Plot to kidnap Michigan governor thwarted.

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I can't wait for the Trump brigade to come up with some sort of justification for this.

Whitmer kidnap plotter also wanted to hang Trump, other politicians, FBI says

A Delaware man accused of plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer also threatened to hang President Donald Trump and posted a hit list on Facebook targeting other elected leaders, including former President Barack Obama, according to an unsealed search warrant affidavit obtained by The Detroit News.

The affidavit provides new details about how the FBI thwarted the alleged plot to kidnap Whitmer, a Democrat, and kill police officers by enlisting the help of confidential informants. One of the informants was a militia member who met a group of men accused in the kidnapping plot and became so concerned that the individual agreed to become an FBI confidential informant, according to the court filing.

The affidavit gave federal agents permission to search a Facebook account belonging to Barry Croft, 44, of Bear, Delaware, who was one of six men charged in federal court with conspiracy to kidnap. Evidence collected by FBI agents portrays his Facebook account as a virtual bulletin board filled with violent imagery, including a noose and a list of grievances in which he mulled killing Democrats and Republicans including South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, Muslims and liberals.

"I say we hang everything currently governing us, they're all guilty!! !," Croft wrote in May on his Facebook page, which also included an image of Trump. "Wanna hang this mf'er too..."

The affidavit helps trace the roots of an investigation that drew national attention earlier this month when FBI agents said they thwarted a plot to violently overthrow the government as well as kidnap and harm Whitmer. The conspiracy included surveillance visits to the governor's home in northern Michigan and training with firearms and explosive devices.

"I say we hang everything currently governing us, they're all guilty!! !," Croft wrote in May on his Facebook page, which also included an image of Trump. "Wanna hang this mf'er too..."

It doesn't appear to have had as much to do with "the Trump brigade" as you assumed:


Source: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/10/28/militia-member-helped-feds-infiltrate-whitmer-kidnap-crew-fbi-says/6060368002/

Interestingly, I noted a resemblence to certain people who are not supporters of Mr Trump in one of the paragraphs:

When federal officials announced, on Oct. 8, 2020, that they had foiled a plot by militant extremists to kidnap Michigan’s governor, it was quickly hailed as one of the most important domestic terrorism prosecutions in a generation. They didn't mention FBI agent Jayson Chambers by name, but those who had worked the case knew that his role helping to run a central informant had been crucial.

There was, however, something about Chambers that some colleagues might not have known: 18 months earlier, he’d incorporated a private security firm and had spent much of 2019 trying to drum up business — in part by touting his FBI casework. The bureau won’t say if Chambers had gotten permission to set up his new venture, as agents would be required to do, but just five days after BuzzFeed News revealed its existence this August, federal prosecutors announced that he would not be on the list of witnesses testifying in the upcoming trial.

A continuing BuzzFeed News investigation reveals new information about how Chambers' business, along with an array of issues involving other FBI agents and informants, has bedeviled the prosecution. Those issues may well affect the course of the trial. But beyond the integrity of the case, the problems are serious and widespread enough to call into question tactics the FBI has relied on for decades — and to test the public’s trust in the bureau overall.

That situation is complicated by the fact that the case has become a political lightning rod, with right-wing commentators calling it a prime example of government overreach. Some even baselessly assert that the Michigan investigation was a test run for what they claim was a false flag operation conducted on Jan. 6.

Meanwhile, the challenges facing the prosecution mount: A second FBI agent, who had served as the case’s public face, was charged with beating his wife when they returned home from a swingers party. He was fired soon thereafter. A third agent was accused of perjury. A state prosecutor in a related case was reassigned and then retired in the face of an audit into his prior use of informants.

And an informant whose work was crucial to the investigation was indicted on a gun charge and is now under investigation for fraud. Interviews, court records, and other documents reveal repeated instances of apparent lawbreaking by Stephen Robeson, who, while working with the government, identified and recruited potential targets in multiple states and who organized many of the events where prosecutors say the alleged kidnapping plan was hatched. Robeson’s apparent crimes took place under the nose of his FBI handlers.

The reporting also uncovers significant new details about how Jayson Chambers attempted to parlay his FBI work hunting for terrorists into a private moneymaking venture. The business, called Exeintel, sought contracts in some cases worth millions of dollars to help institutions identify violent threats. A Twitter account linked to Chambers’ business appeared on at least two occasions to be privy to the workings of Chambers’ ongoing FBI investigations before they were made public and to have tweeted about the Michigan case before arrests were made.

[...]

Whether the government will be successful in the Whitmer case will depend not only on the strength of the evidence and how it plays before a heartland jury, but also whether the prosecution can withstand the questions raised by the conduct of so many people involved in making the case — and whether there could be more to come.

A second man charged in a bizarre plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer pleaded guilty Wednesday and has agreed to testify for the prosecution at the federal trial of four other defendants.

Kaleb Franks, 27, of Waterford, Michigan, admitted in U.S. District in Grand Rapids that he and other members of the Wolverine Watchmen, a Michigan-based self-styled "militia" group, hatched the plot to abduct Whitmer at her summer home in 2020 because they were upset by the state's COVID-19 restrictions.

The plot, which allegedly included plans to use semiautomatic assault-type weapons and to bomb a bridge near Whitmer's vacation home, was foiled by undercover law enforcement officers who infiltrated the group.

Franks admitted in court that the kidnapping plan originated solely with him and the others charged in the conspiracy.

Lawyers for the other men facing trial in March filed a motion to dismiss the charges, arguing they were entrapped. The judge rejected that motion.

Franks' guilty plea comes after another man charged in the case, Ty Garbin, 25, pleaded guilty last year to firearms charges and conspiracy charges of providing material support for terrorists. Garbin was sentenced in August to 75 months in prison.

Garbin is also expected to testify for the prosecution in the upcoming federal trial for Adam Fox, 40, Barry Croft Jr., 45, Daniel Harris, 24, and Brandon Caserta, 33. Eight other men face charges in state court stemming from the kidnap plot.

Franks admitted being deeply involved in the kidnap plot, participating in meetings and training sessions, and surveillance conducted on Whitmer's vacation home in his signed plea agreement.

"This was a very serious thought-out plot to kill police officers, to bomb our capitol, killing Democrats and Republicans alike, and to kidnap and ultimately put me on trial and kill me as well," Whitmer said on "GMA."

A federal jury failed to convict four men accused of plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, whom they despised for the restrictions she ordered early in the pandemic.

The panel in Grand Rapids considered charges against Daniel Harris, 24, Adam Fox, 38, Barry Croft Jr., 46, and Brandon Caserta, 33, all charged with conspiracy.

All but Caserta are also charged with knowingly conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction against persons or property, in an alleged plot to slow responding police.

Croft and Harris were also charged with possession of an unregistered destructive device. Harris was charged with possession of a semi-automatic assault rifle that wasn't registered to him.

Harris was found not guilty of all four charges, but jurors could not reach verdicts in charges against Fox and Croft. The judge declared a mistrial in those counts.

Caserta was found not guilty of conspiracy. His defense lawyer Mike Hills celebrated his client's acquittal and blamed overly aggressive FBI informants.

“I think what the FBI did is unconscionable," Hills told reporters outside court. “And I think the jury just sent them a message loud and clear.”

Whitmer's chief of staff, JoAnne Huls, decried the "normalization of political violence."

Huls vowed that Whitmer will not be deterred from her agenda.

Hills said defendants were engaged in nothing more than "rough talk."

Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks had also been arrested as part of the conspiracy before they pleaded guilty and testified in this trial.The high-profile federal prosecution in western Michigan was rocked in March when FBI agents raided a home near Detroit in connection with reported threats against a judge and defense lawyers in this trial.

Despite the government’s extraordinary efforts to muzzle the defense, a jury in Grand Rapids federal court on Friday acquitted two men on charges including conspiring to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on the other two who had been charged.

As a result, Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta are now free men, while Adam Fox and Barry Croft return to jail and await a decision by the Justice Department on whether to try them a second time.

The outcome of the trial is a stunning rebuke to the prosecution, which at times appeared to view the case — one of the most prominent domestic terror investigations in a generation — as a slam dunk. The split verdict calls into question the Justice Department’s strategy, and beyond that, its entire approach to combating domestic extremism. Defense attorneys in the case, along with observers from across the political spectrum, have argued the FBI’s efforts to make the case, which involved at least a dozen confidential informants, went beyond legitimate law enforcement and into outright entrapment.

It may also leave the two defendants who chose to plead guilty and testify for the government, Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, wondering whether they made the right choice.

To make their case, federal prosecutors presented a mountain of evidence: hundreds of audio clips, videos, and text messages, many of which show the men describing violence they would personally like to inflict on the governor, plus the testimony of a confidential informant, two undercover FBI agents, and two defendants who had pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the investigation.

But the most striking thing about the closely watched 15-day trial might be what the jury never got to see.

Both before and during the trial, prosecutors went to extraordinary lengths to exclude evidence and witnesses that might undermine their arguments, while winning the right to bring in almost anything favorable to their own side. As a result, defense attorneys were largely reduced to nibbling at the edges of the government’s case in hopes of instilling doubt in the jurors’ minds, and to making claims about official misconduct with vanishingly few pieces of evidence to support them.

Over and over during the course of the trial, the prosecution objected to any attempts by defendants to provide context for the often shocking soundbites and text messages shown in court — objections sustained by a judge who agreed that such material risked confusing the jury.

The result was, at least from the defense’s point of view, a stunningly one-sided presentation that left the preponderance of evidence out of court and gave jurors precious little to balance against the Justice Department’s claims.

Back on Oct. 8, 2020, when the government announced that the FBI had broken up a violent plot against a sitting governor, the case seemed like a sure thing. In addition to the men accused of kidnapping conspiracy in federal court, Michigan’s attorney general had charged eight additional individuals for providing material assistance to terrorism for their role in aiding the scheme. Months later, the Justice Department tacked on weapons of mass destruction charges, elevating it to a terrorism case as well.

But over the next 17 months, a different and more nuanced version of events began to emerge.

Defense attorneys in both the state and federal cases contended, in a series of court filings and pretrial hearings, that their clients may have been loudmouths, or even anti-government cranks, but they never actually intended to hurt anyone — and couldn’t have pulled off a kidnapping to save their own lives. Fox, the lawyers noted, was so hapless he lived in the basement of a vacuum cleaner store and was forced to go to the Mexican restaurant next door when he needed to use the bathroom. Croft, for his part, ranted about shooting down airships, cutting down every tree on the border between Ohio and Michigan, and setting off electromagnetic pulse weapons that his lawyer, Joshua Blanchard, characterized at trial as “movie stuff.”

Their statements, however nasty they might sound, were just talk, the defense said, and therefore protected by the First Amendment. To the degree that there was any actual plan to kidnap Whitmer, they added, it was the FBI that had cooked it up, while the government’s minions — as many as a dozen confidential informants — lured the defendants into half-heartedly playing along.

They said it was a case of entrapment and that they had hundreds of recordings, text messages, and Facebook posts that would shine a very different light on the government’s narrative. They included exhibits showing informants smoking cannabis with the defendants, plying them with offers of cash, and working them up into a lather with anti-government talk of their own. There was evidence of informants and FBI agents discussing ways to lure more suspects into the case, and extensive audio of defendants discussing absurd schemes involving stolen Blackhawk helicopters, 300-strong armies, and newly minted silver currencies that the defense believed showed the men were simply fantasizing

But on Feb. 2, Judge Robert J. Jonker ruled that most of the evidence the defense hoped to present could not even be mentioned in court, let alone shown to the jury. Though the exhibits were direct audio recordings or transcriptions, just like much of the prosecution’s evidence, the judge dismissed the material as irrelevant hearsay..

He also ruled that defendants could not inquire about the past conduct of several FBI agents, though the government would be allowed to question the defendants about episodes in their own past.

Five days before trial, Jonker handed the defense a rare victory, by ruling that if two undercover FBI agents appeared as witnesses, they had to use their real names. After all the preceding decisions, it was hard to overlook the irony.

One of the prosecutors asked a woman named Taya Plummer pointed questions about her boyfriend, who plays no role whatsoever in the kidnapping case, but is a member of an armed militant group in another state. The prosecutor, Jonathan Roth, noted that he wasn’t aware that Plummer herself was in any trouble with the law, but he left the unavoidable impression that could change if she made the wrong decision. As for how things would play out, “I’d leave that to her,” Roth added ominously.

If it was meant as a threat, it worked. Plummer said she would invoke her constitutional right against self-incrimination. Judge Jonker released her subpoena and excused her.

Under similar pressure from the government, six other potential defense witnesses — including Stephen Robeson, the FBI informant at the heart of the investigation — announced that they, too, would prefer to remain silent. And defense attorneys told Judge Jonker that several additional witnesses intended to do the same, so they decided against even calling them to court.

There were only three witnesses — who collectively testified for scarcely 30 minutes — to bolster the case, compared to the relentless stream of undercover agents, cooperators, informants, experts, associates, and even Barry Croft’s weeping girlfriend that the government was allowed to parade before the jury.

It was so thin, it was almost no defense at all. The prosecution had closed off so many of the defense’s options that last Thursday, Daniel Harris, a 24-year-old ex-Marine with a boyish face and a goofy sense of humor, took the unusual step of testifying in his own defense, a risky move that, surprisingly may have paid off.

A trial expected to showcase arguments about the Constitution’s First and Second Amendments, the defendants’ right to speak freely and to bear arms, instead had hinged, in many ways, on the Fifth — the potential witnesses’ right to stay silent.

In the government’s telling, the most critical moment in the alleged plot took place late on Sept. 12, 2020, when Fox, Croft, and others piled into three trucks and headed out to conduct nighttime surveillance of Whitmer’s lakeside cottage.

It was not a great success. For one thing, their companions that night included two confidential informants and two undercover agents. Some 10 additional FBI agents followed them en route, and stationary cameras mounted at strategic spots tracked their progress. For another, despite all the careful planning, the men failed to find Whitmer’s house because they had been given the wrong address, and heavy rains made it impossible for them to spot one another from across the lake as they had hoped to do.

n the end — and in ways that may be unsatisfying to many of the parties — the case that was tried in Grand Rapids will inevitably reach far beyond the evidence shown in court or even the partial verdict delivered on Friday afternoon.

In a Jan. 26 order, Judge Jonker wrote that one of the challenges of the trial would be ensuring the jurors ignore “extraneous” information about the FBI and its tactics, and focus only on the specific facts of the case. The reality, however, is that other than the prosecutions flowing out of the ongoing Capitol riot probe, the Michigan case stands as the most ambitious and closely watched investigation of domestic extremism in a generation.

Whether they crossed the sharply defined line into entrapment is a matter of legal definitions. But the tactics employed by the FBI to develop its case against the defendants — despite the Justice Department’s best efforts to keep those tactics secret — conform to a growing popular conception of government overreach.

Manipulating people into committing crimes is “unacceptable in America,” Blanchard said in closing arguments carefully calibrated to press that hot button. “That’s not how it works. We don’t make terrorists so we can arrest them.”

Blanchard was mistaken. Using swarms of informants to push suspected radicals toward violence is in fact exactly how it works: The FBI has been doing it for at least half a century, from the Black Panthers in the 1970s to Muslim groups in the wake of 9/11. But because the targets in this case were conservative white men, those tactics touched a nerve with a swath of the population that had never seriously considered the issue before.

No convictions for defendants in Michigan Gov. Whitmer kidnapping trial
Anti-government militia members were charged with hatching a plot against the state's Democratic leader, angry over restrictions she ordered in the early days of the pandemic.

Why is she being singled out? How come these guys never go after Newsom or Cuomo?