Watching The Watchmen

The Michigan kidnapping case is a major test for the Biden administration’s commitment to fighting domestic terrorism — and a crucible for the fierce ideological divisions pulling the country apart.

In the inky darkness of a late summer night last September, three cars filled with armed men began circling Birch Lake in northern Michigan, looking for ways to approach Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s three-bedroom vacation cottage, subdue her — using a stun gun if necessary — and drag her away.

One vehicle stopped to check out a boat launch while a second searched in vain for the right house in the thick woods ringing the lake. The third car ran countersurveillance, using night vision goggles to look out for cops and handheld radios to communicate with the others.

Earlier, they had scoped out a bridge over the Elk River, just a few miles away, scrambling down under the span to figure out where plastic explosives would need to be placed to blow it sky-high. That would slow police response, giving the men time to escape with the governor — who had infuriated them by imposing COVID lockdowns, among other outrages — and either take her to Lake Michigan, where they could abandon her on a boat, or whisk her to Wisconsin, where she would be tried as a “tyrant.”

“Everybody down with what’s going on?” an Iraq War veteran in the group demanded to know when they ended their recon mission, well past midnight, at a campsite where they were all staying.

“If you’re not down with the thought of kidnapping,” someone else replied, “don’t sit here.”

The men planned for all kinds of obstacles, but there was one they didn’t anticipate: The FBI had been listening in all along.

For six months, the Iraq War vet had been wearing a wire, gathering hundreds of hours of recordings. He wasn’t the only one. A biker who had traveled from Wisconsin to join the group was another informant. The man who’d advised them on where to put the explosives — and offered to get them as much as the task would require — was an undercover FBI agent. So was a man in one of the other cars who said little and went by the name Mark.

Just over three weeks later, federal and state agents swooped in and arrested more than a dozen men accused of participating in what a federal prosecutor called a “deeply disturbing” criminal conspiracy hatched over months in secret meetings, on encrypted chats, and in paramilitary-style training exercises. Seven of the men who had driven to Birch Lake that night would end up in jail.

The case made international headlines, with the Justice Department touting it as an example of law enforcement agencies “working together to make sure violent extremists never succeed with their plans.” Prosecutors alleged that kidnapping the governor was just the first step in what some on the right call “the Big Boog,” a long-awaited civil war that would overthrow the government and return the United States to some supposed Revolutionary War–era ideal.

The defendants, for their part, see it very differently. They say they were set up.

The audacious plot to kidnap a sitting governor — seen by many as a precursor to the Jan. 6 assault on the US Capitol by hundreds of Trump-supporting protesters — has become one of the most important domestic terrorism investigations in a generation.

The prosecution has already emerged as a critical test for how the Biden administration approaches the growing threat of homegrown anti-government groups. More than that, though, the case epitomizes the ideological divisions that have riven the country over the past several years. To some, the FBI’s infiltration of the innermost circle of armed anti-government groups is a model for how to successfully forestall dangerous acts of domestic terrorism. But for others, it’s an example of precisely the kind of outrageous government overreach that radicalizes people in the first place, and, increasingly, a flashpoint for deep state conspiracy theories.

The government has documented at least 12 confidential informants who assisted the sprawling investigation. The trove of evidence they helped gather provides an unprecedented view into American extremism, laying out in often stunning detail the ways that anti-government groups network with each other and, in some cases, discuss violent actions.

An examination of the case by BuzzFeed News also reveals that some of those informants, acting under the direction of the FBI, played a far larger role than has previously been reported. Working in secret, they did more than just passively observe and report on the actions of the suspects. Instead, they had a hand in nearly every aspect of the alleged plot, starting with its inception. The extent of their involvement raises questions as to whether there would have even been a conspiracy without them.

A longtime government informant from Wisconsin, for example, helped organize a series of meetings around the country where many of the alleged plotters first met one another and the earliest notions of a plan took root, some of those people say. The Wisconsin informant even paid for some hotel rooms and food as an incentive to get people to come.

The Iraq War vet, for his part, became so deeply enmeshed in a Michigan militant group that he rose to become its second-in-command, encouraging members to collaborate with other potential suspects and paying for their transportation to meetings. He prodded the alleged mastermind of the kidnapping plot to advance his plan, then baited the trap that led to the arrest.

This account is based on an analysis of court filings, transcripts, exhibits, audio recordings, and other documents, as well as interviews with more than two dozen people with direct knowledge of the case, including several who were present at meetings and training sessions where prosecutors say the plot was hatched. All but one of the 14 original defendants have pleaded not guilty, and they vigorously deny that they were involved in a conspiracy to kidnap anyone.

The prosecution gathered thousands of social media posts, some 400,000 text messages, and more than 1,300 hours of recordings — including audio or video from all three vehicles it alleges traveled to Birch Lake on the night of Sept. 12. It maintains that this evidence shows many of those who were charged not only expressed anti-government sentiments, but also took concrete steps toward the goal of kidnapping or killing law enforcement officers and elected officials.

But the defendants, as well as others caught up in the sweeping investigation — which stretched from Baltimore to Kansas City — claim their talk never rose beyond the level of fantasy and they never intended to harm anyone. Although they have not denied participating in training events, attending meetings, and communicating with other defendants, they claim that no actual conspiracy to kidnap the governor ever existed.

Instead, they say, they were targeted because of their political views. Some describe the case as a premeditated campaign by the government to undermine the Patriot movement, an ideology based on fealty to the Second Amendment and the conviction that the government has violated the Constitution and is therefore illegitimate. They argue that the recordings and text messages that the government calls proof of a criminal conspiracy are in fact constitutionally protected speech — expressions of frustration at what they see as the government’s betrayal of its citizens.

Attorneys for all but one of the defendants declined invitations to comment on the record for this story. To date, one defendant has formally accused the government of entrapment, arguing that the FBI assembled the key plotters, encouraged the group's anti-government feelings, and even gave its members military-style training. Additional defendants have said they plan to make similar claims when the cases, divided between federal and state court, go to trial starting as soon as October.

Last week, the lawyer for one defendant filed a motion that included texts from an FBI agent to a key informant, the Iraq War veteran, directing him to draw specific people into the conspiracy — potential evidence of entrapment that he said the government “inadvertently disclosed.” He is requesting all texts sent and received by that informant, and other attorneys are now considering motions that accuse the government of intentionally withholding evidence of entrapment.

Meanwhile, Gregory Townsend, one of the lead prosecutors handling the cases against eight of the defendants in Michigan state court, was reassigned in May pending an attorney general audit into whether he had withheld evidence about deals cut with informants during a murder and arson trial in Oakland County in 2000. And on Sunday, in a matter apparently unrelated to the alleged kidnapping conspiracy, one of the lead FBI agents in the case, Richard J. Trask, was charged in state court in Kalamazoo with assault with intent to do great bodily harm.

A spokesperson for the Michigan attorney general’s office said that the defendants’ claims “are not indisputable facts,” adding that the office “will counter and correct these issues in court.” The Department of Justice declined requests for an interview or to provide comment for this article, citing its policy not to discuss pending criminal cases. An FBI spokesperson said the bureau is aware of the charges against Trask but declined further comment for this article.

Claiming government entrapment is a common strategy in domestic terrorism cases — in part because it is among the only available defenses if prosecutors have evidence from extensive surveillance. Such defenses usually fail, and most domestic terrorism defendants are convicted [by American Federal kangaroo courts with a greater than 98% conviction rate].

But not always. Less than a decade ago, for example, an apocalyptic Christian group in Michigan was prosecuted for allegedly plotting to murder police officers. Among other things, the defendants claimed that the entire conspiracy was instigated by deeply embedded FBI informants, and the defendants were ultimately acquitted by the judge.

Since its founding 113 years ago [to enforce the Mann Act], the FBI has relied upon, and often paid, confidential informants to aid in criminal investigations. Starting in the late 1950s, it has employed them specifically to infiltrate dissident groups and spy on targeted individuals, including the Black Panthers, the Ku Klux Klan, and Martin Luther King Jr.

The tactic has a decidedly mixed record. Informants have helped make cases that averted terrible violence. But informants have also coerced innocent people, falsified evidence, and even committed murder while working for the FBI. The bureau’s reliance on informants, much criticized in the 1970s, received renewed scrutiny in the wake of 9/11, when they were used to probe Muslim groups for alleged involvement in Islamic terrorism.

The Michigan case is unfolding at another fraught moment in American history. In court, the government has drawn a direct line between the alleged kidnapping plot and the Jan. 6 [non-]insurrection, holding up the storming of the US Capitol [by government agents] as evidence that the Michigan defendants posed a profound threat.

Last month, Attorney General Merrick Garland stressed in a speech about the government’s approach to domestic terrorism that it is focused “on violence, not ideology,” adding that “in America, espousing a hateful ideology is not unlawful.” But if the defense is able to undermine the methods used to build the Michigan case, it could add weight to the theory that the administration is conducting a witch hunt against militant groups — and, by extension, that the Jan. 6 [non-]insurrection was a black op engineered by the FBI.

[...] 

Between 2012 and 2018, the FBI spent an average of $42 million a year on payments to confidential informants, which it officially calls confidential human sources, according to a recent audit of the program by the Justice Department’s inspector general.

The audit was redacted to hide the total number of informants working for the FBI, but it emphasized that it was “important to have CHSs embedded in terrorist cells, violent gangs, and espionage operations, among others, in order to collect valuable evidence and investigative information.”

According to Greg Rogers, a retired FBI agent who spent two decades working undercover on cases involving domestic terrorism (and has a torso covered with gang tattoos to show for it), the standard playbook for domestic terrorism investigations is to start with an informant who can infiltrate a group and gain trust, and then bring in undercover agents. That’s an even bigger necessity in this era of social media, he said, when informants are often vetted based on their online identities, which are hard to fake.

“I used to attend militia conferences and gun shows, but I never got into a group without being introduced by an informant first,” Rogers said.

Many informants agree to help the government because they have gotten themselves sideways with the law and are hoping to get their charges dismissed, have their sentences reduced, or win other favors from prosecutors. Others are in it for the money; one longtime federal informant has allegedly hauled in some $4.9 million in government payments over the past two decades. It’s far less common for the FBI to recruit an informant — as it did with Dan — simply by appealing to his better nature.

On March 17, Dan officially went on the FBI’s books under the code name Thor. Impola laid out the ground rules. Dan could deceive the Wolverine Watchmen or other suspects, but he had to be truthful with the FBI. He could participate in the group’s activities, but had to stop short of anything illegal.

As a matter of law, convincing people with no prior intention to commit crimes is known as entrapment and is to be strenuously avoided by law enforcement. Federal agents and informants are instead supposed to passively develop evidence against people who are already “predisposed” to do illegal things, serving only as the eyes and ears of the prosecution.

In practical terms, however, confidential informants enjoy tremendous leeway to get the goods. Informants in cases over recent decades have badgered suspects into committing crimes, paid them large sums of money to do so, and even threatened to hurt them if they backed out, according to an analysis by Jesse Norris, a professor of criminal justice at the State University of New York at Fredonia. In not one of those instances was the prosecution forced to drop the case. (read more)