Reaction & Commentary
Time whether you’re watching us in the video version of this podcast or listening to us uh as we stream across any number of podcast platforms today we have a real treat for you if you’re interested in insane levels of corruption and abuse by our department of justice and FBI if you’ve ever had
Questions about some of these plots and conspiracy theories and these very convoluted cases where the FBI manufactures their own terrorist uh then you’re going to want to tune in and pay close attention joining us today is Christina erso and Christina is a journalist and documentary filmmaker Christina welcome to on watch thank you
So you have started to work on and you’re almost ready to release what I think is a tremendous very exciting documentary film that looks at the supposed Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot and uh the minute that news broke back in October 2020 it it smelled and looked rotten it looked like it was a
Setup job but you’ve really delved into this and you’ve done a tremendous investigation about this kidnapped plot um what was your kickoff Point what got you interested in this supposed attempt by militia groups to uh to kidnap the Michigan Governor well when they first announced the arrest and Whitmer did her
Um uh press conference that she’s smiling through she’s smiling she’s smiling through but she just seems so arrogant right and she um refer to the guys as uh being like white supremist extremist militia that had been radicalized by Trump and so it wasn’t just her but Joe Biden and Cala Harris
Also used the uh Whitmer plot in the last uh month of their campaign they would use it to bring up why Trump wasn’t fit for office they brought up a tweets he had made where he tweeted out like liberate Michigan and a couple other states to say that he had told uh
Extremist groups to stand back and stand by and so when I saw the way the media was covering it I immediately knew that that wasn’t going to be the real story and as soon as I started looking into it it became very apparent that uh what we
Were initially told was not really what happened here so the shorthand version of this case appears to me to be that the FBI went out and they’ve done this repeated rep L but in this particular case they went out and identified a certain group of people that in my
Estimation are usually kind of on the margins of Life they’re not necessarily the brightest light bulbs or the sharpest knives they’re not you know High Achievers to kind of maybe they’ve got a little petty criminal background they may not be terribly intelligent there may be some drug and alcohol issues
There could be they’re just they’re sort of down and out yeah and and that’s the population that they seem to identify and Target and is that a fair assessment or characterization of the group that they went after um some of them yes uh the guy who they called the ring leader
Adam Fox he was at the time this happened he had just been divorced and he was homeless living in the basement of a vacuum repair shop that had no running water uh if he wanted to brush his teeth he had to go to the Mexican restaurant next door this is not
Somebody who had resources um and he also didn’t have a lot of friends he didn’t have a father even so uh when the FBI uh set upon him with a network of informants and agents uh they used one of their agents to befriend him and become that Father
Figure so for him for sure um uh Brandon Cera who was acquitted at the first federal trial he was a machinist from Detroit these were workingclass people uh that were uh in many cases very vulnerable and on you know like you said um kind of like the fringes of
Society firearm culture things like that so the FBI they’ve looked at a group of people that they seek to recruit they have confidential human sources or their own informats that they used to make contact with and recruit these people and that’s in this case essentially they used a
Number of sources to recruit a group that they then uh trained equipped uh gave direction to and then said aha we caught people trying to kidnap the governor I mean it’s Preposterous but but they they did this I mean give us some of the details as to how this case how they developed
The relationships and how they how they got the kidna plot even rolling well according to the government the investigation began in March of 2020 uh when a postal work and Veteran Dan Chapel uh was looking for pro2a groups online and he claims he stumbled across a Facebook page for a group called The
Wolverine Watchmen uh the page was Private at the time with just a few members in it but he joins the group and he claims to see uh what he called threats of violence against law enforcement and um that was never documented we’ve never seen any evidence of those threats but basically within a
Week he’s made an informant and then very quickly he becomes essentially the leader of the group so he is Con so he infiltrates the group then reports to the FBI that he’s made this contact and then I guess the FBI directs him to yeah take charge of it or to to become he
Becomes the executive officer who is the one that leads the Tactical training at uh what they would call field training exercises ftxs that were all basically sponsored and paid for by the FBI and uh so you have you know various guys there were 14 total that were arrested there
Were six charged federally with conspiring to kidnap Whitmer but there were eight men who were charged with providing material support gang affiliation and felony Firearms so essentially these people would not have even met each other without the FBI’s network of 12 informant two to three undercover agents stitching the group
Together Barry Croft who was also um called one of the Ring leaders they actually called him the spiritual leader which I never even heard of before that that was a thing that you could be a spiritual leader of a the only person I’ve heard refer to as a spiritual
Leader is uh was the spiritual leader of the 911 right well they did compare him at his sentencing to the blind Chic that’s uh which is wild uh but he was a um a middle-aged truck driver from Delaware with three daughters he was Raising as a single dad so you know
There was an effort also he’s not from Michigan you know these people like they the FBI created the meetings and events that would they’d invite these people to and that’s how these guys met each other and I also understand that there was another meeting uh that was sort of I guess they
Build it or they advertised it as sort of like a a militia conference in Dublin Ohio yes where they tried to get even more people involved in this somehow can you so I guess you you say it starts in March but it sort of progresses along what were some of the big Benchmark
Events I guess there’s this conference begins in March of 2020 unofficially we know that one of their informants uh Steve Robison who is a convicted child sex offender and a career criminal he became an informant in October of 2019 uh they claimed that he became an informant because he heard a chatter
Amongst 3er groups of again threats of violence against law en enforcement so he sets upon Barry Croft in January of 2020 so this is well before the official investigation begins and in fact from people I have interviewed um associated with this case it the FBI in 2018 it
Seems they are involved in some kind of operation to infiltrate militia groups Midwest militia groups okay they create a group called the Midwest Coalition through one of their informants but from what I’ve been told essentially uh in 2018 the FBI approached different leaders of militia groups and was asking
Them for contact information of membership lists not everyone wanted to provide this information so some of those leaders of the militia group Ste down and we believe at that point the FBI put a lot of their informance and Leadership roles in militias so that goes back to the Midwest in 2018 then we
Have Robison in October of 2019 he’s meeting Barry in January of 2020 so this is not uh a three-year thing like they said it didn’t begin in 2020 it goes back further than that okay um there’s this conference in Dublin Ohio I guess they Tred to bring more people in so in
March after Dan joins the group in March of 2020 uh they’re trying to bring various people from different states together from different militias or whatever um so they have what the FBI claims Barry Croft called and shared this meeting in Dublin Ohio it came out at trial that’s not true their informant
Robison called and shared the meeting and they haven’t provided the receipt for who paid for the hotel conference room at the jewery in in Columbus Ohio but we all know who’s going to be on that and again this guy Robison is a career criminal a felon a sex offend yes
And that information by the way was kept off his criminal record during this time because some of these militia groups they will run background checks on people and so these men had this guy around their children they didn’t know but the FBI knew the entire time so
The FBI called and chaired the meeting they invited different people from different states different militia groups and these were all people that the uh FBI had decided they wanted to Target now in their documentation they claimed they gave Robison the informant access to a database of Americans they
Wanted to Target we don’t know who’s in that database outrageous claim so restate that one more time what was done the so in his uh file robus and they discussed that he was given access to a database of people Americans that the FBI FBI gave Roberson access to a
Database yes and that database was an FBI database of persons that they wish to Target yes that’s right and so that is we believe how Robison knew to make contact and befriend Barry Croft on Facebook posing is somebody who knew a friend of Barry’s who had just passed
Away so Barry’s in a very vulnerable place he thinks this person’s attending the funeral of his friend and this is how they become friends yes so um I’d like to know what the criteria is creepy in that database right um and so the Dublin meeting Robison calls and chairs it he invites
These various people to it and essentially you’ve got uh five informants there all wearing recording devices and they’re riling people up and you have to um think back to the time frame of where we are this is June 6 2020 so in the backdrop of covid lockdowns people concerned about um
Vaccine mandates uh riots happening cities burning like things happening that a lot of people were riled up about and then also Whitmer had the she had the most stringent lockdown so you have a bunch of guys in Michigan who they can’t work she even closed barber shops
What are they going to do all day except talk crap so the FBI calls and shares this meeting invites all the people has five informs all provoking people and then they’ll take these little Snippets from that uh to play in court to make these guys look bad after they got them
Stoned and intoxicated yeah that was another sort of recurring theme in the stuff that I’ve read on this case is that some of the people involved said well uh if you weren’t going to bring pizza beer and weed we weren’t going to show up and so they literally I mean
They baited them into well come on over because we’re gonna have food we’re gonna have beer we’re gonna have weed wings and you can hang out and eat and get high and drink beer or do whatever and that was the incentive that was the and some from what I read some of these
Guys are saying well if you didn’t have the wings and beer and I’m not going yeah they were literally saying that yeah so so and then the people the people providing the food the drugs and the beer were the FBI and the FBI was paying the bill for that
Yes that’s correct and everyone thinks this is fine this is no no one shrugs at this and says wait a minute what are they doing you know the Dublin meeting this is where the government alleges that the origins of the plot began and I’ve seen video of one of the guy
Speeches from Dublin and there’s nothing incriminating in that and from the little Snippets that were played they were played out of context to a jury and it sounds really bad Barry Croft at that meeting went on a a very intoxicated tirade where he talked about the what
They didn’t play in court but what was talked about prior to that you had informants talking about hypothetical so they would ask these guys hypothetically speaking when would it be okay to use violence and then they take the response and play it in court without that context it just makes it sound like
They’re planning something but they’re they think they’re speaking hypothetically and you had the informants telling them saying things like they’re in your backyard at that Dublin meeting there was a Riot that occurred uh in Columbus Ohio that they were trying to get the guys to go armed
To and they were um yeah so they were telling them like they’re in your backyard why are we giving quarter when No Quarter is given this is the informance saying that not these men and just trying to get them riled up and then saying you know in a situation
Where like a a hits the fan type thing what would you do to defend your families and then taking those clips and playing them without the full context so this this is a very elaborate obviously a very indepth extensive uh plan to cultivate and develop not just these contact these
Contacts but also to have to document these guys saying stuff that’s borderline crazy or built on hypotheticals that are right nonsensical but but would be played out of context would make them look like they were Fringe lunatic violent people right yes exactly um at some point though in all of this and
And we can kind of go forward and backwards and fill in the blanks I don’t want to I don’t mean to constrain your answer but at some point uh somebody comes up with this bright idea or is it’s offered to them hey let’s go kidnap Whitmer so how
What’s the what’s the ignition point on that how did that how did that become the goal of what they were doing the that was the FBI’s goal so at these various uh meetings and ftxs that the government put on and invited these people to they would talk about things
That were happening in the country and what do we need to do um that the FBI informance suggested not just uh kidnapping Whitmer but they suggested doing this to multiple Governors like they wanted the FBI wanted it to be a multi-state plot we have their informance on audio talking at one of
The FDX is saying oh there’s going to be this big movement with 15 states they were pushing this like bugaloo thing where for people who don’t know I it’s very hard to explain firearms and militia culture but the bugaloo from what I understand these men understood
It to believe to be was a a civil war that they thought was inevitable not that they wanted to make it happen but if this happened this is what we would do so this is like their contingency plan for what they thought how things were going to unfold in the country yes
That’s right and then you had the informants that were uh suggesting things like well why don’t we um fire rounds in Governor’s Mansions why don’t we put Tannerite in their driveway and shoot it to explode it they talked one of the informants talked about taking out her security detail that was the FBI
Making these suggestions um and then you know their main informant he posed as so he really is an Iraq war veteran but he posed as part of like the elite team that helped rescue American Sniper Chris Kyle like he so he made himself seem like this operator you know and these
Guys they saw him as that like as a war hero and so they kind of listened to him and he told them you know when we were in the military when we were training a group of guys you’ve got to give them goals and objectives for training like
You’re training for a mission you know it’s not real but this is what he was telling what the informant Dan Chapel was telling Adam Fox the guy who they called the ring leader okay so a lot of the talk about you know Whitmer and and kidnapping her or whatever it’s not
Serious talk in their minds they think that this is to train the guys and get them focused so there’s a mission uh and you can see that too um in the discovery and the uh exculpatory statements that the jury didn’t get to see but things
That were picked up on audio of uh in just text messages too where you can see they don’t really want to do it and every time the FBI is pushing they’re saying no Daniel Harris at one point says no you know we’re not um we’re not going to be black bagging politicians
Taking them out of their cars we’re not going to be arresting them we’re not doing that because one of the things that they had suggested uh Adam suggested to the informant who was pushing these violent things was well why don’t we contact a constitutional sheriff and try to get a valid arrest
Warrant and he actually contacted five sheriffs and he had one Sheriff I believe from vanan County who actually had called him back and the FBI told him oh no don’t meet with him that’s going to be a setup H this is uh astounding stuff and so as this whole thing develops and like
You said it’s a period of months and there’s at least 14 different people involved plus other FBI informants that are sort of directing this this is not a simple story to tell so you you have your work cut out for you as a as a documentarian to try to make this all
Make sense but um as the as the story progresses uh there’s these confidential human sources these informs that the FBI is providing direction to and and tasking them to to Fu this type of behavior right but at the special agent level at the actual FBI agent level so
Sort of like an two steps up there’s real misconduct and some really sketchy unethical Behavior at the agent level of the people that are directing this whole thing to take place give us a sample or a couple of ideas of of what what the problems are with the actual Special Agents from the
FBI well the three lead handling agents have all been accused of misconduct in various ways uh HRI impola who was a main handling agent he’d been previously accused of perjury in a prior case right before uh the what they called operation cold snap the Whitmer investig he’d actually been referred uh for to
The FBI basically by another uh us attorney former US attorney for the Western District of Michigan he pointed out to the FBI that this agent had committed perjury multiple times in this case and he was hoping that they would investigate him one month later they
Made him a lead agent on this case where he engaged and his name again uh hrich impola and so he ends up becoming the lead agent for for the entire operation one of them one of the second lead handling agent the main one is a guy named Jason Chambers and Chambers is an
Interesting character um while all of this was going on he’s trying to launch his own private company called ex Intel which is a cyber security company but basically they were seeking contracts with the government to advise the government on domestic Terror cases so how great for Jason would it be if he
Foils a big case right to what he’s trying to leverage which is what he talks about by the way in in uh emails he’s talking about kind of leveraging his work at the FBI to launch his private company he even in one email to the name is redacted but we have the
Email he talks about how he’s reallocating FBI resources to launch exit Intel and go public with it he even mentions a person that he says he’s paying uh to do this but how was he paying her like as a as a source as a HS but she’s really working for his private
Company which I thought was astounding and the jury didn’t get to hear about this he was also seeking contracts with State different state governments for protection for venue protection that’s literally what he was selling them so if something happened like say a storming of estate Capital well that’s perfect
For selling his proprietary software this is that does event monitoring yeah I mean talking about a conflict of interests and leveraging as official position for his own personal gain yeah this was for his personal financial benefit and professional benefit as well as he launches his career in the private
Sector which some of these cyber security firms go on to make millions of dollars leveraging you know the skills these people you know learned in the FBI and so the third uh lead handling agent a man named Richard tras who actually signed off on the criminal complaint he
Was going to be the government’s star witness at trial he actually gets arrested because he and his wife attended a swinger party in Kalamazoo where they attended an orgy and then afterwards he uh beat his wife he tried to strangle her and um he was arrested for that but you know he spent
One night in jail and paid a $500 fine was just suspended for the FBI for that the only person in this case who actually uh committed violence was the FBI agent was the I mean that’s important to know right so the only person that actually did anything
Violent yeah was Richard is one of the lead FBI special agents correct oh and they also discovered after this he had a Facebook page where he was making these very virulent anti-trump he would call toilet thought of the Day posts where he would just go off on these screens Trump
Supporters people who were questioning the vaccine so this was clearly somebody who had potentially a conflict here so this Allstar lineup of three agents and I’m being very factious when I say Allstar I mean they’re clearly very compromised both professionally and personally um uh but who’s the who’s the the head
Guy who’s at the FBI who’s the special agent in charge in Detroit who’s kind of overseeing and orchestrating all this so that is a man named Steven dantuono and it’s interesting you mentioned him because he was he was overseeing the Detroit field office at the time that
This was going on he is promoted uh one week after these men are arrested October 7th of 2020 October 13th he’s promoted by Christopher Ray from uh head of the Detroit field office to be the assistant director of the DC field office and so he’s there when January 6
Happens and we can talk about the connections between the two cases if you like let’s do it because I mean you’ve got this setup job yeah where the FBI is essentially creating a crisis yes and dreaming up a kidnap plot and orchestrating IT training them equipping them giving them Direction and
Guidance uh and of course we’ll discuss the outcome of those of the legal matters there yeah but then the guy in charge as soon as they make the arrests a week later he gets promoted to be the Washington metropolitan field office uh special agent in charge is kind of like
A super agent so he gets called deputy director of the FBI for the Washington field office exactly so he’s way up there it means like in the Inner Circle like the top five guys of the bureau basically yeah and that’s so he goes from Detroit and orchestrating this and
He gets to DC in October which is November December January so basically three months before the January 6 yes Riot isn’t that interesting okay so let’s go back to April of 2020 in Michigan in Lancing at the Lancing Capital uh throughout April um of 2020 and I believe June as well April May
June there were uh these anti-lockdown rallies that were happening and also pro2a rallies as well but uh April 30th 2020 there is an anti-lockdown rally happening at the Lancing capital and the FBI decides they’re going to have the Wolverine Watchmen go so they’ve got their informant there they have some of
The members of The Wolverine Watchman and Adam FOX also attends but he’s not met these guys before he doesn’t know them uh but he’s there but he’s purportedly the head yeah he’s the ring leader right he’s never never met the people but he’s there right and it’s
Interesting this may have been when he first got on their radar to become the ring leader uh but so they’re there with some of the members of The Wolverine Watchman Dan Chapel the main informant who is basically the leader of that group he’s wearing a wire he’s talking
To Impala the handling agent there in real time by the way the FBI has and we know their agents stationed around the area in Lancing they’re all watching this as it’s happening they’ve got drones flying overhead at like 6,000 feet you don’t even see them and so they
Call he says oh I think these guys are getting ready to do something he doesn’t say what or what happened makes him think that but the FBI calls the Lancing Capital police tells them Stand Down open the doors and let everybody in so these guys and this did not come out
Till trial they waited in line an hour they went through covid screening to get in they were there in a full kit with their firearms but nothing happened they didn’t uh you know break any of the laws they waited in line they peacefully went in they did do some shouting when they
Were in there and they basically a a large group of people just occupied the building for about four hours and then left peacefully but interestingly the media was there and they took pictures of the Watchmen and they splashed these headlines the next day that said right-wing militias storming state
Capitals and that picture is used by the FBI to recruit more people into the watch the FBI has these guys posting the pictures and their group chats and they’re like oh yeah we can use this to recruit more people into the group and these guys don’t know that the FBI is in
Their group and that they think Dan is just this Veteran War herero their friend but but the progression of that yeah where these guys show up the FBI tells the Michigan State Police let them in the capital and let’s get these Optics to run with and then the people
Involved D there’s no storming no they line up they go through Co screen they get their temperatures check uh and then they go inside and they yell or whatever it is they do but I mean there’s pictures of them yelling in the faces of the but then they use the Optics they
Use the imagery of it yes the FBI does as a recruiting tool try to get more people militias to join militias yes um absolutely and so it’s it’s fascinating that that guy Dan Tuono who oversaw this then overseas January 6 but even go back further than that they they uh we don’t
Know what the operation was called but their operation to infiltrate the Midwest militia in 2018 that comes into play because every extremist group that according to the government that participated in January 6 proud boys oathkeepers 3centers the FBI had their informance in all of those groups going
Back years at this point so if those people were extreme that day who trained them and you know we know now for court documents how many informants were in like the proud boys for example multiple informants in their leadership chat they had an encrypted group chat called fafo
In the proud boys that had numerous informants in it well the FBI also created an encrypted group chat called fafo in the Whitmer case and then brought the guys into it it it’s amazing so um of the group in Michigan that was supposedly going to carry out this plot against Whitmer
Um how many were just essentially dupes just regular guys who yeah they had a certain interest or they had you know this idea that they wanted to get together and be a be a group how many ordinary guys ordinary citizens versus the number of FBI paid informance how much did the f
Outnumber these guys well there were 14 of them and there were 12 informant and three undercover agents that’s just that we know about yeah and there’s and in fact you say that we know about because there are in fact additional persons you’ve discovered that are on sort of
The periphery of this whole operation and those persons are afraid to talk because they’ve all been threatened by the FBI yeah that they will be charged in some way they’ll be roped into the various legal actions that are out there yeah well what the government was doing and the leadup to
This to try to make it a thing right because throughout the summer of 2020 as the government’s arranging these excursions for them to go on the FTX as these meetings the group is actually falling apart half of the men that were charged they were never actual members
Of The Wolverine Watchmen which was not even a militia group it was a prepping group before the FBI took over the group so there were these people they didn’t agree on everything they all didn’t like each other they were suspicious of each other when Dan brought Adam in that
Upset Pete and Joe who were the original founders of the Watchmen so they just kind of left the group they stopped showing up to meetings and trainings and Dan was the only one doing that um so you had one guy Paul Beller who was 21 years old when he got arrested for this
He just turned 25 in federal prison for State charges uh he was 21 and you know he halfway through in the summer of 20 he he moves to a different state he only attended one or two of these meetings uh he is at a um July 7 2020 meeting he is
On audio saying we’re not doing anything offensive we’re going to be a defensive group and he actually created his own group um because he didn’t agree with the things that the FBI was saying in their group he creates his own but then he ends up moving to South Carolina he
Gets arrested anyways Brandon cassera never a m of the Wolverine Watchman uh he got invited by somebody he met online to oh come hang out with us we do these defensive firearms training he had no idea in the summer of 2020 that he was walking into an active Tei
Investigation uh Tei stands for terrorism Enterprise investigation which is a specific it’s the highest Threat Level essentially gives the FBI uh more resources to use for this because they spent millions of dollars and it’s interesting that Jason Chambers we have text messages of him where he’s talking
To another FBI agent and he’s saying I’m going to run this as a Tei whether I get approval or not because they have to get approval uh from a higher up in order to get a Tei un unless you’re a special agent in El Paso Texas where they recruit people to do
Things and never get approval to do it and then well meaning truly patriotic sources who think they’re taking instruction from the FBI spend upwards of $700,000 in personal funds and they’re told by their Handler at the FBI don’t worry keep your receipts we’ll pay you back and then they Circle back to this
Person about a year later and say well you know we never got approval for the op so there’s no money to repay your expenses that’s that’s the El Paso FBI that that’s their their brand of corruption but I don’t want to mix I don’t want to mix FBI corruption stories
Let’s stick with the with Michigan and the Whitmer plot uh but that’s the kind of stuff they do and they do it all the time and anybody that tells you oh no that’s just an aberation they’re either terribly misinformed or they’re lying it’s it’s one of the other
Um you telling a a really fascinating tale uh and I just think it’s important again for this these distinctions you’ve made there’s basically 14 people some of whom only went to one or two meetings and no other involv right you have this cadr of FBI informants who keep
Advancing the ball and trying to push them into it yeah exactly um we have text messages between the uh agents and one of the informants Jenny plunk she was posing as the head of the Tennessee so I have to explain this the FBI in this case actually created fake militia
Groups they created a fake National militia group called The Patriot 3 percenters they couldn’t call the group The Three percenters they they wanted to touch on that though because that was robison’s cover story for how he became an informant in October of 2019 this chatter amongst three centers group so
The FBI creates a fictitious National militia group The Patriot 3centers Robison is posing as the head of the Wisconsin chapter Jenny plunk another informant is posing as the head of the Tennessee chapter they tell her at a certain point again this is probably around August of 2020 at this point the
Group is falling apart people are going their separate ways they task her with bringing keeping Barry cross in the group and remember this is a middle-aged trucker from Delaware with three kids what does he care about Gretchen Whitmer and her policies he lives in a different
State and he was fine with his Governor how he handled this but they tell her you’ve got to convince the guys that Barry has good ideas and that Barry brought them together now it’s interesting that the FBI has referred to these people as DTS violent scary people
That need to be in super max prisons because the the handle agents for Barry a gentleman named Christopher long from the Baltimore Field office and John Penrod they’re texting each other during the investigation making fun of him calling him BH which stood for bonehead coward and uh they are texting
With their informant plunk and they’re saying boy for somebody who runs his mouth a lot he sure seems to be a coward and they actually called him the p word I’m not going to say it but yeah so what what is plug what are her credentials to
Get her in this position right how did how did the FBI find her she was in the militia groups she was in militia culture already so she was already part of these groups we don’t really know how she becomes an informant but allegedly uh she heard concerning things and then
Somehow becomes an informant uh in in this case and she’s posing as the head of this the head of the Tennesse chapter of a fake group that doesn’t exist and it’s they needed her because Barry at this point he’s uh you know driving his truck he can’t attend these meetings she
Was actually the FBI had her driving from Tennessee to Delaware to pick him up so they could drive to Cambria Wisconsin together you know and she’s offering to drive so he can sleep and uh it’s crazy because she ends up sleeping in the same hotel room in the same bed
Is Barry the target of her investigation highly unethical this is just crazy So eventually there’s this big arrest that go that goes down and uh that’s in October I guess the first week of October 2020 M uh what precipitated the arrest what what was the you know why
Then why not two months before two months later why then well we we have um text messages and uh statements that were made um it looks like in September of 2020 the group is again falling apart they can’t get anything off the ground the FBI at this Point has tried to
Propose multiple plots they tried to get a disabled Vietnam veteran from Virginia a man named Frank Butler to kidnap and kill Ralph Northam they tried to get him to they told him he was going to be the head of the Virginia chapter again of this fake militia group and that he
Needed to recruit 20 to 25 people for a qrf this is a disabled elderly veteran um and then qrf quick reaction force yes exactly and and they were they one of the informants uh sent him ingredients to make homemade explosives telling him to double the ingredients thank God he
Didn’t do it uh but so they had tried these various things that just wasn’t working so by September they’re really pushing hard for these guys to do something and um at this point they they up the antee and they’ve got to introduce another undercover agent so they had introduced an undercover agent
His name is Mark schweers he was posing as a man named Mark Woods in June of 2020 he makes contact with Adam on Facebook the FBI uses online covert employees they basically poses fake identities online they join these groups whatever he had made contact with Adam but at this point they needed another
One so they bring in special agent Tim Bates U red to pose as a quote expl UC red just explain what that is uce is a undercover covert employee it’s their code word for uh agents who are undercover operating as undercover Okay so they bring him in posing as an
Explosives expert and they invite the guys to a a training at Luther uh at one of the guys who took a plea deal Tai Garbin at his property in Luther this is September uh 12 and 13 2020 weekend and so they invite these guys there they
Call them all down to what they call a circle of trust meeting which is again numerous informants and undercover FBI agents all standing there recording and everything and uh agent red plays a video that he claims he created of him blowing up an SUV and trying to tell the
Guys I can get explosives you know so you guys can blow up this bridge or whatever nobody is interested in purchasing them nobody gives him any money nobody makes an agreement no one there says anything about it they’re just kind of like okay that’s cool you
Know and it’s one of those things also where they’re all kind of trying to look hard to each other you know and talk to exactly where you don’t know there’s other men that are armed at this thing and maybe some of these guys don’t know each other that well so they don’t know
Could something bad happen to me if I don’t go along with this so they’re just kind of sitting there like okay but that didn’t work so then they say all right well so none of these the people that are there excuse me and if I’m putting words
In your mouth tell me no that isn’t right but what I’m what I’m imagining is let’s say there’s 15 people there I’ll just pick a number there’s groups of guys and twos threes whatever maybe some solo people but it’s not like they’re all no comrades and colleagues and
They’ve been out training every weekend for the last six months or something this is kind of an ad hoc group of people correct and these ftxs that the government would put on they would fi training exerc train exerc where they go shooting basically yes and they the government build these as familyfriendly
Events that’s the other thing again to maximize attendance they would tell people they could bring their kids oh we’re going to have a cookout there’s going to be beer and blah blah blah so these events you’d have families uh there lots of different people and so there’s people over in one area there’s
A medical Booth there’s food here there was a little girl’s birthday party at one of these events with kids swimming in a swimming pool and then you have people standing over here talking maybe and that’s like the FBI’s provocators with a couple of the guys again trying
To get them to do something or inight or say something and this is all FBI organized and paid before yes exactly yeah so they have this circle of trust meeting and this is in September where they introduce UC red trying to get any of these guys to bite on this explosives
Thing Nobody Does it they uh tell them that oh this when they do the takedown of these guys and arrest them the informant an says hey you know why don’t we come we’re going to meet in Yip salani and we’re going to go get hot
Wings and beer and red is going to give us free gear that’s what they thought they were going for meanwhile that was luring them to the arrest and it’s a strange thing because if you have somebody usually law enforcement if they’re doing a sting operation whether this is narcotics or anything else
You’re going to let the person make the purchase first and then you’re going to swoop in and arrest them they didn’t do that in this case they claimed these guys wanted to purchase explosives from this agent but they didn’t let anyone give him money because no one was going
To so there was no transaction there was no nobody gave them a down Contraband item cash they didn’t even think that they were going to to meet with him for explosives they were literally told we’re going to go meet with red to get free gear that is in text messages from
Their informant to these men did anybody specify with this free gear what’s the gear no they just told him like extra gear that he had around for the ftxs so like plate carriers uh magazines things like Firearms things that are expensive by the way that oh if you’re getting
This for free it’s like oh wow so it was an incentive again to just get them there and where did they hold this this event to bring everybody together that was in Yip salani was for the take down at a private location or um yeah I
No I think they just took them out somewhere they were going to meet up at like some restaurant or something and that was where the arrest happened some of them were arrested in different places Brandon at his place of work was arrested so it’s just um it’s wild that
They were able to do this and like we have text messages of Adam the guy who they called the ring leader telling Dan in September right before this arrest I really don’t think we can do this you know I’m sorry I know you like he’s
Saying I know you really want to do this but maybe we should just focus on Tai’s bugout plan which was they were going to get kind of bug out in a location like if something bad happened that’s what he was saying and so he’s even like he’s
Apologizing he feels bad there are times throughout this it’s just so sad because there were daily calls and texts between Adam and the informant Dan where you just see that Adam is willing to do anything to please this man sees him as a father figure and he is uh Dan’s
Complaining to him about his injuries how the VA isn’t helping him this Adam is homeless he has nothing and he would order Dan pizzas oh let me order you some food so Dan really played up this idea that he was being mistreated as a veteran trying to get Adam angry about
How the government treating obnoxious name that they called this guy Adam right didn’t they have some kind of Captain autism so the guy who was supposedly the head of this thing the ring leader the ring leader they refer to as Captain a yeah the other guys
Called him that and would laugh at him because he would kind of fumble around at the trainings he didn’t really know how to handle his Firearms properly like the other guys they kind of saw him as like not somebody on their caliber and they weren’t sure why Dan kept insisting
No we need to have him here he’s just like us because they kind of saw him as fumbling around and Goofy really not as a ring leader but these men all supposed to be co-conspirators and so throughout this thing there is no actual agreement between these guys on anything there’s
Drunk talk of them talking about wanting to fly Whitmer over the lake on a kite but it’s not even clear like how this well what was their plan what were they going to do with her well they’ve said several things oh they were going to um
They’re going to take her out on a boat and leave her in the middle of Lake Michigan and so it would be inconvenient for her security would have to come get her and it’s like so they wanted to inconvenience her they’re going to go through the trouble of kidnapping her
Just to put her in a boat and leave her there and then do nothing the point well exactly and then they talked about like well oh they were going to go I guess cross the waters and uh the middle of fall you know in these cold insane
Choppy Waters they’re going to take her over from Michigan cross this insane Lake to Wisconsin to have a Citizens trial or something it’s it’s nonsense sense um some of the things that they talked about were joking things this is J none of this stuff happened none of it happened it’s not
A silly talk right Adam said something about wanting to you know oh we’re going to hog Tire to a table and everybody stand around like they just did the world’s biggest drug bus well it’s obviously not a nice thing to say but if you listen to the context of how he was
Saying it he thought he was joking amongst friends who are are venting they’re angry about what’s happening uh so they you know they basically created this situation poured a bunch of gasoline on it lit the match and said oh let’s go you know let’s see what happens
Right so there’s this big arrest in October 2020 uh Whitmer does her sort of smiling smirking press conference uh which was really very peculiar to watch um CU she’s smug she almost seems happy that it happened or it’s just it’s a very odd it’s an odd it’s weird in that first press
Conference she did she said that her team was aware of everything the entire time as she praised the FBI and the uh you know State local law enforcement but then later she’d walk that back and she said oh every time I scan a crowd I am
Scared and in fear for my life yeah well she had the change her tune to you know line up with the prosecution right and to just to touch on her one more time um real quick her team was aware throughout this like she was never at any point in
Any actual danger she knows that um the FBI so they coordinated what they called Recons they said these guys were Rec did a Recon of her vacation Cottage this was something they introduced at the end of August because again they needed to wrap up their Tei they’d spent millions of
Dollars they had nothing to show for it also let’s put pole cams on her vacation Cottage and then we’ll have the FBI informant Drive these guys around in a vehicle up and down the street so it looks like they’re casing the place literally I have text messages from the
Informant saying who to invite invite Brandon we want him there on the 28th oh invite this person try to get this guy there so they’re it’s not Adam doing it the ring leader it’s not Barry arranging this it’s the FBI and they’re saying we want these guys there try to get them
All to show up to the daytime Recon was August 28 2020 they uh the informants driving the SUV which of course the FBI is paying for Adam is in the passenger seat they pick up a gentleman named Eric Muller he’s a guy from Cadillac Michigan who had worked security with Adam before
He has no idea where they’re going there text messages came out that showed Adam and him were talking he thought that because antifa had been in BLM had been coming in and rioting and they were staying at hotels and at as his job is security they were kind of noticing this
And taking notice so Adam tells him we’re going to go look at a high-profile vacation Cottage Eric in his mind is thinking oh this is a security job you know they must have found these guys are using airbnbs now instead of hotels so he thinks that’s what he’s going for he
Doesn’t know till he gets in the vehicle that they’re actually going to drive up by her vacation Cottage and the FBI in advance has installed multiple pole cams to catch them on and they have everybody coordinating this whitmer’s husband was actually there at The Residence at this
Time while they were all coordinating it with her detail and law enforcement but they had to do with second Recon that wasn’t enough they needed to do a nighttime Recon where they tried to bring more people into this to just get something incriminating on them and we
Have text messages from the agents as this is happening with the vehicles driving up there where they’re saying oh you know the lighting over here on this pole cam isn’t good drive make sure you drive them up when you drive up that you get them by this pool cam so we can like
It’s they’re orchestrating like a theatrical production or something oh they are I mean that’s exactly what they’re doing um the arrests are made and then eventually this all goes to trial actually plural trials right both federal and state give us a little recap of how the uh how the trials went and
What happened to who and kind of a a summary for us is the what the breakout was yes so six men were charged federally with conspiracy to kidnap they added a superseding indictment with wmd charges which was also ridiculous what was the supposed mass destruction to purchase explosives but they also
Claimed that Barry had at one point taped pennies to a firework he was trying to make a flashbang but they said he was trying to put shatan on an explosive or something so they’re literally call Pennies on a firework on a firework he purchased from a store
Like legally we had to have testimony from the agents about the mass destru yeah this is now you’ve taped some pennies to the back and now it’s a wmd I guess um but so those six guys that that when they’re arrested um it almost immediately I would say within uh one or
Two months after them being arrested before all the discovery had come in uh one of the gentlemen Ty Garbin who was an airplane mechanic he took a plea deal it’s interesting he was the only guy who had a private attorney who’s used to work for the FBI that arranges the
Sweetheart deal for him so he takes a plea then another guy Caleb Franks he takes a plea he’s pressured into it about a month before trial this is after the evidence of entament has already come out but Franks was facing life in prison for a couple of other things that
He engaged in with the informant Dan and the other guy who took a plea deal Ty garbon they had done this ghost gun thing that on the side that Dan Chapel had them basically selling guns to drug dealing felons well that’s a legit I mean if you’re selling yeah if you’re
Selling guns to drug dealing felons people who can’t legally own them but that’s separate from this those additional charges to Franks they found that he had smuggled suboxin into prison so they were going to get him with that too so he’s facing life in prison I
Think he felt pressured he took a plea so four guys go to trial uh Brandon cassera Daniel Harris who was a 24-year-old marine by the way uh Barry Croft and Adam Fox Brandon and Daniel are acquitted and then there’s a mistrial for Adam and Barry so the government decides to Double Down retry
Adam and Barry using the same judge judge yoner who had basically prevented all of the exculpatory information I told you guys about the text messages the things that that these guys were saying that wasn’t violent that was indicating they didn’t want to do anything that was all suppressed uh
There were a lot of issues there with that trial this is why it’s on appeal there was an issue of Juror misconduct where they didn’t have a proper remor hearing about that allegation didn’t properly investigate it and prevented all of this stuff from going to the jury
They put time limits just on the defense for this for questioning the government star witness they get 25 minute time limits but not the prosecution how can this happen you know that’s not a real trial you’re rigging it you’re preventing these people from mounting an actual defense from showing any evidence
That they have of their innocence to a jury they couldn’t have any Witnesses testify on their behalf because all these people who got invited to an FTX who came with their kids they were all threatened with potential charges and called unindicted co-conspirators and so you don’t get a
Fair trial So Adam and Barry are convicted then they have the First State Trial the state charges are for aiding and ab bedding essentially providing material support Pete muso Joe Morrison and Paul Beller are the first guys and they’re also hit with gang affiliation felony firearms and essentially what
They say that they did of how they aided and eded this fake conspiracy was well you allowed somebody to use your property for training you allowed us to have a meeting at your property it’s like but you the FBI called those meetings though that’s entrapment but so
They were hit with those and they were convicted and again a very unfair process where the same thing they couldn’t mention inment they couldn’t bring in this evidence but the government can mention oh Adam and Barry were just convicted but the defense couldn’t say Daniel and Brandon were
Acquitted this is not a fair process so then we have the final uh State Trial it was going to be Five Guys Brian Higgins Sean fix uh Eric Muller and Bill and Michael null their twin brothers uh Shan fix and Brian Higgins took plea deals um
So it was just the null brothers and Eric they go to trial and they’re acquitted those last three guys and so this is and that was just this September yeah I remember seeing the video from the courtroom right now we’ve got five men who are trying to appeal their
Convictions and Adam and Barry were sent um right after they were convicted in in the retrial I interviewed them while they were still at newo County I got statements from them for the weaponization committee I published one of those statements and the next day Adam and Barry were moved from new ago
County to different supermax prisons across the country so they put Adam and Florence supermax they put Barry and terot and it cut off my ability to contact them anymore have them participate in the documentary which was very upsetting and so well it’s also very deliberate it was delate the effort
On the part of the government and they restrict their phone calls their ability to to send letters they won’t let them buy stamps they drain their commissary um it’s insane Barry when he was first sent to Tera hoot he was told he was going to go into the infamous
Communications management unit so you get one 15minute phone call per month and that’s it no communication with the outside world now this was originally created after 911 for international terrorists who were speaking Arabic that’s why you had the CMU so the translators could listen make sure they’re not you know conducting attacks
And stuff what are we putting Barry there for the midd AG truck driver who didn’t really have a criminal record Adam Fox had no criminal record whatsoever right no History of Violence nothing so they’re in supermax prisons now the three guys who were convicted at State charges of providing material
Support they could be incarcerated until 2063 wow yeah and that’s interesting because on the eve of their appeals they were in Michigan prisons and they were not charged federally not convicted federally on the eve of their appeals they all get shipped out to to Federal BOP facilities across the country they
Send Paul to Minersville Pennsylvania they send uh Joe Morrison to pekan Illinois and then they send Pete muso to Gilmer which is in West Virginia FCI Gilmer so they move him out of Michigan can’t talk to their lawyers can’t access a Michigan law library they didn’t give them their transcripts transcripts were
Delayed the court reporter didn’t provide all of them it took forever for her to get them now these men their appeals briefs are due this February their lawyers have just the Michigan Department of Corrections to find out why were they moved anyways their lawyers can’t meet with them phone
Calls they can’t get phone calls through can’t get letters through their legal mail we’ve got proof from this you know filing this latest filing that shows it was rejected it was sent back returned to Sender legal mail of them trying to get these men their transcripts to prepare for appeals which are very
Timely yeah this is so I have said on this podcast and other interviews with other outside organizations uh that the FBI in particular will do anything and I like bold caps underline they will do anything to get you if you’re a target of theirs uh without any restriction
They will lie cheat steal manufacture information distort stuff no matter what they will do whatever it takes if you come within their crosshairs am I exaggerating no not at all in fact uh one of the defense attorneys Mr Barnett at this last trial caught the FBI fabricating evidence on the stand they
Had altered the timestamp of what Eric said on the on the way to the vacation Cottage that the FBI planned the daytime Recon they changed it so that what he said four hours later they tried to make it appear that’s what he said on the way
There to make it look like he knew that they were going to her Cottage on the way there that is literally you fabricating evidence they altered someone had to manually alter that Tim stamp and we only know this cuz Mr Barnett caught it while it happened had
He not caught that Eric could be in prison right now but they were allowed to explain this the way as he made a typo no he had to manually change the Tim stamp it wasn’t a typo it’s called fabricating evidence right it’s like it’s a frame job so I’ve watched the uh
Trailer the two-minute preview of your docu mentary uh it’s excellent and I know that folks that are watching this or listening to it uh or have got to be intrigued by all the work that you’ve done on this so please take a moment and tell people uh where they can go to see
Your trailer and more importantly how they can support your work because none of this happens based on you know uh good wishes and happy thoughts it comes down to money in the end I mean so you need financial support to continue doing your work uh so take a moment and just
Explain where folks can go whether it’s internet social media GoFundMe whatever it is talk about how folks can follow you yeah sure uh so our website for the documentary the documentary itself is called kidnap and kill an FBI Terror plot and uh we didn’t want to get a website called kidnap and kill.com
Because if I’m not on a list I’m gonna be you be well you’re on a list now I guarantee you oh I know I am uh so we got a website that is K the letter K andk film.com if you go there you can watch the trailer it’s right on the
Front page there and there’s also a donate page you can donate there as well there’s a media tab page you can see some of the other interviews I’ve done if you want to learn more about the case um you can follow the same account on
Twitter it is K andk film on Twitter and uh my Twitter is not radex n o t r a d iix you can follow me there and from there you’ll BAS basically hear about what I’m doing that’s great um so we talked before we began filming this and
You said that you hoped to have something out pretty soon in the first quarter of 2024 um I know that people watching this and listening to this are very impressed you have encyclopedic knowledge of this case and the various characters involved you literally need a scorecard you
Really do because there’s all the sort of uh the the people that have been accused of crime some convicted some pled out some exonerated but then there’s also all these characters that the FBI was running and then there’s the FBI agents that are involved um of the FBI agents that are
Involved I mean this is a complex web we we’ve discussed right because there’s not just the the Michigan militia guys and the Whitmer kidnapping you mentioned that there was a national Patriots 3% group you talked about guys in Baltimore who are running who had overall uh supervisory control of this
Of this entire operation well I will say uh special agent Charles story who is the one who did sign off on the Tei investigation since he signed off on It ultimately This falls on him he allowed Jason Chambers to do the Tei knowing you know they knew full well there was no
Actual plot happening here so him uh Steven dantuono who was the special agent in charge of the Detroit field office who was then promoted and oversaw January 6 it falls on him as well and he should be questioned and brought in uh put under oath as all of the all three
Handling agents put under oath and made to answer questions about what they did in this case and the informants as well and I think they should also be civil liable uh it’s a tremendous story it’s a creepy story because it really points out abuse of authority and Power in many
Cases these FBI guys are really uh just thugs with guns and badges um and they go out and recruit dirtballs I mean this one guy was a child molester career criminal criminal felon oh my God and they’re using him to basically orchestrate and run Robison is the guy’s
Name correct yeah they’re using him to run and orchestrate the whole thing and they kept him completely off the stand they did not allow him to testify so his role in building this was totally the jury didn’t get to see completely hidden they didn’t get to see the things he was
Saying at these meetings which was horrific um and we have it we know exactly what he was doing and there were other things he was oh my God he’s he’s a felon and a predator he’s running across the country with guns transporting explosives material doing all of committing various crimes along
The way he Fred a couple out of an SUV for a fake charity he was running while he was doing this that the FBI was aware of he had a fake charity called race to unite races and he defrauded a couple out of an SUV telling them oh we’re
Going to use this to go after child traffickers he even told these guys he worked with law enforcement he worked with the Poli he did work with law enfor he did they just they thought they were going to be going after child traffickers though and this is again
They knew that that was something that would get these men that they really didn’t like child Predators so let’s put a pedo in their midst let this guy around their kids and then tell them that he’s actually going after child traffickers and they can help him now
Moreover one more thing he was pushing and this comes into play the $5,000 credit cards prepaid credit cards were actually attached to his fake 5013 uh 501c3 charity race to unite races during the course of this when they towards the end when they really hadn’t gotten anything on these guys and they were
Trying to wrap it up and they needed something they started pushing these $5,000 prepaid credit cards encouraging the guys to go buy gear with it oh we can give you this and imagine that you’re Indigent like Adams homeless living in the basement of the VAC Shack
He turns it down he doesn’t take the credit card he doesn’t go by gear they wanted them to make large purchases of firearms or ammunition right but it didn’t happen and that was all Robison um so and I’m glad you touched on the expenses part of it you said they
That the FBI spent millions of dollars this whole operation but the the confidential the confidential human sources the informance that the FBI uh was using for this operation many of them received tens of thousands of dollars in payments uh and more than just cash that some of them also received other Goods
Or items on top can you kind of run through a little summary of that for us uh yes Robison for his work in this was paid $20,000 he was also like I said allowed to run around wild across the country you know doing all these things Dan
Chapel was paid almost $60,000 for his work in this and it was actually 23,000 of that was given to him in December of 2020 after the guys were successfully arrested as a bonus so they were paying the informants and envelopes of cash that said Chase Bank on them and uh Dan
Got almost $60,000 for about 6 months of work which is more than he made an entire year uh working as a trucker although he lied initially and said he worked for the Postal Service he worked for a trucking company that was contracted to work with them he was not
A federal worker right so he also the FBI helped him move to a new house they get got him a laptop because he was going to college now and they purchased him a smartwatch he got that so he got a variety of goodies out of this and got
Relocated to a nicer house it’s outrageous stuff um I could go on and on I could talk about this for another hour with you but we can’t do that unfortunately Christina erso the name of the film again is on the website kidnap and kill and FBI Terror plot and the
Website is K andk film.com everybody should go to that website everyone should see the work that she’s done and uh as far as I’m concerned everyone should make a donation towards the completion of her work because this is incredibly important stuff and you can see how this this
Example what the impact is or what the repercussions are across the FBI more broadly and across our department of justice this is very very important work so congratulations Christina thank you very much for joining us on watch thank you I’m Chris Farrell on Watch
