the ILITIAMEN, the OVERNOR the IDNAPPING HAT ASN’T
IN THESE FRAGILE AND FRACTURED TIMES, TERRIBLE PEOPLE SEEK
to do terrible things. We reel from one assault to the next, facing down a relentless barrage of devilry and depravity. But—give thanks—sometimes, just in time, the forces of good catch a break. Sometimes those we rely upon to protect us do manage to intervene. Sometimes the terrible people’s most terrible deeds are prevented from ever happening. ing or most exculpatory—more and more of this material was, incrementally, made public. And so, even though the judge would often rule to exclude from the forthcoming trial what had been quoted, by reading through hundreds of these documents I could submerge myself in the morass.
TWO OF THE FIVE MEN IN A CAR HEADED TO WHITMER’S RESIDENCE THAT NIGHT WERE FBI INFORMANTS. A THIRD WAS AN FBI AGENT.
As I did so, I found myself somewhat taken aback to be contemplating thoughts I hadn’t expected to entertain. For instance, it became increasingly apparent to me that, despite all the surveillance and recording over many months before these men were arrested, the connective tissue of the purported conspiracy seemed perplexingly elusive. By cherry-picking and stitching together disparate statements, incidents, and circumstances, you could certainly fashion an argument that such a conspiracy may have existed—just as the prosecution maintained—but it did seem surprising that the kinds of sustained conversation you might have assumed would be there, in which the principal participants sat around and discussed both the broad scope and the practical minutiae of what they intended to do, didn’t appear to exist.
It was also perplexing to see how much of the connective tissue that did exist involved people who were acting on behalf of the FBI. Take, for instance, what seemed, at first glance, to be one of the more damning events in the alleged narrative of this conspiracy. It is one thing to be told that, on the night of September 12, 2020, Adam Fox and Barry Croft, who according to the prosecutors were the plot’s de facto ringleaders, conducted a nighttime reconnaissance of Whitmer’s Elk Rapids vacation home, driving around the area after first stopping to inspect the underside of the bridge on Highway 31, where they might plant explosives. But it is perhaps another to piece together
that the truck in question, a Chevy Silverado, had five people in it. And that Fox and Croft were in the backseat, Croft in the middle, next to a man who turned out to be an FBI informant. And that the truck was being driven by its owner, Dan Chappel, who had been at the center of everything that had or hadn’t been happening for several months. And that he was also an FBI informant. And that next to him up front was another man, whom Chappel had introduced to the group as an explosives expert. And that this man was not an FBI informant. He was an FBI agent.
Not that this strange circumstance—three of the five people in a car at such a crucial moment being affliated with the FBI—itself absolves the accused men of criminality. The law offers extraordinary leeway for undercover operatives to interpose themselves in such situations in order to expose wrongdoing. But as I learned more about this, and similar scenarios—one defense filing claimed to have identified twelve government informants contributing to this case in one way or another, “assisted by FBI agents working undercover”—it felt as though it cast a more complex and problematic gloss over what was taking place and what it might have meant.
Also, there were times when these different kinds of problems—the curiously prominent role of informants and the strangely disjointed and unexpected nature and tone of the allegedly incriminatory material—seemed to compound each other. Here’s just one example: The prosecution drew attention in the indictment to the fact that the demolish-a-bridge plan apparently emerged shortly after the first daytime reconnaissance trip to the area of Whitmer’s vacation home. “In an encrypted message on or about August 30, 2020, Ty Gerard Garbin suggested taking down a highway bridge near the Governor’s vacation home would hinder a law enforcement response.” So does it make any difference to know that the relevant text exchange between Garbin and the FBI informant Chappel included nine emojis, two Borat GIFs, multiple movie references (one to Monty Python and the Holy Grail), and an “LOL”? Agreed, there is no particular qualifying degree of gravitas required to make evil plans. Flippancy and playfulness are not reliable indications of innocence. But it certainly wasn’t how I’d expected methodical, hate-spewing terrorist extremists hell-bent on destruction would be strategizing, and it made me even more curious to know more.
DANIEL HARRIS WAS A TWENTY-FOUR-YEAR-OLD EX-MARINE—AGES are as of the March 2022 trial—who had been honorably discharged and received disability benefits. Back in Michigan, he moved into the basement of his parents’ house. He was working locally as a security guard and was looking for a similar job in Afghanistan. In June 2020, Harris had been inter-viewed by a Michigan news outlet as he took part in a Black Lives Matter protest in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing, telling a reporter, “Everyone’s voice should be heard, no matter the color on your skin… Protesting is important to me because it gives us all a voice to be heard.”
"HOURS PASSED BEFORE CASERTA EVEN REALized HE WAS BEING CHARGED AS PART OF A CONSPIRACY”. “ARE YOU SERIOUS?" HE ASKED
Adam Fox, thirty-eight, lived in the basement of a Grand Rapids vacuumcleaner business, the Vac Shack, where he sometimes worked behind the counter. To descend into his improvised living space, visitors went through the door with the building the best vacuums of yesterday, today and tomorrow poster on it. He reportedly had two
