The defense dug in Thursday. FBI agents took the stand in the retrial in the attempted kidnapping plot of Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
9&10 News has been in the courtroom everyday for this retrial and the original trial in the spring. So has Adam Fox and Barry Croft, the two men being tried again for their role in the plot.
Two special agents, Todd Reineck and Christopher Long, both of whom had been questioned in the first iteration of this trial, filled the day with questioning. This time they were probed even deeper than the first time, as they looked into the protocols used for the undercover agents and their sources.
“I think we established that the Facebook page that all of this was going through, was created by the government,” said Josh Blanchard, attorney for Croft.
Thursday the testimony in the courtroom was very direct, questioning the FBI agents in charge of investigating Fox and Croft on their tactics and grilling them on evidence they say has piled up.
“I don’t think you can call a firework a bomb. It was a firework. You’re going to see the actual firework,” said Blanchard, “It was the kind of things that pregnant women carry around in a grocery bag and in their car on the Fourth of July. It was a consumer firework.”
Croft’s bomb making ability has long been a piece of evidence used by the prosecution to build their case. The defense says they did much more than that.
“The government structured this, they planned it, they orchestrated the whole thing,” said Blanchard, “We’re just going through and were able to show the jury on how the government had it arranged.”
It was the informants who recorded meetings with Croft and Fox, where they confessed to wanting to overthrow the government and capture governors.
“We put in a record today that shows that Steve Robison created the event in Wisconsin you’re going to hear a lot about tomorrow,” said Blanchard, “This is all FBI creation and they finally admitted it.”
Robison, of Wisconsin, is one of those informants. He pleaded the Fifth in the original trial but the defense says everything centers on him. He brought everyone together and he pushed the plot forward.
“Robison has all sorts of issues and I don’t think they’re going to bring him,” said Blanchard, “I don’t think we’re going to hear from Robison, we just get these little snippets from him.”
Friday they will finish off with a cross examination of Special Agent Long and then will be getting into some of the informants. First, an FBI undercover agent who infiltrated the militia and then ‘Big Dan,’ one of the biggest informants they had and the key piece in the entrapment defense.
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