Attorneys: FBI Sources Plied Men With Drugs, Orchestrated Alleged Whitmer Kidnapping Plot

The attorneys of four men charged with attempting to kidnap Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer say that FBI agents and sources used drugs and “parlor tricks” in an illegal attempt to entrap their clients.

Federal prosecutors and the defense attorneys of Brandon Caserta, Barry Croft Jr., Adam Fox, and Daniel Harris delivered opening statements on Wednesday in the domestic terrorism case over a 2020 plot to kidnap Gov. Whitmer over her handling of COVID-19. Two men have already pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in the case, but attorneys for Caserta, Croft, Fox, and Harris argued in court that their clients were entangled in a case of federal entrapment.

“[The FBI] had decided,” Croft’s attorney Joshua Blanchard said, “they were going to work this as a [Terrorism Enterprise Investigation] whether … they got the facts or not.”

None of the attorneys denied that their clients made mean, outrageous, or offensive statements about the governor and others during the summer of 2020. They all denied, however, that any of their clients knowingly agreed to and took concrete steps to carry out a proposed plan to kidnap Whitmer. The defense attorneys made repeated mentions to the number of FBI agents and informants involved in the undercover work and claimed that many aspects of the plot, from training sessions to recon missions to scope out the governor’s residence, were led and underwritten by the FBI. – READ MORE