As the COVID-19 pandemic raged across the country in 2020, forcing elected officials to lock down their states in an effort to mitigate the deadly virus, a group of armed, far-right militiamen grew determined to violently overthrow the government.
Their mark was close to home: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, already a well-established target for right-wing ire for her aggressive, early attempts to protect her state from mass death.
According to federal prosecutors, the October 2020 plan included ambushing and kidnapping the Democratic leader, detonating a bridge to prevent cops from rescuing her, and putting her on trial for “treason.”
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But after months of planning, the plot was ultimately thwarted after six alleged co-conspirators were arrested by federal agents. (State prosecutors have separately charged eight other people for terrorism-related offenses tied to the kidnapping scheme.)
Now, four of the men—Adam Fox, Barry Croft, Daniel Harris, and Brandon Caserta—are on federal trial in Grand Rapids over several charges, including conspiracy, in a case that roiled the country just weeks ahead of a presidential election marred by fears of right-wing violence. But instead of a slam-dunk for the feds, the attempt to prosecute the gaggle of alleged wannabe terrorists has run into serious questions about whether a team of FBI agents and a “double agent” informant actually orchestrated the conspiracy and entrapped them.
From a disgraced federal agent who pleaded no contest to assaulting his wife over an alleged dispute about an orgy to a key informant having a wild criminal record, the prelude to the trial has been a mess. Still, experts say the evidence appears to favor the prosecution’s expansive case.
“Jurors tend to not like people who commit criminal acts,” former assistant U.S. Attorney Mitchell Epner told The Daily Beast.
Epner, who is also a Daily Beast contributor, noted that prosecutors still have hours of secret audio and video recordings, online chat activity, and testimony from two flipped defendants—who previously pleaded guilty—to help their case.
Prosecutors allege that the men, who include militia members and self-described patriots, hatched a violent plan that included tactical training, bomb building, and amassing an arsenal in the hopes of sparking a second civil war.
“They were going to break into the governor's home, kidnap her at gunpoint, hogtie her and take her away,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Roth said during his opening statements on Wednesday. “And in their own words: create a war zone in Michigan.”
Defense attorneys for the four defendants have long argued that their clients were coaxed by former FBI informant Stephen Robeson and another individual identified in court documents as “Big Dan” into plotting to kidnap Whitmer. Specifically, they said Robeson helped set up militia meetings, paid for training exercises, and helped to conduct surveillance. Robeson secretly recorded conversations that are critical in the prosecution’s case.
In return for their work, court documents show, Robeson and Big Dan received thousands of dollars from the FBI.
For their part, at least three FBI agents who had integral roles in the investigation will not be called to the stand after a flurry of scandal. One was fired last year after being charged with domestic violence against his wife, allegedly tied to a dispute about an orgy. Another agent, who was in charge of supervising Big Dan, allegedly tried to build a private consulting firm based in part of some of his FBI work. Even Robeson himself has been scrutinized as the less than ideal informant: feds have since accused him of being a “double agent” who had worked “against the interests of the government.”
Court documents filed by the feds state that Robeson violated the terms of his agreement with the FBI after he allegedly had possession of a firearm despite his past convictions, failed to record “pertinent conversations and events” with the investigation’s targets, and made other recordings without his handlers’ knowledge. Federal agents also say that Robeson, whom they call “an unreliable declarant,” attempted to warn “at least one of the defendants shortly” prior to their October 2020 arrest.
Buzzfeed News, which has reported at length on the saga, noted that Robeson also pleaded guilty last year to a gun charge over a sniper rifle.
Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani noted that the defense’s decision to use an entrapment argument makes strategic sense, but poses a higher burden to convince the jury.
“They have to prove that the defendants were not predisposed to engage in the criminal conduct,” Rahmani told The Daily Beast.
Rahmani went on to argue that while prosecutors may have something of an uphill battle in this case because of the allegations of misconduct, informants are routinely part of cases like this one.
“Cooperators are essential when the government wants to infiltrate a criminal organization,” he added. “But they will be cross-examined as ‘rats’ who will say or do anything to reduce their sentence. That’s why the government always has to corroborate cooperative testimony with other independent evidence of guilt, like recordings or messages.”
Amid the mountain of evidence against their clients, defense attorneys for the group on Wednesday tried to use their opening statements to shift the focus onto alleged missteps by the FBI and their informants.
Fox’s lawyer argued that his client was a pot-smoking “misfit” who was influenced by Big Dan, whom he had met at a protest, and not capable of being some kind of military mastermind.
A Boogaloo Boy holds a rifle at a rally at the Capitol Building on October 17, 2020, in Lansing, Michigan. While the rally was an effort to distance themselves from the Whitmer plot, prosecutors said some defendants were members of the far-right scene.
Photo by Seth Herald/Getty Images“Adam Fox did not commit a crime in this case,” defense attorney Christopher Gibbons said before focusing on Robeson, whom he claimed portrayed his client as the leader of the so-called Michigan Three Percent Patriot Militia.
Harris’ lawyer Julia Kelly also used the entrapment defense, arguing that her client fell under Big Dan’s spell, the latter posing as a war hero to the group.
“He trusted him, was drawn to him,” Kelly said, claiming that her client “has not done what the government has accused him of.”
A lawyer for Croft took the argument one step further, telling jurors the FBI knowingly arranged for an informant with a criminal history to lure his client into the militia world.
“There was no plan, there was no agreement and no kidnapping,” defense attorney Joshua Blanchard said. He added that while these informants were secretly recording Croft and the others, they were all “stoned, absolutely out-of-your-mind stoned.”
“The FBI is supposed to protect us from dangerous criminals and terrorists,” Blanchard added. “They’re also an agency that’s supposed to protect our freedoms. And when they’re doing that, they’re expected to have thick skin. That means in protecting our rights, they don’t punish people for saying mean things about them. And they’re not supposed to target people that they’re angry with.”
For all the informant and investigative messiness, prosecutors say that’s how the case started—that they first became aware Fox and Croft were discussing “the violent overthrow of certain government and law-enforcement components” by way of an informant. During these conversations, the feds say, the men agreed to “take violent action” against state governments that they believed were violating the U.S. Constitution.
One of those actions was kidnapping Whitmer in retaliation for her use of “uncontrolled power” amid the pandemic, according to a federal affidavit.
FBI agent Todd Reineck, the first prosecutorial witness, told jurors about the profanity-filled online posts between Fox and Croft in the spring of 2020. In one Facebook video, Reineck said, Fox stated: “We have the numbers. We have the arms. We have the ammunition... that we need to just go take our country back.”
While the original plan was to conduct the operation in the last week of October 2020, investigators allege, Fox believed the kidnapping should occur a week earlier to have more time before the 2020 presidential election.
“Snatch and grab, man,” Fox allegedly said in a recorded call from July 2020. “Grab the fuckin’ governor. Just grab the bitch. Because at that point, we do that, dude—it’s over.”
The men allegedly discussed other ways to kidnap Whitmer, including one iteration where the group would use a boat to flee with the governor, take the boat into Lake Michigan, and eventually leave her in the middle of the Great Lake. While an earlier plan was to storm the state Capitol building and kidnap Whitmer, the group decided her vacation home was more secluded, according to the feds.
By September 2020, however, investigators say the plan began to unravel after the FBI informant introduced an undercover agent into the group—who posed as an explosives expert. The men were arrested in October of that year after the FBI and Michigan State Police raided several homes.
The federal charges came in tandem with state charges against eight other men—linked to the militia group Wolverine Watchmen—who allegedly planned to attack the state Capitol building and attempt to “instigate a Civil war.”
A trial, in that case, was expected to begin in September.
