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I think we will start seeing defense lawyers -- like the ones in this case -- pushing to get all communications between informants and agents. Two lawyers in this case -- Steven McCool and Mike Madigan -- did a good job of using these messages to attack both the informant and the FBI agents. However,  I also think the bureau will ensure that these types of texts are not generated (either by using other technology or by making sure agents are aware that these things, like emails, are being preserved). I do not believe anyone will get in trouble for this because the agents testified they were texting this way out of operational necessity.

I guess it depends on your standards. The agents joked about booty calls and objectified women. I did not print some of the more lewd ones. The texts made it look like the agents were pals with this informant, who was an admitted criminal with a very checkered past. That made it easier for defense lawyers to taint the entire investigation and not just limit their attacks to an informant.

That is what the prosecutors and agents argued. But jurors did not believe it. I think there are times where agents bond with informants. But we rarely see how that works. And, in this case, the texts showed that the agents seemed to like the informant and also shared his sense of humor. And that made them damaging. For example, the agent is on the stand and he seems like a complete and poised professional. Then the defense attorney starts hammering him about joking about getting married to a prostitute in Las Vegas, as the agent had joked about in a text message. And the agent says that such a text was operaitonally necessary. But then the defense lawyer starts asking whether the FBI takes sex-trafficking and prostitution seriously? Is that a topic worth joking about? The agent was aware that the informant had a long history of hiring prostitutes himself?

And why do agents have to bond with an informant? This guy has pleaded guilty to a serious crime and is working with the FBI to get what he hopes will be a lighter sentence. There are moments where the FBI agents probably needed to buck him up -- like some texts sent by one agent to the informant telling him to relax before the big sting meeting -- but the litany of these texts revealed agents who seemed to treat this guy as an equal. 

This informant also happens to have helped the FBI find targets to the investigation and the texts allowed the defense lawyers to really ask pointed questions about who was directing the sting.

I don't know if it's an isolated case or not.  I found it fascinating because I have been covering courts for years and have never seen real-time communications between an FBI agent and his informant. It was like having someone open a windowshade and you can actually see inside a room.

That is true. But they are engaging in banter that bothered jurors and raised questions about their professionalism. In the old days, we never would have seen such communications and defense lawyers would never have known that agents were joking with an informant about a booty call or their own girlfriends.

Ah. Roger Clemens, a man who will dominate my life starting in mid-April when he goes on trial in the courthouse I cover. I don't think text messages will be an issue in that trial.  The feds have Clemens' DNA, though.