Federal Informants Are Often Promised Visas. They Rarely Materialize.
Instead of bad faith, a new report finds a broken system.
Trevor Aaronson
Trevor Aaronson is an award-winning investigative journalist. His forthcoming book “Bad Guys,” about the FBI, will be published February 2027 by Grand Central Publishing in the U.S. and Monoray in the U.K. He is the author of “The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism,” and has created several audio documentaries, including the Audible Original series “Pulse: The Untold Story” and the iHeart series “Alphabet Boys.” A Peabody Award winner and two-time Livingston Awards finalist, he focuses on abuses of power in law enforcement and national security.
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Tucker Carlson Distorted My Reporting in His Latest Jan. 6 Conspiracy Theory
Yes, the FBI used stings to entrap Muslims after 9/11. But there's no evidence the U.S. Capitol riot was the FBI's idea.
Hamas Official Denies Group Used Destroyed Gaza Media Tower for Intelligence
In its first official statement, Hamas denies Israel's allegation that the building housing the AP and other news media was used for military intelligence.
Capitol Mob May Say Trump Made Them Do It. But That Hasn't Always Worked as a Defense.
A Kansas man who plotted to blow up Somalis argued that he was swayed by the president’s anti-immigrant rhetoric. He got 30 years.
FBI Counterterrorism Informant Spent a Decade Committing Fraud
While working to ensnare Muslims in FBI stings, Mohammed Agbareia preyed on the Islamic community as a con man.
FBI's "Hamas" Sting Against Boogaloo Boys Was So Absurd That Even Hamas Spoke Out Against It
The sting against the so-called Boojahideen had the unusual result of international terrorism charges against domestic extremists.
The Threat Within
Informant Reveals FBI’s Already Vast Powers to Investigate Right-Wing Extremists
“I was just a human recording machine paid by the government to go into people’s lives and befriend them and find out what they were thinking.”
A Declassified Court Ruling Shows How the FBI Abused NSA Mass Surveillance Data
By abusing the NSA’s mass surveillance data, the FBI may have violated the rights of millions of Americans, a federal judge ruled.
A New Satire of FBI Terrorism Stings Draws Its Characters From Real Cases
In Chris Morris’s “The Day Shall Come,” the absurdity is not far removed from reality.
For Years, Reporters Questioned the Terror Prosecution of Hamid Hayat. Now He's Been Freed.
The case against Hamid Hayat was “absurd on its face” and representative of the government’s abusive post-9/11 counterterrorism prosecutions.