Shep Smith condemned the FBI over the arrest of several activists during the NATO summit on Monday, alleging that the justice system is "trampling on our liberty."
Five men have been accused of planning to bomb President Barack Obama's campaign headquarters, Mayor Rahm Emanuel's home and other targets. Defense lawyers for some of the suspects, however, charged that it was undercover officers who brought the explosives to the apartment where the men were arrested.
Smith was discussing the case with analyst Judge Robert Napolitano on Monday. "That's entrapment, isn't it?" he asked, referring to the activists' allegations.
Napolitano described the practice as the normal course for the FBI. He said the only difference was that federal agents left the case, and that the suspects were being charged just to scare other protesters.
"But the Chicago folks want to make a case out of it, because they want to make an example out of these kids to deter other people from expressing their political opinions in the streets," Napolitano said.
"You've got to be kidding me," Smith said. Later, he asked, "How do we have stories like this, two or three times a week, and no one in the nation seems to care?"
“Because the American public has been deluded into thinking that when the government finds a dope and persuades the dope to say bad things and think he’s assembling a bomb and then he eventually pleads guilty, somehow we are kept safe by that happening,” Napolitano said.
“That’s a load of it!” Smith cried. “Somehow we are made to feel like maybe they're doing something for us, and what they’re really doing is trampling on our liberty.”
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