Five men set to stand trial in the case in Whitmer kidnap case
by Mansur Shaheen (Bridge)
Five men facing federal charges in the conspiracy to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will stand trial in the case, U.S. Magistrate Sally Berens decided Friday in a second day of hearings.
Berens determined there was enough evidence for the case to go to trial based on encrypted chats and the September surveillance of the governor’s Antrim County vacation home to show that the men allegedly participated in the conspiracy.
The decision came the same day that two of the men, Adam Fox, 37, and Ty Garbin, 24, were arraigned in the U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids.
Fox, Garbin and three other federal defendants — Brandon Caserta, Kaleb Franks and Daniel Harris — will now face trial at a later date. A sixth man in the case, Barry Croft, is awaiting extradition from Delaware to Michigan, after which he will face a similar hearing. Eight other men are facing domestic terrorism charges in state court based on their alleged roles in the plot.
Fox waived his right to a bond hearing on Friday, while Garbin was denied bond on the grounds that he is a danger to the community. None of the five men who appeared in court were allowed to be released on bond pending trial.
On Friday, attorneys for Fox and Garbin were given the opportunity to cross-examine FBI Special Agent Richard Trask based on his testimony Tuesday, including allegations that upon his arrest, Fox told the FBI he had planned to abandon Whitmer on a disabled boat in Lake Michigan after kidnapping her, rather than following earlier plans to put her on trial for “treason” for the statewide COVID restrictions the governor implemented last spring.
According to the government’s case, Garbin was an alleged leader of the Wolverine Watchmen, a Michigan-based militia group. But the Watchmen was just a Facebook group, according to Garbin’s attorney, Gary Springstead. Garbin was not a militia leader, just a Facebook page administrator, he argued in court Friday.
Springstead suggested his client was disinterested in the plot. Instead, he was just interested in the training exercises that organizers conducted, his attorney said, comparing those exercises to training for paintball or the FBI.
Springstead also appeared to set up a defense for possible entrapment, questioning whether one of the FBI informants, who went by “Mark,” played a key role in setting up the plot.
Trask and U.S. prosecutor Nils Kessler disputed that suggestion, saying the plot to potentially overthrow the government began before the FBI informant joined the group. “Mark” had also not yet joined when the plotters first met in Dublin, Ohio, in June to discuss potentially kidnapping either Whitmer or Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, the federal officials said.
Garbin’s attorney hinged his argument on his client’s apparent ignorance of the scope of the plot. He argued that Garbin did not know where the group was heading the night they traveled to the governor’s vacation home in apparent preparation for the planned kidnapping.
He also argued that while his client was at a meeting with an informant known as “Red,” at which the FBI made arrests, he was there to obtain free tactical gear the informant had offered, not to purchase explosives.
Springstead called Garbin a “laissez faire” libertarian who thought the government would just collapse on its own.
Kessler, the federal prosecutor, disputed those claims, saying Garbin had many opportunities to walk away from the plot but did not do so, as a few others had done, making him a willing participant.
Kessler also argued it was “absurd” to explain away the defendants’ recorded conversations as being protected by freedom of speech; it was obvious the men were doing more than “free talk,” an argument used by defense lawyers on Tuesday, and again by attorneys for Garbin and Fox on Friday.
“If you’re not in on the plan,” Kessler argued, “you don’t ‘case’ the governor’s house.”
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