A key FBI informant involved in the investigation into the alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer testified Monday that he tried to dissuade the defendants before their arrests by suggesting they commit lesser crimes.
Dan Chappel, who was known as “Big Dan” to the four defendants now on trial in federal court for their alleged involvement in the kidnapping plot, testified that he suggested to the alleged ringleader of the plot, Adam Fox, that he shoot a bullet through a window of Whitmer’s vacation home instead of kidnapping the governor.
“[Fox] was wanting to kidnap and kill the governor, so I was trying to de-escalate,” Chappel said, adding that nobody would get hurt by putting a round through a window.
WHITMER KIDNAPPING DEFENDANTS REEL FROM LAST-MINUTE SETBACKS AS TRIAL BEGINS
Chappel said Fox had spent much of summer 2020 talking about kidnapping and killing Whitmer, so he knew at the time he made the suggestion that Fox wouldn’t have been receptive to more traditional forms of nonviolent protest. He added that he risked being ostracized from the group if he came across as too soft.
Fox texted Chappel asking when Whitmer would be lynched just days before he and the other defendants were arrested in October 2020, according to text messages introduced by Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler during the trial Monday.
“When’s the lynching? She should be arrested now, immediately. Who wants to roll out?” Fox wrote after the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that Whitmer lacked the authority to issue COVID-19 executive orders without consent from the state Legislature.
The four defendants on trial for conspiring to kidnap Whitmer, members of the Three Percenters and Wolverine Watchmen anti-government militia groups, contend that overzealous FBI handlers and informants channeled their anger against Whitmer’s restrictive COVID-19 policies into a plot to kidnap the Democratic governor.
Chappel, who was paid over $50,000 for his service as an undercover informant in the case, was a key figure in the defense’s entrapment argument leading up to the trial for his use of FBI funds to finance travel for the defendants to attend a “field training exercise” in Wisconsin where the kidnapping plot was allegedly hatched.
Defense attorneys also accused Chappel’s FBI handler of directing him to propose that the defendants commit acts of violence against Whitmer.
But the defense’s entrapment argument appeared to be undercut by recordings and text released by the prosecution on Friday showing the defendants discussing their plans to kidnap Whitmer before their arrests.
Hours after surveying Whitmer’s vacation home before arrests were made, Fox was recorded on tape talking about having her “hog-tied on a table.”
Another defendant, Daniel Harris, was recorded on tape proposing to put a bullet through Whitmer’s “dome” after knocking on the front door of her vacation home.
A third defendant, Barry Croft, was recorded saying after the Wisconsin field training event: “I don’t like seeing anybody get killed either, but you don’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.”
The defendants suffered a series of setbacks in the final weeks leading up to the trial, which began on March 9 and is expected to last up to six weeks.
A fifth defendant who was slated to go on trial flipped and pleaded guilty to plotting to kidnap Whitmer in early February. A plea agreement signed by Kaleb Franks on Feb. 6 said explicitly that neither he nor the four remaining co-defendants were entrapped by government informants in the lead-up to their October 2020 arrest.
“The defendant frequently heard Fox and Croft initiate conversations about fighting government authority and kidnapping the Governor without prompting,” the signed plea agreement stated.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Franks and Ty Garbin, another individual involved in the kidnapping plot who pleaded guilty in January 2021 and was later sentenced to six years in prison, are expected to be star witnesses for the government during the trial. Their testimony could begin as soon as Tuesday, according to Buzzfeed News.
