But that doesn’t excuse the logic: John Pistole points to a plot the FBI–under his management–cooked up, as if it represents a “real” threat. He uses it to justify expanding VIPR to mass and surface transit venues. And then when TSA does set up one of those VIPR checkpoints, we learn they’re not looking for TATP (which is what Pistole implied in his testimony to Congress), but instead illegal aliens and cash smugglers.

As long as there’s a public defender alert enough to recognize the potential for entrapment, and the import of the missing recording and recording device of the first meeting between Mohamud and the FBI, I think we can presume this defendant is in competent legal hands.