Defense questions FBI agent in Garden City bomb plot trial

WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) Wednesday, April 11

The prosecution has completed questioning it’s witnesses and now the defense team is taking it’s time to try to inflict doubt in the jury’s minds.

One of the first witnesses the defense called is FBI Agent Amy Kuhn. Kuhn worked directly with the FBI informant who previously testified in the case. Kuhn said she did debriefing meetings with the FBI informant and worked with him on recording the defendants and giving him rules to follow.

Gavin Wright’s defense attorney questioned Kuhn on how transcribing the audio recordings worked. Kuhn explained how different FBI agents would transcribe the recordings and sometimes, Kuhn or others would listen to the recordings and verify they were correct.

Kuhn said Wednesday that one of the transcripts had a mistake regarding who was present at a specific meeting. She said it was her mistake during a verification process. The transcript listed a specific person being at one of the meetings though previous testimony suggested he was not.

When Kuhn explained the mistake and that the person was not there from what she believes, the defense attorney questioned if Kuhn had ever told the defense about that. She said she had not and that ended the questioning. The mistake appeared to frustrate the defense attorney as it was not previously divulged.

The defense attorneys previously said in opening statements they plan to show the FBI created this plan and tried to take advantage of the defendants’ beliefs.

Once the government began questioning Kuhn, the attorney revisited some of the topics the defense attorneys brought up. Kuhn had revealed to the defense attorneys the FBI did not tell churches, landlords or others involved in a threat that they were potentially in danger. Kuhn told the government she did take the threats seriously but due to the investigation, they were never planning on letting anything happen.

“In going and talking to them, it would have just terrified them and it could have alerted the defendants as to what was going on,” Kuhn said.

Kuhn also talked about why the FBI did not “back up” the FBI informant during his meetings with the defendants. She said because western Kansas is a rural area, an FBI presence could have tipped off the defendants. That meant the FBI informant was on his own.

Kuhn said the FBI informant was told one major rule – he could not bring up new ideas to the defendants. He could bring up topics they had previously discussed but he was not to put new ideas into their heads.

As part of the government’s cross examination of Kuhn, Kuhn read writings that were in a journal found at one of the defendant’s homes. It was described as some sort of manifesto.
According to Kuhn’s reading, the journal said, in part, “This manifest is for the US Government and for the American people.”

“With this document we are going to attempt a forced wake up call. American people you have to wake up.”

“Standing up for the Constitution is not domestic terrorism. It’s actually government terrorism.”

“We have to take a stand. Take a stand before it’s too late to. It might already be. We are trying to do just that with this manifest. We know what’s going on. This is a wake up call to everyone else.”

“Well the time has come for us that do care to take a stand. It’s time to do what the government hopes we will never do. That’s come together as a nation, as a people.”
“This is a call to action by all Americans. Please do not just sit idle until we lose this once great nation.”