When a Michigan jury last April acquitted two of the key players in the plot by a group of far-right militiamen to kidnap and execute Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, it appeared that federal prosecutors once again had bungled a clear case of far-right criminal behavior in the mode of previous failures like the Malheur standoff and Hutaree militia cases.
On Tuesday, though, they scored a kind of compensatory victory: The two Michigan ringleaders whose cases were declared a mistrial in the earlier prosecution were in fact convicted by a Grand Rapids federal jury for conspiracy to kidnap Whitmer. The outcome suggests that Justice Department prosecutors are finally beginning to understand the nature of what they’re up against—and how deep the far right’s reach in modern America has become.
Barry Croft
In April, the jury found both Daniel Harris, 23, of Lake Orion, and Brandon Caserta, 32, of Canton, Michigan, innocent on all charges, and they were released. However, a mistrial was declared in the case of the two men who prosecutors have depicted as the primary drivers of the conspiracy—Adam Fox, 37, of Grand Rapids; and Barry Croft, 44, of Bear, Delaware—and they remained in custody.
Both men face potential terms up to life in prison at sentencing, the date for which has not been announced.
Cases such as these can serve as a kind of bellwether for the government’s ability to prosecute cases where federal crimes are inspired by extremist ideologies such as the far-right “Patriot” movement, particularly when the defense revolves around claims of entrapment by law enforcement and political bias by prosecutors. Their outcomes often have far-reaching consequences when it comes to subsequent enforcement.
“Getting these convictions and, most important for the FBI, disrupting the plot has to go down as a win,” Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, told MLive.
Adam Fox
The new trial had unfolded over the previous two weeks in a familiar fashion. Prosecutors gave jurors the wide range of evidence demonstrating that not only were the militiamen planning to break the law as an attack on Michigan state government, but that they took active measures to carry it out, including paramilitary training sessions, bomb-making exercises, and reconnaissance missions, all captured on video and audio recordings.
Unlike the previous trial, though, prosecutors were careful to show jurors the voluminous social media posts calling for political violence that the men had published well before the FBI ever became involved.
Defense attorneys largely followed the strategy deployed in the April trial, accusing the FBI of playing politics by entrapping a large group of Trump supporters in criminal behavior—arguments that echo right-wing rationales for the Jan. 6 insurrection that place the blame on the FBI, as well as recent right-wing attacks on federal investigators for serving a search warrant at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
They attempted to cast doubt on the motives of the chief FBI informant, a man known to the plotters as “Big Dan,” who testified in the second trial to rebut the accusations, telling jurors that the only money the government gave him was for purchasing a computer and to compensate for meals and other expenses.
"I wanted to protect lives," Big Dan said. "I never asked for money. I never expected money. I wanted to prevent bad people from doing bad things."
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Trump himself had personally cast doubt on the prosecution. Speaking to a recent conservative conference, he labeled the Michigan prosecution “fake,” adding: “Gretchen Whitmer was in less danger than the people in this room right now, it seems to me.”
Defense attorneys tried to tap into these sentiments in their courtroom arguments. They repeatedly told jurors that their verdict would be a perfect opportunity to send a message to the FBI.
Prosecutors defended the agency. “The FBI did stop this,” the lead prosecutor told jurors, adding: “Thank God they did it before anybody got hurt or killed.”
Jurors deliberated for about eight hours. The Detroit Free Press reported that “Croft had a look of resignation as the guilty verdicts were read, while Fox didn’t have a reaction.”
“The noise aside, the arguments about entrapment, there was still sufficient evidence that these individuals were willingly, openly and, to various degrees, happily going along with a plan to kidnap a sitting governor,” Lewis said.
Whitmer welcomed Tuesday's convictions. “I want to thank the prosecutors and law enforcement officers for their hard work and my family, friends, and staff for their support," she said in an official statement. "Today’s verdicts prove that violence and threats have no place in our politics and those who seek to divide us will be held accountable. They will not succeed.
“But we must also take a hard look at the status of our politics,” Whitmer continued. “Plots against public officials and threats to the FBI are a disturbing extension of radicalized domestic terrorism that festers in our nation, threatening the very foundation of our republic."
