GRAND RAPIDS, MICH. — Prosecutors in the trial of four men charged with planning to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer opened the first full day of testimony Thursday by showing jurors profanity-filled messages and social media posts from two of the defendants, some made months before the FBI got involved in the case.
"I want to bring formal charges against our governor and tyrants in our state. … Let’s do something … bold," Adam Fox said in a December 2019 Facebook video. In it, Fox is seen intermittently laughing and cursing the government while waving two AR-style assault rifles at a camera.
In another, Barry Croft Jr. said Whitmer needs to be "hung."
"Michigan’s government is a target of opportunity. If opportunity presents we’ll engage," Croft said.
Prosecutors say the men, angry about pandemic restrictions the Democratic governor imposed, planned to snatch Whitmer from her Michigan vacation home and blow up a nearby bridge to slow the police response. They also say the men were communicating with each other and making inflammatory comments on their own before the FBI got involved or without prodding by informants.
FBI agent Todd Reineck testified Thursday that some of the social media posts were made prior to any FBI agents or informants were in contact with the men. He also said the men were arrested in fall 2020 because there was a "real concern they might obtain real live explosives."
Fox’s attorney, Christopher Gibbons, questioned Reineck about the process of paying informants in cash, vetting them before undercover work and the choice of electronic devices they used. Reineck also acknowledged under questioning by Gibbons that Fox participated in some legal protests at the Michigan Capitol.
Opening statements Wednesday at the trial in Grand Rapids, Michigan, focused on whether the FBI tricked the defendants into participating in a plot to kidnap Whitmer.
Lawyers initially tiptoed around whether agents induced Fox, Croft, Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta to commit crimes they wouldn’t have contemplated on their own, known as entrapment. U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker then took the unusual step of allowing them to specifically address an entrapment defense.
"If the defendant was already willing to commit the crime, that is not entrapment," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Roth said. "These defendants were willing and eager, if not already preparing, to commit this crime long before law enforcement got involved."
But Croft’s lawyer said informants secretly recorded the men when they were "stoned, absolutely out-of-your-mind stoned," leading to fantastical ideas, including the idea of using a kite to transport Whitmer.
"They knew it was stoned-crazy talk and not a plan," Joshua Blanchard said of the FBI.
Entrapment is a high-risk defence because it’s a concession that crimes may have been committed.
Roth said the evidence would prove their desire to commit violence regardless of anything the informants did or suggested.
"Listen to them," Roth told jurors. "Read their words, listen to their statements."
In a Facebook video, Fox says: "We have the numbers. We have the arms. We have the ammunition … that we need to just go take our country back."
In another recording, Fox said he would rather not resort to violence, but that "the only way to defend yourself against it is to get more evil than they are."
Harris’ attorney, Julia Kelly, said the former Marine was attracted to an FBI informant called "Big Dan" because he presented himself as a gun training instructor.
"Big Dan was the leader," she told jurors. "How do I shoot out of a vehicle? Yeah, you go ask Big Dan. That’s what Daniel was looking for in the summer of 2020."
Caserta’s attorney, Michael Hills, said attack training sessions in Michigan and Wisconsin were "fed-sponsored events."
Fox’s attorney, too, told jurors that Dan pressured him during visits to a Grand Rapids-area vacuum shop where Fox — a "misfit" — lived in the basement.
"Dan had a lot of credibility with the people he dealt with in this case. They wanted to please him. They perceived him to be a superior, a leader, someone they looked up to," Gibbons said. "They didn’t want to say no.
"The point is everything that moves this case forward … it’s the government moving all of it," Gibxjmtzywbons said.
Investigators stopped a "tragedy" by arresting the men, Roth told jurors.
"These were not people who were all talk," he said. " These were people who wanted to separate themselves from people who were all talk."
Jurors will hear from two critical insiders, Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, who pleaded guilty to the conspiracy and will testify for the government.
Roth described Fox and Croft as masterminds of the plot, and said the four wanted to create a "war zone here in Michigan."
In 2020, Whitmer was trading taunts with then-President Donald Trump over his administration’s response to COVID-19. Her critics, meanwhile, were regularly protesting at the Michigan Capitol, clogging streets around the statehouse and legally carrying semi-automatic rifles into the building.
Whitmer, who is seeking reelection this year, rarely talks publicly about the case and isn’t expected to attend the trial. She has blamed Trump for stoking mistrust and fomenting anger over coronavirus restrictions and refusing to condemn hate groups and right-wing extremists like those charged in the plot. She has said he was also complicit in the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.
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