On October 8, it was announced that six men were arrested over an alleged plot to kidnap the Democrat governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, and turn her over in Wisconsin for trial on the charge of treason. The complaint that was unsealed in a federal court, charged six men, five of the men are Michigan residents Adam Fox, Ty Garbin, Kaleb Franks, Daniel Harris, Brandon Caserta, the sixth man, Barry Croft is a Delaware resident.
At the time of the so-called kidnapping plot, Whitmer’s popularity with Michigan voters was dropping like a lead balloon—and deservedly so. Her overreaching, unconstitutional lockdown measures, including the decision to send COVID positive patients into nursing homes with Michigan’s most vulnerable citizens, were some of the worst in the country.
During an interview with Paul Egan of the Detroit Free Press, Governor Whitmer, with no evidence of her vile accusation, attempted to tie the group of men accused of plotting to kidnap her to President Trump and white supremacy.
The truth is, the more the public discovers about the men involved in the plot to kidnap Governor Whitmer, the more it’s clear the anti-police, anti-government, anti-Trump radicals were more aligned with the Marxist BLM movement and violent domestic terrorist group, Antifa. It’s also becoming increasingly clear that FBI agents were very likely the driving force behind the so-called kidnapping plot.
Brandon Caserta, one of the anarchists who was arrested for plotting to kidnap Whitmer, actually hates President Trump and is on video calling Trump a “tyrant.”
“Trump is not your friend dude,” Caserta said.
He says Trump is “a tyrant” and calls President Trump an “enemy.”
Wow! This is big. Brandon Caserta, one of the ringleaders of the group of men arrested for a plot where the group planned to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, hated President Trump too!
"Trump is not your friend dude"
He says Trump is "a tyrant" & calls President Trump an "enemy". pic.twitter.com/T5paEeTkiJ
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) October 8, 2020
MLIVE reports – Michael Hills. the attorney for Brand Caserta, said on Friday, Aug. 13 that an FBI special agent told an informant to lie and to delete text messages between them.
Hills asked a federal judge to order the government to provide all communications between a paid informant, identified only as “Dan,” and the FBI.
The government has said it provided a significant amount of documentation and that the defense hasn’t shown evidence of entrapment that would warrant release of additional materials.
Defense attorneys want to review communication between informants as well as their conversations with the FBI. Hills sought cellphone data of Dan, along with FBI special agents, Henrik Impola and Jayson Chambers.
“These text messages indicate the F.B.I. was pushing their paid agent to actively recruit people into an overt act in furtherance of a conspiracy,” Hills wrote.
“Counsel has found further text messages between (special agent) Impola and Dan indicating Dan should destroy his text messages and instruct Dan to lie and accuse an innocent 3rd party of being a federal agent spy to the founder of Wolverine Watchmen.”
The Watchmen is a militia group whose members are allegedly tied to the kidnap plot.
Hills said Dan told Impola the Watchman founder suspected him of being a federal agent. Dan said someone else vouched for him.Hills provided a transcript in which the FBI agent allegedly said: “Copy. Best thing to do is deny and accuse somebody else like Trent.”Hills said the FBI agent also wrote: “Be sure to delete these.”
According to the Detroit Free Press – Daniel Harris, a decorated Marine and one of the men arrested in the alleged plot — allegedly asked his cohorts if they were interested in killing a cop in Maine for one of his friends.
23-year-old Daniel Harris, attended a Black Lives Matter protest in June, telling the Oakland County Times he was “upset about the killing of George Floyd and police violence.”
Defense lawyers, meanwhile, argued that the government has only produced snippets of conversations in the case and that there is no evidence that the accused had any real plan to kidnap Whitmer. They said that it remains to be seen what roles the undercover informants and FBI agents played in the case and whether they pushed the others into carrying out the plan, which in the end was foiled when FBI agents arrested five men during a setup on Oct. 7.
Graham was grilling FBI special agent Richard Trask about his testimony that at least 13 self-described militia members plotted to kidnap Whitmer from her vacation home and do one of two things: either take her on a boat in the middle of Lake Michigan and leave her there, or, take her to Wisconsin and try her for treason.
Graham asked agent Trask how the suspects planned to get Whitmer to Wisconsin.
The agent had no specific answer, beyond saying there were audio recordings of the suspects discussing a plan to take Whitmer to another state, among them Wisconsin.
Graham then asked the agent what the suspects planned to do with Whitmer after they left her in the lake. The agent had no specific answer, beyond testifying that the accused ringleader, Adam Fox, wanted to “take her out on a boat and leave her in the middle of Lake Michigan.”
Last month, FBI special agent Trask was arrested and charged with assault and intent to do great bodily harm less than murder following a domestic incident with his wife Sunday.
MSN – The Detroit News reported on details of the allegations against Trask, which were reportedly outlined in an affidavit from the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office: Trask and his wife allegedly attended a swingers’ party at a hotel in Oshtemo Township on Sunday, where they reportedly had several drinks and then got into an argument on the way home. Once home, Trask allegedly got on top of his wife in bed and “then grabbed the side of her head and smashed it several times on the nightstand,” the News quoted the affidavit as saying.
Trask also allegedly began to choke his wife, who grabbed his testicles, according to the affidavit. Trask allegedly left the couple’s home in his wife’s car and was found in a supermarket parking lot.
Trask’s wife was reportedly covered in blood and had a bloody laceration on the right side of her head and bruises on her neck following the incident, according to the affidavit reported by the News.
Trask was arraigned and then released from custody Monday on a $10,000 personal recognizance bond.
Even before the specifics of the allegations against him were disclosed, Trask’s arrest spelled trouble for the kidnapping case, which is set to go to trial in October.“It’s the last thing you want for a major case like this,” Andrew Arena, former special agent in charge of the FBI’s Detroit office, told the Detroit News Monday. “Any time you give the defense any ammunition it’s not good.”
A lawyer for an alleged bombmaker charged in the Whitmer case raised questions last Sunday about whether the FBI is trying to sabotage the defense ahead of trial. Delaware resident Barry Croft’s attorney filed excerpts revealing the existence of a recording in which lead investigator FBI special agent Henrik Impola discussed creating “utter disarray and chaos” for defense lawyers, whom he labeled as “paid liars” whose jobs are to “take the truth and portray it in a different sense.”
Trask’s legal issues weren’t the first to affect participants in the kidnapping investigation: One of the lead prosecutors handling a parallel state case, Gregory Townsend, was reassigned in May as the state’s attorney general audited his work in past cases.And Stephen Robeson, an FBI informant considered an important witness in the federal case, was indicted in March on charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Robseson was one of several confidential informants, in addition to undercover FBI agents, who were involved in the case as the kidnapping plot came together.A lengthy report from BuzzFeed News Tuesday found that “some of those informants, acting under the direction of the FBI, played a far larger role than has previously been reported,” raising questions — as defense attorneys for several of the accused have done in court — “as to whether there would have even been a conspiracy without them.”One of the six men charged federally for the kidnapping plot, Ty Garbin, pleaded guilty to conspiracy in January.
Gary Springstead — the Grand Rapids-based attorney representing Ty Garbin, 24, of Hartland Township — told reporters outside the courthouse that he believes there is still more evidence to be presented.
Springstead also said the use of an informant in the investigation to thwart the plot raises questions. Feds said an informant wore wires to meetings to record the men charged and collect information on the kidnapping plan.
“(I)t’s become an issue in certain cases where the informant pushes some of the information, and the court and the government and the defense attorneys have to be leery of that,” Springstead told reporters. “Because their job is not to assess what the government informant wants them to do, it’s to assess the accused’s intent and what they actually planned on doing.”
“One of the most active leaders was your informant.” -Defense Attorney Scott Graham
Defense attorney Michael Darragh Hills, who is representing Caserta, said his client didn’t actually plan on doing anything, even though the government said that Caserta threatened to kill police officers.
Hill argued that the threats were rhetorical and never acted on.
Still, defense lawyers contend that there was no probable cause to arrest and charge the suspects, arguing, among other things, that the suspects had no operational plan to do anything, were engaged in all legal activities — including talking in encrypted group chats and practicing military exercises with lawfully owned guns — and that it was the informants and undercover agents who “pushed” others to do illegal things.
Meanwhile, Michigan’s radical Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer continues to push the vile conspiracy theory that pro-law enforcement President Trump is somehow responsible for the alleged plot to kidnap her.
When President Trump mentioned Michigan’s overreaching Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer at a campaign rally in Muskegon, MI, in mid-October, the crowd responded with “Lock her up!” a chant that was commonly directed at “Crooked Hillary” during Trump’s 2016 rallies.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer jumped on the opportunity to frame herself as a victim and make Trump look like he was inciting violence against her. She immediately tweeted a clip of the Michigan residents chanting “Lock her up!”
It’s almost like she was working behind the scenes with some devious group of a certain political party hell-bent on setting him up for a certain January 6th incident they would later blame Trump for, even though he had nothing whatsoever to do with it.
“This is exactly the rhetoric that has put me, my family, and other government officials’ lives in danger while we try to save the lives of our fellow Americans. It needs to stop,” she tweeted.
This is exactly the rhetoric that has put me, my family, and other government officials’ lives in danger while we try to save the lives of our fellow Americans. It needs to stop. https://t.co/EWkNQx3Ppx
— Governor Gretchen Whitmer (@GovWhitmer) October 17, 2020
