An Army veteran who joined a militia to maintain his gun skills said on Friday that he had become an FBI informant after the group talked about killing police, a point inflection that caused covert work and occasional loads of an incredible plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
The informant, known as “Dan” or “Big Dan”, is an important witness for prosecutors in the trial of Four-laden men with a kidnapping conspiracy in federal court in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He was not asked to indicate his last name on the witness bar.
Dan became especially close Adam Foxwho is described as the leader of the scheme, secretly recording hours of conversation in 2020, participating in gun training and making road trips to northern Michigan to look at Whitmer’s vacation home.
Kent County Sheriff, Delaware Department of Justice via AP
It was an unusual odyssey for Dan, 35, a postal worker, self-described gun rights advocate who said he was simply looking for ways to keep his firepower skills strong after serving in Iraq. He found the Wolverine Watchmen on Facebook, but things went wrong.
“They wanted to attack law enforcement and kill them,” said Dan, who informed a friend that he was in law enforcement.
“About a week later, the FBI contacted me … They asked me if I would stay in the group and supervise their activity,” Dan told the jury.
Fox, Barry Croft Jr., Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta are charged with conspiracy. Prosecutors say they turned their anger against the government in 2020 into a plot to kidnap Whitmer in his holiday home because of the restrictions he imposed during the early months of Covid-19 pandemic.
Jurors were hearing a fourth day of testimony on Friday in a trial that could last more than a month.
FBI agent Mark Schweers said Thursday that he tricked Fox and others into believing it was Mark Woods of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan who shared his displeasure with the government and Whitmer. He also carried a recording device, joined the men while firing, and traveled to Elk Rapids to explore the governor’s second home.
“We want him to stick it on a table as we pose and take pictures of ourselves as if we’ve just made the biggest drug attack in … history,” Whitmer Fox said, laughing and using blasphemy.
“Give us this, we’ll be happy,” he said. “Then you close it … even if we have to go with it.”
Defense attorneys claim that informants and agents unduly influenced the men. Schweers acknowledged that he paid for the meals and offered trips to Fox, which promised to turn him into a “guardian of the north,” a reference to a “Game of Thrones” character.
Whitmer, a Democrat seeking re-election, rarely speaks publicly about the case. He has blamed former President Donald Trump for fomenting anger over coronavirus restrictions and for refusing to condemn right-wing extremists as defendants in the case. He said Trump was complicit in the January 6 Capitol riots.
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