Detroit Free Press – The FBI informant known as “Big Dan” gave jurors another earful Monday morning about how four men allegedly plotted to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, saying he tried to de-escalate the situation by suggesting other “crimes.”
Dan testified that accused ringleader Adam Fox wanted to kidnap and kill Whitmer and talked about it all summer, so he suggested instead firing a bullet through a window of the governor’s vacation home near Traverse City and mailing the bullet casing to the house.
On cross examination, he also admitted to suggesting ambushing Whitmer while she was returning to her cottage in Traverse City, and blowing her door down.
“(Fox) was wanting to kidnap and kill the governor, so I was trying to de-escalate,” Dan testified while being cross examined by the defense, noting that he didn’t really believe “that we should put a round through the window.”
The defense was grilling Dan about his role in the group, and about why he suggested “crimes” when one of the rules of his undercover involvement was that he wasn’t supposed to suggest anything.
“The incredible scheme was unfolding two years ago when Whitmer, a Democrat, as well as governors in other states, were angering people by imposing stay-home orders and other restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.” – PBS News Hour
“But you did make suggestions of ideas and crimes to Adam Fox,” defense attorney Christopher Gibbons, Fox’s lawyer, said to Dan as he was on the stand.
“I may have, to keep my role within the group. I was trying to figure out what kind of platform they had,” Dan responded, noting the idea of putting a bullet through the window was him repeating what another defendant, Ty Garbin, had already suggested.
Garbin has pleaded guilty and plans to testify against the others.
“There are other ways to de-escalate than suggest violence,” Gibbons said.
Dan said that he was trying to come up with suggestions on the fly, and lacked adequate training to properly de-escalate the situation … READ MORE.
FBI: Accused wanted ‘tyrant’ Gov. Whitmer tied up on table
The Associated Press, March 17, 2022
A key figure in an alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer told an undercover FBI agent that he wanted to restrain the “tyrant” on a table then pose for a photo “like we just made the biggest drug bust,” according to a secret recording played for jurors Thursday.
The trial of four men resumed in federal court in Grand Rapids, Michigan, after a three-day delay due to someone in the courtroom testing positive for COVID-19.
Agent Mark Schweers told the jury that he was posing as someone with like-minded views from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula when he met Adam Fox in the basement of a vacuum shop in suburban Grand Rapids, a hideaway accessed by a trap door.
Fox didn’t know that Schweers was wearing a recording device as he talked excitedly about attacking the Michigan Capitol, teaming up with a militia called the Wolverine Watchmen, and restoring a “constitutional republic.”
Insight by Infor: Federal News Network surveyed five agencies about their approach to squeezing more out of their data to protect taxpayer money.
“We want her flex-cuffed on a table while we all pose and get our pictures taken like we just made the biggest drug bust in … history,” Fox said of Whitmer, laughing and using profanities.
“You give us that, we’ll be happy,” Fox said. “Then you lock her … up, even if we gotta go with her.”
Fox, Barry Croft Jr., Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta are charged with conspiracy. Prosecutors say they turned their anger toward government in 2020 into a plot to kidnap Whitmer at her vacation home because of restrictions she imposed during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Earlier Thursday, FBI agent Christopher Long testified about how investigators got interested in Croft, a trucker from Bear, Delaware.
