Brandon Darby

Brandon Michael Darby (born November 2, 1976 in Pasadena, Texas) is an American informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.^[2]

Darby is a conservative blogger and managing director of Breitbart Texas, a conservative news and opinion website.^[3][4]

Biography

Early life

Darby was born and raised in Pasadena, Texas, part of Greater Houston.^[1][5][6] His father was a refinery welder in Pasadena.^[5] As a teenager, Darby would run away from home.^[7][8][9] He lived in group homes in Houston, Texas and the surrounding areas.^[5]

He got a GED and took an emergency medical technician class.^[1][10]

Early activism

He was a co-founder of Common Ground Relief,^[11] a non-profit relief organization that provided supplies and assistance to New Orleanians in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He was Director of Operations for the organization from January to April 2007.^[12] Darby's role as a community organizer and, at times, a humanitarian relief activist, has been the subject of numerous print, radio and television reports, as well as having been profiled in several documentary films, most which have been critical of his actions and giving information of activists to the FBI.

2008 Republican Convention activities

In 2008, Darby infiltrated a small group of protestors at the 2008 Republican National Convention, while working as an FBI informant and subsequently took the stand against them in court. Two of the protestors, David McKay and Bradley Crowder, were serving jail sentences as of late 2011.^[13]

Darby started working as an FBI informant in November 2007,^[14] which Darby acknowledged and justified in a December 2008 open letter to his former fellow community organizers and activists.^[15]

Darby infiltrated groups that organized protests at the 2008 Republican National Convention in Saint Paul, Minnesota, giving the FBI information which led to the seizure of 34 homemade riot shields brought from Texas.^[16] Two activists from Texas, David McKay and Bradley Crowder, then purchased materials for and constructed firebombs (Molotov cocktails) that they appear to have contemplated using on state owned vehicles. Evidence of the firebombs was seized in a raid by local police which was in turn supported by the FBI, and so the key issue of further criminality by McKay and Crowder was whether Darby encouraged this escalation in violence.^[13] Specific claims by others in attendance at the protest (e.g., Gabby Hicks) state that Darby was "...the one to suggest violence, when the rest of us clearly disagreed..." and that "[a]s an older seasoned activist, Darby had a lot of sway over Crowder and McKay, making them susceptible to his often militant rhetoric"^[17] i.e. that he acted as an agent provocateur. As well, a former Darby girlfriend and various former colleagues allege that Darby informed for the FBI not due to patriotism or altruism, but for self-serving motives.^[17]

Neither Crowder nor McKay would agree to testify against the other;^[13] Crowder ultimately accepted a plea agreement without trial resulting in 24 months in prison and three years of supervised release.^[18] McKay took his case to trial, claiming entrapment by Darby. The trial ended with a hung jury, in a vote of 6-6.^[13] Jury interviews indicated that considerable jury discussion centered around the veracity of witnesses McKay and Darby (the former claiming entrapment, the latter denying), with the significant proportion voting to acquit arising because of how Darby's representation of events was perceived.^[13]

Shortly before the retrial date, defendant McKay accepted a 24-month plea arrangement for the charges against him, and in doing so formally retracted his claim that Darby entrapped him.^[19] However, further documentary evidence has been cited by critics who suggests that both McKay and Crowder remained firm in their initial account of events, but that McKay's decision to take the plea deal was motivated by the awareness that 90% of federal cases result in convictions, and that a conviction could result in a decades-long sentence.^[13]

Following the plea arrangement, McKay was sentenced to 48 months in prison and three years of supervised release,^[20] with a reason given for the longer-than-agreed sentence being the obstruction of justice assigned to McKay's initial claim that Darby had entrapped him.^[21][22]

In many left-wing activist communities, Darby has been criticized^[17] and even ostracized^[5][23][24] for his role in McKay's conviction. He has been welcomed by some conservative organizations as a patriot.^[5][24]

Career

Darby is managing director for Breitbart Texas, a conservative news and opinion website.^[3][4]

Darby is a strong proponent of the Tea Party and travels the United States as a public speaker, promoting conservative politics.^[25][26] He posts videos on his YouTube channel against illegal immigration.

On November 12, 2011, Darby spoke alongside controversial Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio at the "Choose Liberty 2012" conference in Florida, sponsored by the Eastern Orlando Tea Party.^[27]

Darby appeared in Occupy Unmasked, a 2012 documentary film that aimed to present evidence that the Occupy Wall Street movement is violent, and was organized with the purpose of destroying the American government.

Darby is the subject of Jamie Meltzer's 2012 documentary film, Informant.^[28] The film won Best Documentary at the Austin Film Festival.

References

External links

• "Solidarity Not Charity", Common Ground Relief
• "The Informant: Revolutionary to rat: The uneasy journey of Brandon Darby", Austin Chronicle, January 22, 2009
• "Better This World", a documentary from PBS's long-running series P.O.V.
• "Turncoat," This American Life, Chicago Public Radio, May 22, 2009
• "Informant", a 2012 documentary film directed by Jamie Meltzer