FBI Agent Richard Trask Posts:
Judge grants motions filed against Wolverine Watchmen accused of terrorism plot
WWMT
August 10, 2022
LANSING, Mich., (WPBN/WGTU) -- A Michigan judge has granted motions filed against three members of the Wolverine Watchmen who were allegedly part of a plot to storm the Lansing Capitol building and kidnap elected officials, Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Wednesday.
The Wolverine Watchmen is a group in Michigan that has been accused of promoting political violence.
Joseph Morrison, Paul Bellar and Pete Musico appeared in court for a motion hearing before Judge Thomas Wilson of the fourth Circuit Court in Jackson County.
All three men have been charged with gang membership, providing material support for terrorist acts and carrying or possessing a firearm during the commission of a felony.
Judge Wilson granted the following motions filed by the Attorney General's Office:
The first motion excludes evidence relating to special agent Jayson Chambers' connection with Exeintel, and excludes evidence of special agent Richard Trask's assault conviction as well as Trask's alleged social media posts.
The second motion allows alleged co-conspirators' statements to be used within court.
And the third motion prohibits defendants from questioning special agent Henrik Impola about his testimony during a case involving Sameer Gadola.
Sameer Gadola, of East Lansing, was sentenced to 120 months in prison in September 2018 for possession of child pornography.
In February 2020, attorney Brian P. Lennon, whose law firm represented Gadola, wrote a letter to the FBI accusing special agent Impola of committing perjury in the Gadola case.
Nessel's motion claims that Impola made "truthful testimony during the unrelated Gadola prosecution."
"Some motions were denied with the possibility that they will be addressed at a later time as the issues arise in trial," the AG's office said in an email.
Morrison, Bellar and Musico are three of seven individuals who were arrested in October 2020 on terrorism charges.
Suspects are alleged to have called on the groups' members to identify the home addresses of law enforcement officers to target them; made threats of violence to instigate a civil war leading to societal collapse; and planning and training for an operation to attack the Lansing Capitol building and kidnap officials, including Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
“We must send a clear message that those who seek to do violence against our institutions of democracy and our elected representatives are not patriots, they are criminals,” Nessel said. “My office is pleased to see this case move forward and to have the opportunity to hold these men accountable for their actions.”
The Antrim County defendants, Brian Higgins, Michael Null, William Null, Eric Molitor and Shawn Fix, in the related Antrim County case are scheduled to appear for a preliminary examination in Traverse City, from August 29 to September 1, the AG's office said.
The trial for Morrison, Bellar and Musico is scheduled to begin on October 3, the AG's office said.
Feds try to salvage Whitmer kidnap case as jury selection begins
Detroit News
August 08, 2022
Federal prosecutors will try to salvage the largest domestic terrorism case in a generation as the retrial of two men accused of plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer starts Tuesday in federal court in Grand Rapids.
The trial begins four months after jurors acquitted two accused members of the plot and deadlocked on charges against the alleged ringleaders, 39-year-old Potterville resident Adam Fox and Delaware truck driver Barry Croft Jr., 46. They are accused of trying to spark a second Civil War ahead of the 2020 presidential election by plotting to kidnap Whitmer at her northern Michigan vacation home and put her on trial for treason.
The acquittals and deadlocked jury followed months of controversy and scandal, including the indictment of a key informant and arrest of a lead FBI agent. The case also drew the intense focus of a nation grappling with the rise of violent extremism amid the 2020 presidential election and global pandemic.
Prosecutors are expected to present a streamlined case against Fox and Croft — featuring encrypted chat messages and secretly recorded conversations critical of Whitmer's leadership. They face up to life in prison if convicted of kidnapping conspiracy.
Feds indict Whitmer kidnapping case informant as secret rift surfaces
"The challenge for prosecutors is their witnesses have already testified so the situation is ripe for inconsistencies. That's a challenge," Detroit defense attorney and former federal prosecutor Michael Bullotta said. "But for the defense, prosecutors have already seen their program and prosecutors can fortify their case, maybe call more witnesses."
U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker does not anticipate telling prospective jurors about the acquittals of Canton Township resident Brandon Caserta and Daniel Harris of Lake Orion in April.
"If a prospective jury member references the results from the first trial, the court will address it with a limiting instruction and an inquiry into whether the prospective juror could remain fair and impartial in this case," Jonker wrote last month.
Prosecutors and defense lawyers met with the judge last month and the parties "agreed that evidence of Mr. Harris’ and Mr. Caserta’s acquittals in the earlier trial is inadmissible in this trial to prove defendants Fox’s or Croft’s guilt or innocence," Jonker wrote.
Defense lawyers spent months ahead of the March trial raising questions about FBI agent conduct and claiming that a team of investigators and informants orchestrated the conspiracy. According to the defense teams, government agents entrapped the four men, a ragtag band of social outcasts who harbored antigovernment views and anger over restrictions imposed by Whitmer.
Legal experts are closely watching to see what changes, if any, prosecutors will unveil in a case that drew scorn from defense lawyers after the acquittals.
Acquittals in federal court are rare. Only 196 of 63,725 federal defendants were acquitted nationwide last year, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
The retrial of Fox and Croft comes after federal prosecutors in Michigan have been stung by several high-profile losses and hung juries in recent months. In June, Bloomfield Hills Dr. Rajendra Bothra and former employees, Ganiu Edu, David Lewis and Christopher Russo were found not guilty of more than 40 federal counts in a multi-million-dollar health care fraud trial.
Accused ringleader Adam Fox purchased an 800,000-volt Taser to use in kidnapping Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, according to the FBI.
In the kidnapping case, defense lawyers raised questions about two FBI case agents — including one accused of trying to profit off the case by creating a cybersecurity firm — while insisting government informants invented the conspiracy and entrapped the defendants.
“To me, this was a signal. A rogue FBI agent trying to line his own pockets with his own cybersecurity company and then pushing the conspiracy that just never was,” Caserta lawyer Michael Hills told reporters in April. “Never was, never was going to be. Our governor was never in any danger.
“I think the jury, even though they didn’t get all of it,” Hills added, “they smelled enough of it.”
Fox and Croft were arrested in October 2020 along with nearly a dozen others accused of plotting to kidnap Whitmer. State charges are pending against 10 men.
Two others, Ty Garbin, 26, of Hartland Township, and Kaleb Franks, 28, of Waterford Township, pleaded guilty to federal kidnapping conspiracy charges and are expected to testify again as the government's star witnesses.
"If the government walks out of this 0-4 with the two guilty pleas, I imagine this is going to go down as another disappointing trial result for the prosecution of domestic terrorists," said Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University.
Trial strategy typically undergoes dramatic changes for the retrial, Birmingham defense lawyer Wade Fink said.
"A retrial is ordinarily much more beneficial for the government because they’ve gotten to test run their witnesses and the witnesses now know what they are going to be asked about under cross-examination," Fink said.
There has been contact between jurors in the first kidnapping trial and lawyers involved in the case who could use any feedback to mold strategies during the retrial.
"The lawyers can get ideas and correct problems that jurors saw in the first case," Fink said. "Maybe they walked into traps and now can try it a different way."
The 12 others charged
Twelve other people have been charged in state and federal cases in connection with the alleged plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Here is the status of their cases:
• Pete Musico, 44, of Munith: Awaiting Oct. 3 trial in Jackson County. Charges include gang membership and providing material support for terrorism, both punishable by up to 20 years in prison, as well as felony firearm, punishable by up to two years in prison.
• Joseph Morrison, 28, of Munith: Awaiting Oct. 3 trial in Jackson County. Charges include gang membership and providing material support for terrorism, both punishable by up to 20 years in prison, as well as felony firearm, punishable by up to two years in prison.
• Paul Bellar, 23, of Milford: Awaiting Oct. 3 trial in Jackson County. Charges include gang membership and providing material support for terrorism, both punishable by up to 20 years in prison, as well as felony firearm, punishable by up to two years in prison.
• Shawn Fix, 40, of Belleville: Awaiting preliminary exam in Traverse City. Charges include felony firearm and providing material support for terrorism.
• Eric Molitor, 38, of Cadillac: Awaiting a preliminary exam in Traverse City. Charges include felony firearm and providing material support for terrorism.
• Brian Higgins, 53, of Wisconsin Dells, Wis.: Awaiting a preliminary exam in Traverse City on a charge of providing material support for terrorism.
• Michael Null, 40, of Plainwell: Awaiting a preliminary exam in Traverse City. Charges include felony firearm and providing material support for terrorism.
• William Null, 40, of Shelbyville: Awaiting a preliminary exam in Traverse City. Charges include felony firearm and providing material support for terrorism.
• Ty Garbin, 26, of Hartland Township: Serving a six-year sentence in federal prison after being convicted of kidnapping conspiracy.
• Kaleb Franks, 28, of Waterford Township: In Van Buren County Jail; faces up to life in federal prison when sentenced Oct. 6 for kidnapping conspiracy.
• Brandon Caserta, 34, of Canton Township: Acquitted.
• Daniel Harris, 25, of Lake Orion: Acquitted.
Jury finds 2 men not guilty in Whitmer kidnap case; unable to reach verdicts on 2 others
The Detroit News
April 08, 2022
Grand Rapids — Jurors acquitted two men Friday accused of plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and deadlocked on charges against the two alleged ringleaders, delivering a staggering blow to the government in one of the largest domestic terrorism cases in recent U.S. history.
Chief U.S. District Robert Jonker declared a mistrial on kidnapping conspiracy charges against accused ringleaders Adam Fox, 38, of Potterville, and Barry Croft, 46, of Delaware. Accused plotters Daniel Harris, 24, of Lake Orion, and Brandon Caserta, 34, of Canton Township, were being freed Friday afternoon after nearly two years behind bars.
"Best birthday gift ever," Caserta told supporters as relatives yelled "Happy Birthday" inside the federal courtroom in downtown Grand Rapids.
The trial lasted 20 days, including 13 days of testimony and approximately 38 hours of jury deliberations spanning five days. Jurors — six men, six women, all white — heard hours of closing arguments and instructions last week after testimony and a multimedia case from the government.
The mixed verdict provided a biting end to a case dogged by controversy, scandal and the intense focus of a nation grappling with the rise of violent extremism amid the 2020 presidential election and a global pandemic.
Defense lawyers spent months raising questions about FBI agent conduct and claiming that a team of investigators and informants orchestrated the conspiracy and entrapped the four men, a ragtag band of social outcasts who harbored antigovernment views and anger over restrictions imposed by Whitmer.
"I think the trial here has demonstrated that there’s some serious shortcomings in the case,” Fox's defense lawyer, Christopher Gibbons, told reporters. “Obviously with acquittals occurring with Mr. Caserta and Mr. Harris, that says a lot about what is going on in the case.”
Andrew Birge, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Michigan, vowed to retry the accused ringleaders, Fox and Croft.
“We thought the jury would convict beyond reasonable doubt based on the evidence we put forward,” he told reporters outside the courthouse. “We believe in the jury system. We have two defendants awaiting trial.”
The verdicts came almost exactly 10 years after the acquittals of five members of the Hutaree militia following a trial in Detroit.
Hutaree members were accused of talking about killing law enforcement officers and using weapons of mass destruction to attack the funeral procession. They were acquitted of seditious conspiracy following the 2012 trial, marking one of the landmark losses for federal prosecutors in Michigan in recent history.
Extremism experts said Friday it appeared that defense lawyers effectively sowed enough doubt among jurors after arguing throughout the trial that FBI agents and a key informant, Dan Chappel, manipulated and entrapped the four defendants and plied them with marijuana.
“The ultimate question will be did the jury come to the conclusion that the mess of informants and the amount of (stuff) the defense threw up was enough to muddy the waters,” said Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University.
The four men in the Whitmer kidnapping case faced kidnapping conspiracy charges, a felony punishable by up to life in prison. Three faced multiple charges, including conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction.
Whitmer's chief of staff, JoAnne Huls, on Friday responded to the verdicts, saying: “Today, Michiganders and Americans — especially our children — are living through the normalization of political violence. The plot to kidnap and kill a governor may seem like an anomaly. But we must be honest about what it really is: the result of violent, divisive rhetoric that is all too common across our country. There must be accountability and consequences for those who commit heinous crimes. Without accountability, extremists will be emboldened."
Earlier Friday, jurors indicated they had reached a verdict on some counts in the case but were locked on others. Jonker announced the development just before 11 a.m. and encouraged the jurors to keep deliberating in hopes of reaching a unanimous verdict.
"It is not unusual to come back somewhere along the line of deliberations and say 'we tried, but couldn’t get there,'" the judge said. "At least not on everything."
Around 2 p.m., the jury reemerged before Jonker to indicate they remained at an impasse. Jonker instructed them to return to the jury room to confirm the impasse and fill out forms to indicate what charges they were in agreement on if so. They returned minutes later to reveal their verdicts.
On Friday, Jonker likened the situation to the game show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” and the famous catchphrase “Is that your final answer?”
“Before that’s the final answer, I would like you to go back and make another effort to see if you can come to an agreement on issues you are stuck on as a group,” the judge told jurors.
The trial coincided with jurors in federal court in Washington, D.C., hearing the first cases involving people charged in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Together, the trials provide the first tests of federal laws being used to punish extremist behavior that erupted nationally in 2020 and 2021 around the presidential election and pandemic.
When jurors entered the courtroom before 11 a.m. Friday, they did so without looking at the four defendants across from them. Some jurors sighed after hearing they would be sent back for more deliberations.
One young male juror leaned his head back, rotated his chair from side to side while looking up at the ceiling. Other jurors craned their necks or cleaned their glasses as the judge spoke.
Facing the jury, the four defendants were dressed in fresh suits and button-up shirts.
Harris had a book he's had for three days, "Make Your Bed" by William McRaven. The blue softcover book is a summary of a commencement speech made by Admiral McRaven for the graduating class of the University of Texas in Austin, sharing 10 lessons he learned from Navy SEAL training. In a synopsis, the book covers how to deal with overcoming the trials of SEAL training and, in general, the challenges of life.
The defendants were arrested in early October 2020 and accused of hatching the plot due to distrust of the government and anger over restrictions imposed during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Two others, Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, earlier pleaded guilty and testified during the trial, telling jurors the plot originated with the group and that they were not entrapped by FBI agents and informants. Eight others are awaiting trial in state courts on domestic terrorism charges.
During the trial, jurors saw secret recordings of the bombs being built in Wisconsin, defendants firing weapons in rural Michigan, going on a night surveillance run past the governor's cottage and griping about tyrannical government officials during a hotel meeting in Ohio.
Jurors also listened to recordings and read texts that suggested ways to assassinate Whitmer — everything from posing as a pizza-delivering assassin to hog-tying the governor and leaving her on a boat in the middle of Lake Michigan.
The acquittals and mistrial came one year after the first sign of trouble in the case. In March 2021, federal prosecutors dumped one of their lead informants, Wisconsin felon Stephen Robeson, and indicted him on a federal gun crime.
Prosecutors accused him of working as a double agent, offering to finance attacks and use a drone to commit domestic terrorism.
The Robeson scandal would be followed by more warning signs. FBI Agent Richard Trask served as the FBI's public face in the Whitmer case, testifying in federal court about the investigation, until he was arrested in July, accused of beating his wife after a swingers party, fired and convicted of assault.
Defense lawyers raised more questions about two other FBI case agents — including one accused of trying to profit off the case by creating a cybersecurity firm — while insisting government informants, especially Chappel, invented the conspiracy and entrapped the defendants.
“To me, this was a signal. A rogue FBI agent trying to line his own pockets with his own cybersecurity company and then pushing the conspiracy that just never was,” Caserta lawyer Michael Hills told reporters. “Never was, never was going to be. Our governor was never in any danger.
“I think the jury, even though they didn’t get all of it,” Hills added, “they smelled enough of it.”
Lack of convictions in Whitmer kidnap trial followed year of scandal, warning signs
Detroit News
April 08, 2022
Grand Rapids — The largest domestic terrorism trial in recent U.S. history ended with no convictions Friday, delivering a blow to a case about a kidnapping plot targeting Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer that has been dogged by controversy, scandal and the intense focus of a nation grappling with the rise of violent extremism.
Jurors acquitted two accused plotters and deadlocked on two alleged ringleaders after defense lawyers raised questions about FBI agents misconduct and informants who were credited with thwarting the plot.
The verdicts came one year after the first whiff of trouble in the high-profile case, the indictment of rogue FBI informant Stephen Robeson on a gun crime. The Wisconsin man's legal problems were followed by defense lawyers alleging FBI agents and informants orchestrated the conspiracy and entrapped a ragtag band of outcasts who harbored antigovernment views and anger over Whitmer's COVID-19 restrictions.
Prosecutors Friday vowed to retry accused ringleaders Adam Fox, 38, of Potterville and Barry Croft, 46, of Delaware, who remained in jail Friday. Their acquitted co-defendants, Lake Orion resident Daniel Harris, 24, and Brandon Caserta, 34, of Canton Township left federal court in downtown Grand Rapids free for the first time in 18 months following what Caserta's lawyer called "the conspiracy that just never was."
“Never was, never was going to be," his lawyer, Michael Hills, told reporters. "Our governor was never in any danger.
"I think the jury, even though they didn’t get all of it,” Hills added, “they smelled enough of it.”
The four men in the Whitmer kidnapping case faced kidnapping conspiracy charges, a felony punishable by up to life in prison. Three faced multiple charges, including conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction.
For Caserta, the acquittal came on his birthday.
"Best birthday gift ever," he told supporters as relatives yelled "Happy Birthday" inside Chief U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker's courtroom.
The west Michigan trial coincided with jurors in federal court in Washington, D.C., hearing the first cases involving people charged in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Together, the trials provided the first tests of federal laws being used to punish extremist behavior that erupted nationally in 2020 and 2021 around the presidential election and pandemic.
The trial lasted 20 days, including 13 days of testimony and approximately 38 hours of jury deliberations spanning five days. Anonymous jurors — six men, six women, all white — heard hours of closing arguments and instructions last week after testimony and a multimedia case from the government.
“We thought the jury would convict beyond reasonable doubt based on the evidence we put forward,” U.S. Attorney Andrew Birge told reporters outside the courthouse. “We believe in the jury system. We have two defendants awaiting trial.”
Defense lawyers and legal experts analyzed what went wrong for the government in what was considered a can't-miss case involving violent extremism. The defeat followed a decade-long string of successes for the Justice Department in high-profile cases in Michigan, everything from the trial of underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to the corruption conviction of former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.
Defense lawyers insisted there was no plot, just manipulations by a team of FBI agents who were opportunistic, and troubled.
"I think the trial here has demonstrated that there’s some serious shortcomings in the case,” Fox's lawyer, Christopher Gibbons, said outside court Friday. “Obviously with acquittals occurring with Mr. Caserta and Mr. Harris, that says a lot about what is going on in the case.”
FBI Special Agent Richard Trask served as the FBI's public face in the Whitmer case, testifying in federal court about the investigation, until he was arrested in July, accused of beating his wife after a swingers party, fired and convicted of assault.
Trask was not called as a government witness during the trial. Neither were FBI Special Agent Henrik Impola, who has faced unproven perjury allegations in an unrelated case, and FBI Special Agent Jayson Chambers. He was accused by defense lawyers of trying to profit off the case by creating a cybersecurity firm while working for the FBI.
“To me, this was a signal. A rogue FBI agent trying to line his own pockets with his own cybersecurity company and then pushing the conspiracy that just never was,” Hills told reporters.
Still, prosecutors insisted as recently as Friday that the four defendants didn’t just talk about wanting to kidnap and kill Whitmer, they planned, prepared and armed themselves to spark a second Civil War.
The government was armed with what legal experts considered overwhelming evidence amassed during a roughly five-month investigation that culminated in October 2020. The trial included testimony from convicted plotters Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, who told jurors the conspiracy originated with the plotters.
Eight others are awaiting trial on state charges.
The federal trial also featured a multimedia presentation from the government that included secret recordings of the defendants building bombs in Wisconsin, firing weapons in rural Michigan, going on a night surveillance run past the governor's cottage and griping about tyrannical government officials during a hotel meeting in Ohio.
Defense lawyers, however, pinned blame on the FBI agents and informants, including "Big" Dan Chappel. He orchestrated the conspiracy, manipulating the defendants from spring 2020 and into the fall, they argued.
“When I look at what happened in this case, I am ashamed of the behavior of the leading law enforcement agency in the United States,” Croft's lawyer, Josh Blanchard, told jurors. “The investigation was an embarrassment. There was no plan and there was no agreement.”
There was no immediate comment from an FBI spokesperson Friday.
JoAnne Huls, the governor's chief of staff to Governor Gretchen Whitmer, called the plot the result of violent, divisive rhetoric that is "all too common across our country."
“Today, Michiganders and Americans — especially our children — are living through the normalization of political violence," Huls said in a statement. "There must be accountability and consequences for those who commit heinous crimes. Without accountability, extremists will be emboldened."
Jurors, whose identities were shielded from the public by a judge concerned about publicity, left court Friday without explaining their verdicts.
“The ultimate question will be did the jury come to the conclusion that the mess of informants and the amount of (stuff) the defense threw up was enough to muddy the waters,” said Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University.
Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan and now a University of Michigan law professor, expected the defendants would be found guilty, considering the preparations the defendants took to kidnap Whitmer and the guilty pleas of two codefendants.
“The evidence that we heard about conducting surveillance on her vacation home, building a shoot house with human silhouettes and practicing how to extract her from her security detail, surveilling the undergirding of a bridge,” she said. “All that, to me, seems like overwhelming evidence that this wasn’t just idle talk.”
McQuade said she would like to know how the jury split when it came to an impasse about Fox and Croft. It could have been one person who held on to a guilty or not guilty verdict, or the split could have been closer to the middle.
“I think it’s so important to hold people accountable who are threatening to kill public officials,” she said. “We’ve seen such a disturbing trend in this country with threats against public officials. It’s becoming really dangerous to hold office, and I think if we want to have a country where we respect democracy and we resolve our disputes at the ballot box and the courts, then we can’t let this go unaddressed.”
The verdicts appeared to be influenced by arguments that the government team was driving the conspiracy, said defense lawyer Keith Corbett, a former assistant U.S. Attorney who was chief of the federal Organized Crime Strike Force in Detroit.
“It’s not enough to simply say these guys went along with whatever the agents suggested,” Corbett said. “You have to show they were predisposed to engage in this conduct on their own.”
That’s a common challenge in cases against fringe groups, Corbett said. Investigators have to embed with them without seeming out of place. They have to find ways to participate without becoming the party galvanizing the crime.
Trying the case again against Fox and Croft will be more challenging for prosecutors, Corbett said. Defense attorneys know exactly what witnesses will say and jurors are likely to be aware that the first trial resulted in an impasse.
He said prosecutors should try to ask jurors why they didn’t side with the government.
“I would want to know from the juries what they found most objectionable,” Corbett said. “I’d like to ask the juries that acquitted people ‘what was it about this case that made you think these people were not guilty?’”
The verdicts came almost exactly 10 years after the acquittals of five members of the Hutaree militia following a trial in Detroit.
Hutaree members were accused of talking about killing law enforcement officers and using weapons of mass destruction to attack the funeral procession. They were acquitted of seditious conspiracy following the 2012 trial, marking one of the landmark losses for federal prosecutors in Michigan in recent history.
Defense lawyer Michael Rataj secured an acquittal in the Hutaree case. On Friday, he was not surprised by the Whitmer kidnap trial outcome.
Politics likely helped, he said, since jurors were drawn from the Republican-leaning western and northern portions of Michigan and more likely to agree with defense arguments.
“Yes, Governor Whitmer carried Kent County, but outside of Kent County, this is the part of our state where people don’t get vaccinated, there is distrust for the government, dislike for the governor, and I think some of those elements came to play in this case,” he said.
Rataj said he did not see parallels between the kidnapping conspiracy and Hutaree cases but said people — and juries — should consider the facts of every domestic terrorism case individually.
Conspiracy charges are common, former federal prosecutor Mike Bullotta said. And while they don’t have to be paired with an actual crime, it’s much harder for prosecutors to prove someone intended to commit a crime when no crime actually occurred.
That’s what made this kidnapping case so challenging, he said. It was conceptual. Prosecutors had to convince jurors that none of the defendants would have chickened out at the last minute.
“The charge is conspiring to kidnap the governor of Michigan, and they did not kidnap the governor of Michigan,” he said. “There is no completed crime that goes to support the conspiracy charge. So really, what the jurors had to decide was whether each of those four defendants really intended to go through with kidnapping the governor.”
Some of the more outlandish details in the defendants’ plan might have made the conspiracy charges an even harder sell, Bullotta said.
“It didn’t help the government that some of these plans were sort of comical,” Bullotta said. “Like taking the governor out on a boat in the middle of the lake and leaving her there, hoping no other boat would come by and pick her up. That’s kind of like a TV Batman episode.”
Defense lawyers portrayed their clients as outcasts on the fringes of society. Fox was no ringleader, his lawyer said, noting that at least one member of the group dubbed him "Captain Autism" while Croft's lawyer called the Delaware trucker a "stoned crazy pirate."
The FBI Investigation Into The Alleged Plot To Kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer Has Gotten Very Complicated
The case seemed like a lock — until an informant and one FBI agent were charged with crimes, another was accused of perjury, and a third was found promoting a private security firm. And that wasn’t all.
Buzz Feed News
December 16, 2021
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.
The Justice Department declined to comment for this article, citing the ongoing criminal case. The FBI also declined to comment. Chambers did not respond to a request for comment.
Defense attorneys, who have hired private investigators to look into the background and activities of the agents and informants in the case, will likely bring out all this and more to argue that the defendants were entrapped by an overzealous and compromised investigation.
The 14 men accused of involvement in the alleged plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer have been charged in three separate courts. Six people — Barry Croft, Ty Garbin, Daniel Harris, Adam Fox, Brandon Caserta, and Kaleb Franks — were indicted by a federal grand jury for kidnapping conspiracy, which carries a maximum penalty of life. Garbin eventually pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against the others. Eight more people were charged in Jackson and Antrim county courts with providing material support to terrorism, in cases being prosecuted by the Michigan attorney general. Many of the men were members of an armed extremist group called the Wolverine Watchmen, and on Monday a Michigan state judge will hold a hearing on a motion filed by three of them who claim they were the victims of entrapment.
The FBI has long relied on undercover agents and confidential informants — civilians, some of them paid for their service — to infiltrate closed groups, from the Black Panthers to the Weather Underground. Officially, these agents and informants are supposed to blend in and report back, not to directly steer the group’s actions — and certainly not to push them to commit crimes the groups would not otherwise have contemplated. But over the years, this approach has prompted many questions about the line between effective casework and entrapment. This was especially so during the years after 9/11, when numerous Muslim defendants, under scrutiny for links to terrorism, said that investigations had crossed a line. Defense attorneys and civil liberty champions raised concerns, but in general the public did not object.
Chambers worked on several such cases for the FBI involving young Muslim men who argued, without success, that they had been entrapped.
In the Michigan kidnapping case, at least a dozen confidential informants, as well as two or more undercover FBI agents, helped gather evidence against the 14 men who were charged. This time around, the defendants are not part of a stigmatized minority; they are white, working-class men from rural America — part of a large and vocal constituency that has a powerful hold on the nation’s politics. And their anti-government, pro–Second Amendment stance is one that millions of Americans share. Law enforcement tactics that have long been tolerated, and even celebrated, when used against marginal groups are getting a very different reception this time around.
“The whole story was a farce — insulting, really,” Tucker Carlson told his millions of viewers on his show in June. “Nearly half the gang of kidnappers were working for the FBI.”
When the Michigan kidnapping trial begins on March 8, federal prosecutors will have a mountain of evidence to draw from: hundreds of hours of clandestine recordings, as well as thousands of text messages and encrypted chats from militaristic training exercises, bomb-making sessions, and graphic discussions of violence against police and politicians.
The defendants built and detonated bombs, twice surveilled Whitmer’s vacation home, talked about trying and executing her, and practiced forcibly entering structures they called “kill houses.”
At the center of much of that action was Stephen Robeson, an informant who had a long history of criminal behavior.
Robeson, a burly concrete and asphalt layer from Wisconsin, founded a branch of the anti-government group Three Percenters. But he also has a rap sheet stretching back to the early 1980s that includes fraud, assault, and sex with a minor — and a long and secret history of working as a confidential informant.
Robeson had first cooperated with local authorities on a motorcycle gang murder case in Wisconsin in the 1980s, and had done so on at least one other occasion in the 2000s.
Most recently, he was working for the FBI, identifying and recruiting potentially violent extremists on social media platforms. He urged people to attend gun rallies and other protest events, organized meetings in multiple states, and, some attendees say, used government funds to pay for their meals and hotel rooms. Prosecutors claim that one of those meetings, in Ohio in June 2020, was where the plot against Gov. Whitmer originated.
His involvement in the case now poses a challenge for prosecutors, both because of the lengths he went to shape the events in question and because of his own extensive and ongoing brushes with the law.
In one instance, he held court in a private room at a Delaware tavern said to have been a gathering place for the Founding Fathers, according to one attendee, who like many others interviewed for this article spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern that they could be charged with a crime, among other reasons. After dinner, Robeson ushered many of his guests to nearby hotel rooms, where he got them to vent their anger about governors who enacted COVID-19 restrictions, according to separate interviews with a half-dozen participants who attended.
He also urged people to plan violent actions against elected officials and to acquire weapons and bomb-making materials. Some of those contacts say he called them nearly every day.
But as busy as he was engaging with targets of the investigation, it turns out he was involved in a number of questionable activities on his own time.
In August 2020, as the FBI’s investigation in Michigan was heating up, Robeson allegedly convinced a Wisconsin couple to buy an SUV and donate it to a nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting human trafficking.
The problem was that the charity, “Race to Unite Races,” didn’t exist. Robeson, far from using the truck to save children, simply sold it and kept the cash, according to court records.
He also had a problem with guns. As a person convicted of multiple felonies, Robeson, 58, is not legally allowed to own a firearm, but on as many as five occasions, he allegedly bought, borrowed, handled, or fired guns ranging from pistols to AR-15 style rifles, according to court records and interviews with four people, including one person who observed him acquiring and handling two of the weapons.
In early March, federal prosecutors took the unusual step of securing an indictment against their own informant, accusing him of illegally buying a high-powered sniper rifle from a man he met at church and then reselling it for a profit. Robeson acquired the gun on Sept. 26, just 11 days before the FBI’s takedown in the kidnapping case.
Robeson testified that the FBI had given him some leeway to carry a gun if it helped him keep his cover, but he admitted he knew he wasn’t allowed to have the sniper rifle, and that he had “violated the rules and procedures” of his work with the FBI.
Federal prosecutors cut him a remarkable deal, given his prior record: no prison time, two years of probation, and a $100 fine. Judge William Conley warned him not to waste the opportunity. “Mr. Robeson, I’m not sure I’ve ever had anyone in front of me before who I need to emphasize this more than you: You’re under a set of terms of conditions for your supervised release,” he said. “If you’re ever in doubt, I would strongly advise you to contact your probation officer to make sure any conduct you’re engaged in is consistent with those requirements.”
Despite that advice, last month, his probation officer informed the court that Robeson had violated his probation. He had failed to mention that he had been questioned as part of a criminal investigation — which was recently referred to the district attorney’s office for fraud charges — into the SUV sale.
Robeson, who is due to be sentenced in early February, could not be reached for comment and his attorney did not respond to multiple requests on his behalf.
Even before Robeson was indicted on the gun charge, prosecutors appear to have gone to some lengths to keep his involvement out of the kidnapping case’s public record. The original charging papers, for example, cite a different informant who attended a June gathering of militants in Dublin, Ohio, but make no reference to the fact that Robeson had helped organize the event or that he was in the meetings as well.
As part of their trial strategy, defense attorneys in the kidnapping case plan to call Robeson as a witness. They say he can shine a light on what the government did to drag targets into the alleged plot and on the FBI’s conduct overall.
If that happens, his testimony could put prosecutors in the unusual and awkward position of having to discredit their own confidential informant.
It wasn’t just the informant who could present challenges to the case. Members of law enforcement who worked on the investigation, and a team attorney involved in prosecuting it, brought their own considerable baggage.
In May, Gregory Townsend, one of two assistant attorneys general overseeing the Michigan state prosecution, was abruptly taken off the case. Officials had launched an investigation into the use of jailhouse informants in at least one murder case he’d previously prosecuted. In September, the state vacated the murder conviction at the center of that investigation, of a man who was charged with starting a fire that killed five children.
Then came the domestic violence charge for the FBI agent who had been the public face of the case.
On July 18, special agent Richard Trask and his wife came home after a night out at a swingers party. According to a statement she made to local police, they had an argument that culminated with him choking her and bashing her head against a nightstand. Later that night, he was found in his wife’s car in a grocery store parking lot, where he was arrested and later charged with felony assault.
A longtime agent specializing in counterterrorism, Trask had been assigned to track the alleged ringleader of the Whitmer kidnapping conspiracy, Adam Fox. In October and January, he took the stand in federal court to argue that the defendants in the case should remain behind bars pending trial.
Prosecutors later divulged that Trask had also posted an obscenity-laden tirade against former president Donald Trump on his Facebook page.
It emerged in September that Trask’s employment with the FBI had been terminated. He is expected to enter a plea on the assault charge in state court on Monday. He declined to comment for this story.
Another agent on the case, Henrik Impola, testified for two days in state court earlier this year, noting that he was one of two investigators who handled the other principal informant, an Iraq war vet known as Dan. Even as Impola took the stand, defense attorneys were learning that he had been accused, in an unrelated case, of perjury.
According to a defense attorney on that case, Impola had lied on the witness stand about the circumstances of an interview he conducted with a suspect, and the suspect’s lawyer filed a letter of complaint with the FBI and the Justice Department. “Why has such a blatant violation of the Federal perjury statute by an eight-plus-year veteran of the FBI not been referred for prosecution,” the lawyer asked the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility in February 2020.
Impola referred a request for comment to the FBI, which declined to answer questions.
To date, the government has not responded to the perjury allegations. Three legal experts contacted by BuzzFeed News said that Impola’s actions, which concern statements about a search warrant affidavit, were far from composing a clear-cut case of perjury. Nevertheless, defense attorneys in the kidnapping case raised the issue in court and could do so before a jury during a trial, complicating any plans to put Impola on the stand.
The perjury allegation against Impola — however thin — and the assault charges against Trask could give defense attorneys a chance to undermine the jury’s confidence in the conduct and credibility of the FBI agents.
And then there was special agent Jayson Chambers and his side hustle.
Chambers helped to oversee Dan, the Iraq War vet who was a confidential informant in the case. Dan infiltrated the Wolverine Watchmen, rose to become the group’s second-in-command, and, under the direction of his FBI handlers, repeatedly encouraged its members to attend trainings and activities where violent schemes were allegedly concocted.
When his connection to Exeintel was revealed, defense attorneys claimed that Chambers may have “used the investigation to promote his company and its services.”
BuzzFeed News has found no evidence that Chambers planned to use the Michigan case in that capacity, but a review of emails and other documents shows he has trumpeted past investigations as a selling point for his services.
In the résumé he shared with potential clients, Chambers identifies himself as a counterterrorism specialist who has used “online undercover techniques” to investigate al-Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, and other groups. In marketing materials distributed by Chambers, Exeintel is described as “a unique cyber-intelligence team” that uses “undercover online personas” and other methods to identify threats, including terrorism, for clients.
In a business proposal from November 2019, Chambers pitched security services with prices ranging as high as $6 million.
The FBI has declined to comment on Chambers or his company, Exeintel. But bureau policy generally prohibits agents from owning or operating businesses that may present a conflict of interest.
Beyond the potential conflict, Exeintel raises questions about Chambers’ operational security as an FBI agent — which is crucial to protecting the integrity of ongoing investigations.
The Twitter account @ravagiing, which identified itself as belonging to the CEO of Exeintel and linked to the company’s website, appears to have had advanced knowledge of — and tweeted about — sensitive information about two separate cases Chambers worked on.
In January 2019, three months before Chambers incorporated Exeintel LLC in New Mexico, that account crowed about a terrorism investigation involving a trio of Somali American men who were accused of providing material support to ISIS.
In the tweet, which was posted two days after the men were arrested, @ravagiing wrote that Exeintel “had been tracking this group since last year,” adding that the “agents handling this case are INCREDIBLE!”
The tweet included screenshots of what appear to be encrypted messages sent the prior October — when the case was still secret — in which two parties discuss two of the men who were later charged.
“Is this the other tango,” reads one message, using military slang for “target” and including a screenshot of one suspect’s Facebook page. Another message said yes and named one of the suspects while linking to the Facebook page for the man’s cousin.
The name of one of the participants in the chat was blurred by whoever posted the screenshot, but the other was listed as “Skai,” which is the screen name for the @ravagiing handle on Twitter.
Then the account began tweeting about Michigan.
On Sept. 24, 2020, just two weeks before the takedown, @ravagiing tweeted, “Soon….MICHIGAN Soon.” Then just hours before the Oct. 7 takedown, it tweeted again: “Don’t worry Michigan I told ya A LOT more coming soon.”
In response to a motion from the Whitmer kidnapping defendants that mentioned the tweets, Assistant US Attorney Nils Kessler wrote on Aug. 31 that “neither the FBI nor SA Chambers ever controlled the account” that posted them.
In response to questions directed to the @ravagiing account, someone who asked not to be named out of concern for his family’s privacy said in a statement that Chambers did not control the Twitter account and had no relationship to the company at the time that the Michigan case was unfolding. The statement also said that BuzzFeed News took @ravagiing’s Oct. 7 tweet about the Michigan case “out of context.”
Chambers started work at the FBI in 2010. In an email sent to a business associate in April 2019 and obtained by BuzzFeed News, he indicated that he planned to leave the bureau if his new business took off.
Over the following months, Chambers was in contact with potential clients for Exeintel, setting up meetings with executives for several different companies, emails, marketing materials, and business proposals reviewed by BuzzFeed News show.
The statement from Exeintel said that the company never got any business. Chambers stayed with the FBI, and in March 2020, he began work on what would become the Michigan kidnapping investigation.
That case carried over many of the tactics that were successfully used against young, disaffected Muslims in cases that Chambers had helped bring, at times over the strenuous objections of defense lawyers.
In one instance, a 21-year-old man in Detroit was approached online by two undercover operatives pretending to be Muslim women looking for love, one of whom repeatedly attempted to convince him to consider martyring himself in an act of terrorism.
In a second investigation, three young Somali American men were contacted on Facebook and other platforms by a series of people posing as ISIS recruiters, converts to Islam, individuals in Somalia, and flirtatious women, among other personas. After nearly two years, one of the men agreed to travel to Somalia using money provided by an undercover agent and was arrested at the airport.
All the men eventually pleaded guilty and received lengthy prison sentences.
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.
Amanda Keller, whose former fiancé, Adam Fox, is accused of leading the kidnapping plot, said she alluded to that possibility in an interview with an FBI agent this fall.
Keller, who attended some of the events organized by Robeson but has not been charged with any crimes, has been interviewed by the FBI numerous times since late last year. She said she mostly spoke to Impola and Trask, and once met with Chambers.
But when the FBI called her in again more recently, none of those agents were there.
After all the damaging material that had emerged about them, she said she asked the new agent sitting across the table — only half-kidding — “So what are we going to find out about you?”
