United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 20-2105 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JANHOI COLE, Defendant-Appellant. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois. No. 3:18-cr-30038 — Richard Mills, Judge. ____________________

ARGUED SEPTEMBER 30, 2021 — DECIDED DECEMBER 17, 2021 ____________________

Before SYKES, Chief Judge, and EASTERBROOK, KANNE, ROVNER, WOOD, HAMILTON, BRENNAN, SCUDDER, ST. EVE, and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges. *

* Circuit Judge Jackson-Akiwumi did not participate in the considera- tion or decision of this case. 2 No. 20-2105

ST. EVE, Circuit Judge. An Illinois state trooper stopped Janhoi Cole for following too closely behind another car. At the time, Cole was traveling on an Illinois interstate with an Arizona driver’s license and a California registration. During the brief roadside detention that followed, the trooper ques- tioned Cole about his license, registration, and travel plans. Cole’s answers struck the trooper as evasive, inconsistent, and improbable. Many of the trooper’s questions were follow-up questions to Cole’s answers and volunteered information. Combined with other factors, they led the trooper to suspect that Cole was trafficking drugs. To investigate his suspicions, the trooper called for a K-9 unit to meet him and Cole at a nearby gas station. The dog alerted, and officers found large quantities of methamphetamine and heroin in Cole’s car. Facing federal charges, Cole moved to suppress the drugs as well as his statements during the stop. He argued that the trooper unlawfully initiated the stop and unreasonably pro- longed it without reasonable suspicion of other criminal ac- tivity. The district court denied the motion, but a divided panel of this Court reversed on the basis that the trooper’s in- itial roadside questioning unreasonably prolonged the traffic stop. We reheard the case en banc to resolve an apparent con- flict between the panel’s decision and United States v. Lewis, 920 F.3d 483 (7th Cir. 2019), as to whether travel-plan ques- tions are part of the “mission” of a traffic stop under Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. 348 (2015). In keeping with Lewis and the consensus of other circuits, we hold that travel-plan questions ordinarily fall within the mission of a traffic stop. Travel-plan questions, however, like other police inquiries during a traffic stop, must be reasonable under the circumstances. And here they were. The trooper No. 20-2105 3 inquired about the basic details of Cole’s travel, and his fol- low-up questions were justified given Cole’s less-than-forth- right answers. The stop itself was lawfully initiated, and the trooper developed reasonable suspicion of other criminal ac- tivity before moving the initial stop to the gas station for the dog sniff. We therefore affirm the district court’s denial of Cole’s motion to suppress. I. A magistrate judge held a hearing on Cole’s motion to suppress. Evidence at the hearing included the trooper’s po- lice report and dash camera video as well as testimony from Cole, the trooper, and another officer involved in the stop. Af- ter the hearing, the magistrate judge entered a report and rec- ommendation with extensive factual findings, which the dis- trict court adopted. Absent clear error, we defer to the district court’s factual findings. United States v. Bacon, 991 F.3d 835, 840 (7th Cir. 2021). A. Sheriff’s Deputy Derek Suttles was on criminal interdic