At this point, the F.B.I. led raid on the Hutaree Christian Militia does not pass the smell test, and more importantly, is eerily similar to the militarized Justice Department’s build up to the Waco massacre under Janet Reno. Even though we’ve been told some gun charges may be made against the people who have been arrested, the government has sealed the initial warrants so the public will not know what led to the raids in the first place:

Federal agents conducted raids over the weekend in Lenawee and Washtenaw counties that news media reports linked to Hutaree, a Christian-militia group in the area.

Agents also conducted raids in Indiana and Ohio and arrested at least three people. FBI spokesman Scott Wilson in Cleveland said agents arrested two people Saturday after raids in two Ohio towns. A third arrest made in northeast Illinois stemmed from a raid in northwest Indiana. The arrests are part of an ongoing investigation led by the FBI in Michigan, according to a statement from agents in Illinois.

The raids in Michigan took place Saturday and Sunday at undisclosed locations, said Detroit FBI Special Agent Sandra Berchtold.

“We can confirm that there were law enforcement activities in the Lenawee/Washtenaw County area,” Berchtold said.

But she added that “the federal warrants are sealed and we cannot comment at this time.”

Since the FBI is in charge we can infer that the gun charges were not what was in the warrants or else the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms would have been in the lead. But the government agents haven’t been shy about telling the media Hutaree is a “Christian militia,” which is odd considering the reticence they have about identifying Muslims involved in Jihad.

Speaking of which, buried in this report filed by The Detroit News we find a surprise appearance by the terrorist funding, Jihad supporting group CAIR which learned about the raid coincidentally while holding one of their fundraisers:

Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on Islamic-American Relations of Michigan, made an announcement Sunday during the group’s 10th anniversary banquet about receiving a call from a network journalist about the alleged threat against Muslims.

“Don’t allow this news to scare you away from practicing your faith,” said Walid.

Audible gaps were heard throughout the banquet hall when the news was announced. Walid said he will call local authorities about more information on the allegations. He urged local Muslims to recommitt themselves to their faith in light of the accusations.

That article also quotes Mike Lackomar of the Michigan Militia as saying he heard from other militia members that Hutaree was raided because they had made threats against Muslim groups, though that quote is mysteriously absent from many other accounts. It is also odd that Hutaree itself doesn’t mention Muslims in their writings, but are mainly concerned with the supposed Anti-Christ they think is coming to power and the general Jesus freakery that is essentially harmless but does not wear well on a man in camouflage carrying an AR-15.

CAIR has a history of making false hate crime reports. Was this another CAIR set up?

Word on the street amongst the crazed survivalist community (of which I am proudly a member) is that Hutaree was literally a cult and some people claimed they actively promoted starting a civil war, but I personally have seen no evidence of the latter. I have seen some of their “training” videos and did not think they were the type of people I would associate with. Take that for what it is worth.

It is interesting though that despite the fact that at this point no Hutaree member has been caught acting violently, the feds came down on them like a hammer when just recently anti-American racist and ex-con Tom Metzger, founder of the White Aryan Resistance, was raided by the BATF who proceeded to do everything in their power to make things easy on him without actually giving him a backrub. He left this cheery comment on my post about the raid:

Tom Metzger said,

on March 24th, 2010 at 1:06 pm

I assume your from the bankrupt right wing.Thanks for the PR. Actually the ATF and I sat around and had a few beers that day. The right wing. THE BOWELL MOVEMENT

I’m betting the Hutaree members are hardly as sanguine right now. Of course, WAR and the other Aryan groups have long had an alliance with Marxists and Islamists so Metzger getting the kid glove treatment from a Marxist run D.O.J. that is openly preferential to Islamism is not a surprise.

But what is a surprise is a seemingly emboldened leftist government rounding up arm-chair commandos and a complicit media simply lapping up a narrative involving dangerous Jesus freaks that has not been supported by any evidence. As the Hutaree members make court appearances we’ll see what the government’s evidence is, but as of now, this stinks.

Update: Mike Lackomar told me all his information came from the media so it looks like The Detroit News misquoted him, accidentally I’m sure.

The Government is now claiming born again Christians Hutaree were planning on not only killing police officers but then desecrating the cops funerals by blowing up bombs designed to kill mourners. And if you’re thinking that sounds odd then you’re are correct as there has never been an incidence of Christians, extremist or not, attacking funerals since it would, you know, send them to Hell. The lead suspects ex-wife confirms that David Brian Stone had been growing more extreme in his views, but that Hutaree was primarily a Christian group.

The “threats against Islamic groups” narrative is still floating around (even making Drudge) but as of yet there is still no evidence supporting that.

Why would a group of God botherers assault a funeral. And why target beat cops at all when they would have been able to target Feds (who they may have actually believed were part of the anti-Christ’s army) or the United Nations headquarters? More importantly why would they have been plotting attacks at all since their theology put forward that their enemy will be attacking the world shortly?

This story sticks.