A militia member who is described as a leader of a surveillance operation in the plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) is a paid informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), according to several reports.
In September 2020, 12 men involved in the alleged plot traveled to Whitmer’s vacation cottage on Birch Lake in Antrim County. Their goal was to surveil the property, and figure out whether they could blow it up or kidnap the governor.
One of the men who led that expedition was called “Big Dan,” which is how the government refers to him in court documents.
But Big Dan turned out to be an FBI informant, paid $54,000 by the government for his work over six months. He reportedly contacted the FBI when members of a Facebook group of which he was a member began discussing violence against Whitmer.
The handsomely-paid informant was not simply a spectator or participant, but is described as “leading the charge” to surveil the cottage. According to defense attorneys, Big Dan, who is an Iraq War veteran, also “took charge of training the other men in military tactics.”
Further complicating matters, Big Dan’s FBI handler was a special agent called Jayson Chambers, who at the time was an aspiring private security contractor.
According to defense lawyers, he “was attempting to leverage his success in criminal investigations performed for the FBI for his personal profit.” Thus, the attorneys say, he had a financial interest in making arrests in the case, which they say led him to entrap their clients.
Chambers will no longer be called by the state as a witness, prosecutors say.
The case is becoming increasingly murky for the state.
Of the FBI informants and agents involved in the plot, several have come under fire.
Before Big Dan, there was the case of Steve Robeson, who went rogue on his handlers and stands accused of forwarding the alleged kidnapping plot.
“[Confidential Human Source] Steve [Robeson] was a noncompliant informant and an unreliable declarant,” prosecutors said in court documents filed earlier this month. “As with all informants, before cooperating with the FBI, he agreed to a number of terms and rules. Those included following agent direction, not committing unsanctioned crimes, candid disclosure to his handling agents, and others.”
In another claim of entrapment, defense lawyers say Roberson helped forward the alleged scheme, instead of merely participating in it, by “offering use of 501(c) charity funds to purchase weapons for attacks, obtaining and possessing weapons while prohibited from doing so because he was a felon, [and] offering personal equipment, like the use of a drone, to aid in acts of domestic terrorism.”
Robeson was charged for his gun crimes, and will not testify for the state either.
Another FBI informant stands accused of telling one of the defendants to lie.
The FBI also fired its lead investigator on the case, who was accused of beating his wife after the couple returned home from a swingers party.
Another investigator was precluded from testifying against the defendants after it was discovered that he used anti-Trump slurs.
The FBI declined to comment.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a contributor at The Michigan Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “FBI Agent” by Shinsuke Ikegame. CC BY 2.0.
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