| Follow up to this story from yesterday. Lots of juicy details posted in the comments as well. |
[Breitbart] United States attorneys in Michigan charged six individuals on Thursday with an alleged plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) and overthrow the state’s government.
The feds have charged Adam Fox, Barry Croft, Ty Garbin, Kaleb Franks, Daniel Harris, and Brandon Caserta, the Detroit News reported. Twelve individuals were charged in all.
Via the News:
The investigation dates to early 2020 when the FBI learned through social media that individuals were discussing the violent overthrow of several state governments and law enforcement.
In June, Croft, Fox and 13 others from multiple states held a meeting in Dublin, Ohio, near Columbus, according to the government.
“Several members talked about murdering ‘tyrants’ or ‘taking’ a sitting governor,” an FBI agent wrote in an affidavit unsealed on Thursday. “The group decided they needed to increase their numbers and encouraged each other to talk to their neighbors and spread their message.”
“The group talked about creating a society that followed the U.S. Bill of Rights and where they could be self-sufficient,” the FBI agent wrote, according to the paper.
“They discussed different ways of achieving this goal from peaceful endeavors to violent actions. At one point, several members talked about state governments they believed were violating the U.S. Constitution, including the government of Michigan and Governor Gretchen Whitmer.”
Several media outlets, including the New York Times and the UK Daily Mail have attempted to cast the individuals as “right-wing” and “Trump supporters,” but at least one suspect, Brandon Caserta, held views more nuanced than that.
Breitbart News reviewed Caserta’s Facebook profile shortly before it was deleted.
In several YouTube videos, Caserta opined about rights and the illegitimacy of government.
“The Constitution is illegitimate,” he said in one posted on May 16, 2020, which was removed after Caserta’s account was terminated.
“Authority doesn’t exist, dude,” Caserta said, seated in front of an anarchist flag, “and, like, the law doesn’t exist.”
In another video, Caserta walked around his apartment with a camera and wondered, “How do I really know if I suck?”
Other videos, including some Breitbart News reviewed on Caserta’s Facebook page prior to deletion, the suspect criticized the police, calling them “obedient order-followers.”
One video was captured by Twitter user Robby Starbuck:
In none of the videos did Caserta express support for Trump explicitly or otherwise.
They have all been removed from YouTube.
According to the charging document, Garbin, Fox, Croft, Harris, Franks, and others met in July in Ohio to discuss their plot.
If you look at their video... They are not right wing.In other words, he’s ANTIFA
This is a video of Brandon Caserta, one of the ringleaders of the group of men arrested for a plot where the group planned to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Caserta has an anarchist flag behind him and in YouTube videos trashes police. He’s not a Republican, he’s an anarchist. pic.twitter.com/J1vE2qGYL7
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) October 8, 2020
|
Another seven individuals linked to the militia group, Wolverine Watchmen, face state terrorism
... any action taken by a non-Moslem state that constrains the violent impulses of Moslems or their allies ...
charges, Nessel announced.
They were identified as Paul Bellar, 21; Shawn Fix, 38; Eric Molitor, 36; Michael Null, 38; William Null, 38; Pete Musico, 42; and Joseph Morrison, 42. They all face at least 20 years in prison if convicted. Musico and Morrison face up to 40 years.
The Nulls and Molitor were arraigned on Oct. 8. Their bonds were set at $250,000. Musico and Morrison were scheduled to be arraigned on Oct. 8. Fix is in jug and his arraignment was pending.
According to affidavits by state detectives, Wolverine Watchmen is an anti-government, anti-law enforcement militia group. According to the group’s website, which is no longer live, "A well-armed citizenry is the best form of Homeland Security and can better deter crime, invasion, terrorism, and tyranny."
The group didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The militia has recruited members using Facebook since November 2019, detectives said.
Morrison and Musico founded the group.
Morrison is known online as "Boogaloo Bunyan." The so-called Boogaloo Bois is a loose anti-government movement that has been implicated in several plots to carry out violence this year.
Attorney General William Barr said in an interview last month that most of the violence seen in U.S. cities this year came from extreme leftwing criminals.
"They are by and large extreme leftwing Marxist people who want to bring down and tear down the current system. There are also some I would say pure anarchists who don’t necessarily want to build a Marxist system—it’s not clear what they want to build—but they definitely want to tear down the system. That group is sometimes referred to as Boogaloo, or similar types of groups. But they are fewer, from my knowledge, fewer and far between compared to the sort of Antifa
 ...the armed wing of the Democratic Party...
type groups," he said, mentioning the far-left Antifa.
Boogaloo is described by some experts as far-right, but Barr pushed back on that description.
"Boogaloo is not radical right. And that’s one of the misconceptions that’s being essentially perpetuated by the media," he said. "They are people who believe that the system, the current system, has to be torn down and completely replaced. People join it for different reasons, some have different visions of what the future should look like, but they’re all in agreement, it should be torn down. They’re anarchists."
|
