Guardian reports the defense deployed “at least 12 informants,” and a civil filing summarized in other outlets similarly asserts a dozen confidential informants were involved ^{[1] [2]}. Those defense positions frame the investigation as driven or materially enabled by government sources, a central theme of the entrapment argument ^[3].

2. How prosecutors and law enforcement describe government involvement

Available sources note that the FBI and its undercover sources infiltrated meetings and recorded planning sessions; reporting cites undercover agents and informants being inside gatherings for months and attending a key June 2020 Ohio meeting ^{[5] [6]}. The government’s public account emphasizes that informants and undercover agents helped identify and thwart an operational conspiracy to kidnap the governor ^{[5] [6]}. Specific numerical tallies from prosecutors are not consistently quoted in the articles collected here; the precise number the government confirms is not found in the current reporting provided (not found in current reporting).

3. Independent and academic context on use of informants in the probe

Analytical pieces — including work from the West Point Combating Terrorism Center — describe FBI sources recording members at meetings and participating in reconnaissance and training sessions, underscoring that at least some government sources took active roles such as attending reconnoitering trips and tactical drills ^[7]. That same reporting shows these embedded sources supplied much of the prosecution’s contemporaneous evidence, which defense teams later challenged as inducement rather than neutral observation ^{[7] [3]}.

4. Court outcomes and how they affected the debate over informants

The mixed results in court — convictions of some defendants, acquittals and mistrials for others — have fueled competing narratives. Prosecution victories were cited as evidence of a genuine conspiracy, while acquittals and mistrials (and post-trial claims) have been used by defense teams and some commentators to argue the government’s informant-heavy approach exaggerated or manufactured criminal conduct ^{[8] [6]}. Reporting notes informants testified and were central to the government’s case; defense filings argued that informants “recruited, agitated and funded” aspects of the activity ^{[6] [2]}.

5. Numbers reported in different outlets — why they differ

Different outlets repeat the defense’s claim of 12 informants (The Guardian, Daily Mail) while other reporting emphasizes “informants and undercover agents” without a fixed number ^{[1] [2] [6]}. Variations arise because some counts appear in defense filings, others in newsroom summaries, and legal designations (confidential informant vs. undercover agent vs. cooperating witness) can overlap, causing inconsistent public tallies ^{[3] [4]}.

6. What the sources do not establish or confirm

Available sources do not provide a definitive, independently verified roster listing every informant and undercover operative used by the government, nor do they quote an official FBI-confirmed total in the material provided here (not found in current reporting). Likewise, precise payments and operational directions for every source are alleged in defense filings and some reporting but are not exhaustively documented in the set of articles provided ^{[2] [3]}.

7. What to watch next / why it matters

Future court filings, trial testimony, or official disclosures (for example, DOJ replies to motions) would be the most authoritative places to confirm a final, court-accepted count of government informants and the scope of their actions; until then, the number most often cited in the defense’s filings—12 informants—remains an important but contested figure in public reporting ^{[1] [2]}. The tally matters because it shapes competing narratives: that prosecutors disrupted a genuine violent plot, or that the government’s heavy use of informants materially created the plot it later prosecuted ^{[3] [4]}.