The reason for the non-sequitur is because if there were anything behind this plot, it would have gotten a lot more news coverage than it did as an FBI-seeded conspiracy. As it stands, there were better examples of crazy right wingers (many of whom were actually crazy right wingers), so they moved on to those. In some other parts of the country, the demand for crazy right wingers exceeded the supply, so hoaxes filled that.

Thirteen out of eighteen were arrested. Five were directly agents, and FBI agents tend not to get arrested when they are the ones doing the arresting.