I read the indictment, but I don't see how you can be certain it was not planted.

He apparently saved IRC logs of their entire quest to obtain child porn....?

Using his name as a handle?

Impossible? No, but do you really think this is not questionable at all?

Did you read the part about the VM he was (allegedly) hiding?

"Yes your honour, we totally found this."

"No your honour, we lost the evidence since then."

Do you actually have an argument as to how they would fake the VM in a manner that would withstand the analysis of the defendants experts?

Can't the CIA hide trojans on unused sectors of storage that can't be detected by any known anti virus program?

You don't think they can't fake a VM?

eh, you should still be skeptical. This is a CIA contractor/employee we're talking about here. Child pornography is an interesting situation because no one outside of the justice department and a few key people can even legally examine the evidence.

It shouldn't be beyond the realm of believeability to this bad actors created these charges in retaliation.

How would an indictment prove or disprove whether it was planted?

Believing he was is believable. But it's only a symptom.

Believing the intelligence community never bends the rules is the problem. That belief is the root disease.

Which do you think is more likely:

1). A person willing to risk their life for what they believe is right is a pedophile.

2). The CIA plants evidence.

After having a look at the things we know the CIA did during my life time, Iran-Contra, I'd say 2 is vastly more likely than 1.

Despite being certain of 2, I am also certain that they don’t need to plant evidence to make someone’s life hell.

Their omniscient surveillance, combined with how many overlapping laws eveyone seems to have, means all they need to do is enumerate the crimes of someone they don’t like and run with it. So, for example, this particular enemy of theirs likes illegal porn? Next one will have something else.

This isn’t to say the CIA definitely didn’t plant anything, just that I think doing so is not the only option they will consider sufficient for their desired result.

Moral outrage based attacks have happened before; I’m told the FBI’s poison-pen-letter to MLK was being truthful when it claimed that he was adulterous, for example. While the idea that adultary could have such an impact is alien to me, the fact that it was attempted means the FBI thought otherwise at the time.

As for option 1? There’s a reason why we cant find them before they break the law. Whatever that reason is, it has to be compatible with someone like that being willing to do something like this.

What I know is irrelevant. What matters is the general understanding and comprehension of the masses. If you accept Twitter and Facebook as an acceptable representation of the public at large then it's clear there are __a lot__ of naive / misled people.

Long to short, the majority would rather believe in the integrity of the intelligence community than the IC's willingness to take any road necessary (not just the high moral road).