espionage
Textbook Case of FBI Grooming a Troubled Young Man to Commit Violent Crime
By John Leake
Schizophrenic Jerry Drake Varnell was encouraged and assisted by an undercover FBI agent in “foiled” plot to blow up BancFirst building in Oklahoma City
In researching the strange cases of Thomas Matthew Crooks and Luigi Mangione, I have wondered with whom they were in contact, and if they were possibly groomed, by an undercover FBI who—for reasons that are unclear—wished to incite these young men to participate in violent crimes.
I first started wondering about FBI grooming when I learned about an undercover FBI agent’s involvement in the 2015 plot to attack a convention at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas (see my post “Tear Up Texas”: FBI Encouraged a 2015 Shooting & Did Nothing to Stop It).
This morning I learned about the remarkable case of a 23-year-old diagnosed schizophrenic named Jerry Drake Varnell who—with the encouragement and assistance of an undercover FBI agent in 2017—participated in what he believed was a plot to blow up the BancFirst building in downtown Oklahoma City. He was found guilty in 2019. In 2020 he was sentenced to 25 years in prison “for attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction at BancFirst in downtown Oklahoma City.”
According to the US Attorney’s Office press release on the conviction:
At trial, the jury heard testimony from an informant who made recordings of his conversations with Varnell. It also heard from the undercover FBI agent who helped Varnell build what he thought was a bomb, an FBI bomb technician, and others. It listened to numerous recordings in which Varnell planned the attack and reviewed numerous written electronic communications that corroborated his intent. Furthermore, it heard the testimony of a defense expert concerning Varnell’s mental health. Through its verdicts, the jury concluded any mental health problems did not prevent Varnell from forming the intent required for conviction. It also determined the FBI did not entrap him.
To me, what is most striking about this case—apart from the fact that the offender was a diagnosed schizophrenic—is how he drew the attention of federal law enforcement. As reported by KGOU (an Oklahoma NPR station):
Government witnesses said they deemed Varnell a threat based on his online activity such as “liking” anti-government groups on Facebook and messages referencing Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and Tyler Durden, a split personality character from the 1999 film “Fight Club.” Agents also said Varnell claimed he had built homemade explosives during conversations with undercover FBI agent Williams and an FBI informant named Brent Elisens.
As was repeatedly pointed out by Varnell’s defense attorney:
Varnell is a diagnosed schizophrenic. He told federal agents that his anti-government sentiments started around age 16, the same age his parents say his schizophrenic episodes began.
Defense attorneys asked FBI agents if they knew of Varnell’s paranoid schizophrenia. Retired FBI agent Jennifer Schmidtz, who testified Wednesday, said she knew of “allegations” in a Custer County case involving Varnell and self-reported mental health issues in Varnell’s college transcripts. In a 2017 statement, Varnell’s parents claimed he has been institutionalized on multiple occasions.
The defense has team also focused on an FBI report from Dec. 2016 that stated, “Varnell does not have a job or a vehicle. The threat has not been repeated. Varnell does not have the means to commit the act at this time.”
By August 2017, the defense pointed out, Varnell was still unemployed and without a car. …
Varnell’s property was searched the day of his arrest, and Schmidtz, who supervised the search, testified there was no physical evidence showing Varnell experimented with chemicals capable of causing an explosion. The search did uncover a speech written by Varnell laiden with conspiracy theories about developing psychotropic drugs, the Clintons and Timothy McVeigh.
During cross examinations the defense continued to point out that Varnell never followed through on pieces of the plan he was responsible for, like choosing a time and place and supplying barrels. Varnell came up with a list of locations after encouragement from undercover agent Williams, and he settled on the on the BancFirst location after Williams took him to scout the location on July 13. He suggested Nov. 5 as an attack date, but Williams said it was too far away. And Varnell never supplied barrels, so Williams provided them.
In other words, “undercover agent Williams” was the chief planner and executor of the apparent plot. Jerry Varnell participated in this plot with the encouragement of undercover agent Williams and under the direction of undercover agent Williams.
Subscribe to Courageous Discourse™ with Dr. Peter McCullough & John Leake.
For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
Daily Caller
Laura Ingraham Presses Trump On Allowing Flood Of Chinese Students Into US

From the Daily Caller News Foundation
Fox News’ Laura Ingraham did not let President Donald Trump off the hook on Monday as she pressed him on allowing a flood of Chinese students to study in the U.S.
Trump confirmed in August that the administration will allow 600,000 Chinese students to attend U.S. colleges and universities to continue the nation’s “very important relationship” with China. Ingraham, on “The Ingraham Angle,” continued to ask the president how allowing this many Chinese students to be admitted into U.S. schools is a “pro-MAGA position.”
“Why, sir, is that a pro-MAGA position when so many American kids want to go to school and there are places not for them and these universities are getting rich off Chinese money?”
Dear Readers:
As a nonprofit, we are dependent on the generosity of our readers.
Please consider making a small donation of any amount here.
Thank you!
“[I] never said about China, but we do have a lot of people coming in from China. We always have China and other countries. We also have a massive system of colleges and universities. And if we were to cut that in half, which perhaps makes some people happy, you would have half the colleges in the United States go out of business,” Trump said, prompting Ingraham to doubt that the U.S. relies on China to keep universities open.
Ingraham reminded Trump that the Chinese government spies on Americans and steals intellectual property from the U.S. Trump stated that he views his policy as a business transaction in order to have a good relationship with China and to ensure that American universities continue thriving.
“I know you and I disagree. We’re never going to agree on it, but that’s OK. And it’s not that I want them, but I view it as a business. We have millions and millions of people. Also, I want to get along with countries if possible … But one thing, you don’t want to cut half of the people, half of the students from all over the world that are coming into our country, destroy our entire university and college system. I don’t want to do that. I wouldn’t lose any. And don’t forget, MAGA was my idea. MAGA was nobody else’s idea,” Trump said.
The U.S. and China reached an agreement in June to allow Chinese students to attend U.S. colleges and universities, which came after the administration suspended Harvard University’s ability to admit foreign nationals on June 5. The administration cited national security concerns and allegations of antisemitism on college campuses in its efforts to restrict foreign students from entering the U.S.
Trump previously acknowledged the potential national security risk of allowing Chinese students into U.S. colleges and universities, stating in June that “you have to watch” students from the nation governed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Analysts told the Daily Caller News Foundation that this policy could help the CCP take advantage of higher education in America and pose serious national security risks.
espionage
Chinese-Owned Trailer Park Beside U.S. Stealth Bomber Base Linked to Alleged Vancouver Repression Case
A sprawling U.S. investigative report has placed a Richmond, B.C., couple already identified in a high-profile Chinese-diaspora repression case at the center of an even more explosive national-security controversy south of the border: they are linked to a web of shell companies that own a trailer park beside Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri — home to the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber and launch point for the June 2025 strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Taken together, the property records unearthed by the Daily Caller News Foundation, along with court and corporate documents reviewed by The Bureau to verify the American reporting, outline a cross-border pattern of potential Chinese state activity, echoing past cases of high-profile actors using Vancouver as a base for operations into the United States.
Raising the stakes, The Bureau has also identified a former Vancouver business entity tied to the couple, involved in hard-rock lithium exploration in Canada’s Northwest Territories — an alarming detail suggesting their network could intersect with China’s drive for critical-minerals supply chains in North America.
The real-estate thread south of the border is clear. Missouri business and environmental filings assembled by investigative reporter Philip Lenczycki show the Knob Noster Trailer Park is registered to Property Solutions 3603 LP, with a state operating permit locating the property directly north of Whiteman — roughly a mile from the runway. Companion filings in Utah and Georgia connect similarly named entities to the Richmond residents, Esther Mei and Cheng Hu. The couple, who share a Richmond home according to court documents, did not respond to repeated requests for comment, Lenczycki reported.
A former CIA operations officer said such thinly veiled ownership structures are typical of state-linked activity, including the use of foreign nationals to place assets near critical infrastructure. Bryan Dean Wright, a former CIA officer, told the Daily Caller there was “zero chance a Chinese couple from Canada rolled into Knob Noster and saw a strictly financial investment in a dumpy plot of land,” arguing that the trailer park “would hypothetically give Xi Jinping a range of options to wreak havoc.”
Wright’s assessment is not proof of wrongdoing, but his conclusion aligns with patterns previously reported by The Bureau.
At a recent hearing in Washington, D.C., Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics Director Donnie Anderson told lawmakers that investigations into PRC-linked cannabis operations have uncovered claims of Chinese government interests strategically purchasing property near sensitive U.S. infrastructure — including a munitions plant in Oklahoma supplying a large share of the Pentagon’s heavy weapons.
Across North America, cases of PRC-linked farmland acquisitions are moving from headlines to court filings and prompting calls for official investigations. The Bureau has reported on major land purchases in Prince Edward Island allegedly tied to Beijing’s United Front network, and on the premier’s subsequent call for RCMP and FINTRAC investigations.
What brings the Richmond couple’s story into sharper focus for Canadian readers is the series of incidents outside Bingchen Gao’s home in 2020 and 2023.
Reporting on charges against Miles Guo in 2024, Global News in British Columbia wrote that demonstrators clad in New Federal State of China clothing protested outside Gao’s home for 77 days in 2020 and returned in January 2023. The outlet noted the group “would say little… save calling Gao ‘very dangerous’ and calling for his expulsion from Canada.”
In an earlier case, the Chinese journalist Gao fought a high-profile defamation battle with Vancouver developer Miaofei Pan, a leader of the Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations (CACA) — which former PRC diplomat Chen Yonglin has publicly described as operating at a “controlling level” of the United Front Work Department in B.C. Pan and another CACA leader dispute that characterization, but they have also been questioned by the RCMP in probes into alleged PRC “police station” activity in Richmond, where no charges have been laid.
Pan, a prominent Liberal donor, was featured in The Globe and Mail’s reporting on wealthy Chinese immigrants hosting fundraisers attended by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. In his defamation case against Gao, Pan was awarded $1 in damages after B.C. Supreme Court Justice Neena Sharma rebuked his conduct, writing that she had “serious concerns” about his credibility.
In the subsequent Surrey neighborhood-siege case, civil pleadings and video evidence show Gao alleging an extended campaign by New Federal State of China demonstrators, including Esther Mei and Cheng Hu, outside his residence, followed by online amplification.
Gao’s claim states that from September 15, 2020, to December 3, 2020, and from January 20 to 25, 2023, the defendants appeared in front of his home, holding signs declaring “Gao Bingchen is a spy of the Chinese Communist Party.” The filing names several individuals, including the Richmond couple linked to the Missouri trailer park.
With this network’s legal connections to Miles Guo — also established in B.C. court records reviewed by the Daily Caller — the rabbit hole deepens. The NFSC formally launched in 2020, and Guo was convicted in New York in 2024 in a billion-dollar fraud case. A U.S. bankruptcy adversary filing lists Vancouver Sailing Farm Ltd. among defendants, a documented Canadian arm within the Guo-linked network. Guo has publicly described intelligence “affiliations” and proximity to senior Chinese security figures.
As I reported in Wilful Blindness (pp. 72–78), fugitive smuggling tycoon Lai Changxing — who migrated to Vancouver and was long alleged by police to have Big Circle Boys ties — operated within a PLA military-intelligence milieu overseen by Maj. Gen. Ji Shengde, later purged amid the Yuanhua scandal. U.S. fundraiser Johnny Chung testified that Ji directed $300,000 toward the 1996 Clinton campaign, and Miles Guo has claimed close ties to both Lai and Ji, saying he was asked by Ji to assist the PLA’s 2nd Department — a characterization he later repeated in interviews describing himself as an “affiliate” of Chinese state security.
If the Missouri trailer-park findings ultimately confirm Chinese-state adjacency through direct links to Vancouver-based property owners, they would fit a well-established Canadian pattern.
Historian Dennis Molinaro’s Under Assault traces how Beijing has repeatedly used Canada as a staging ground to reach its true strategic target — the United States. He charts a progression from political influence and industrial theft to targeted scientific infiltration, often leveraging patriotic sentiment and financial inducements within the overseas Chinese diaspora.
The book revisits Su Bin’s Boeing-theft case from Vancouver and a Toronto conduit for U.S. Tesla battery IP — both examples where Canadian enforcement followed only after U.S. intervention.
Su Bin — arrested in Richmond, B.C., in 2014 and later extradited — admitted conspiring with China-based accomplices tied to the People’s Liberation Army to hack major U.S. defense contractors for export-controlled data on flagship air programs, including Boeing’s C-17 Globemaster III and, by tasking, the F-22 and F-35 stealth fighters. He pleaded guilty in March 2016 and was sentenced to 46 months that July, with the plea acknowledging a years-long operation to steal sensitive military information and transmit it to China in violation of computer-intrusion and Arms Export Control statutes.
As former FBI agent Justin Vallese — cited by Molinaro — said after Su Bin’s conviction, he “didn’t know how many Su Bins there are.”
-
espionage2 days agoChinese-Owned Trailer Park Beside U.S. Stealth Bomber Base Linked to Alleged Vancouver Repression Case
-
Daily Caller2 days agoUS Nuclear Bomber Fleet Shares Fence With Trailer Park Linked To Chinese Intel-Tied Fraudster
-
Daily Caller2 days agoLaura Ingraham Presses Trump On Allowing Flood Of Chinese Students Into US
-
Crime18 hours agoCBSA Bust Uncovers Mexican Cartel Network in Montreal High-Rise, Moving Hundreds Across Canada-U.S. Border
-
Business2 days agoCarney’s Floor-Crossing Campaign. A Media-Staged Bid for Majority Rule That Erodes Democracy While Beijing Hovers
-
Environment19 hours agoThe Myths We’re Told About Climate Change | Michael Shellenberger
-
Energy1 day agoIt should not take a crisis for Canada to develop the resources that make people and communities thrive.
-
Dr John Campbell1 day agoCures for Cancer? A new study shows incredible results from cheap generic drug Fenbendazole





