A lot of Law Enforcement sting operations get thrown out or dismissed by juries when the degree of entrapment is eventually revealed. They find some dissaffected or mentally unstable candidate who thinks and talks about doing these things, but has neither the means or method to carry them out, and then they (the Law Enforcement agency) provide both the means and the method. This case may well be different, but the political hoopla surrounding it just stinks of opportunism and exploitation by those with opaque agendas.
The FBI again thwarts its own Terror plot - FBI - Salon.com
Time and again, the FBI concocts a Terrorist attack, infiltrates Muslim communities in order to find recruits, persuades them to perpetrate the attack, supplies them with the money, weapons and know-how they need to carry it out — only to heroically jump in at the last moment, arrest the would-be perpetrators whom the FBI converted, and save a grateful nation from the plot manufactured by the FBI.