Adam Fox was not the terrorist mastermind the prosecution made him out to be, but a broke, pot-smoking loser who was led into a plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer by rogue FBI agents and informants who wanted to use him to advance their careers, Fox’s lawyer Christopher Gibbons argued during closing statements Monday.
“The FBI turned up the heat in early June by putting big talkers together at meetings,” Gibbons said, noting that Fox came into contact with numerous undercover FBI informants and agents.
An informant known as Big Dan was particularly overwhelming to Fox, Gibbons argued, saying Big Dan in constant contact with Fox beginning in early June 2020, tried to get him to join the Wolverine Watchmen militia, and pressed Fox “for an objective.”
“Adam’s admiration for Dan was so intense it intervened in his relationship with his girlfriend,” Gibbons added.
‘Manipulative’ handling of the case
Gibbons also took aim at the prosecutor’s handling of the case — noting the number of undercover operators who wore audio recorders at meetings and training exercises. Despite the “thousands of hours” of recordings, an hour and a half of audio was played for the jury, Gibbons said, calling it “limited and manipulative.”
“Can there be any stronger evidence that Adam Fox (and others) never joined a conspiracy,” Gibbons said. “(The FBI) shook them up, popped the top and nothing ever happened.”
Gibbons repeatedly argued that the case was driven forward by government operators as a way to advance careers. He displayed texts sent by FBI agent Jayson Chambers to Dan, including one where Chambers wrote “I have a few goals for today” to Dan.
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“The government, in their opening, told you Adam Fox was the leader. Leader of what?” Gibbons asked.
Gibbons closed his 40-minute argument by imploring jurors to grant Fox’s freedom nearly two years after he was first arrested.
“Adam Fox was never predisposed to the crime of kidnapping Gov. Whitmer. He talked a big game, but talk is just talk,” Gibbons said. “It’s time to end this debacle.”
“Send this show packing.”
‘This isn’t how our country works’
A lawyer for Fox’s co-defendant, Barry Croft Jr., also lambasted the government during his closing and urged the jury to acquit, arguing repeatedly that his client was set up by the FBI because they didn’t like what he said.
“They want to lock him up in a cage … because they’re afraid of things that came out of his mouth,” attorney Joshua Blanchard told the jury, later adding. “This isn’t Russia. This isn’t how our country works. You don’t get to lock them away for things they didn’t actually do.”
Blanchard argued that Croft Jr., a trucker from Delaware, was never part of any plan to kidnap Whitmer, but instead was set up by undercover FBI informants and agents who, he maintains, hatched the scheme and ran the whole show.
Croft, he said, was just a citizen angry with his government who said bad things about politicians. But he never took any action, he said, maintaining it was all talk.
“You don’t have to agree with Barry’s politics — I certainly don’t. But we should all agree that the principles of truth and justice are the foundation that our country was built upon,” Blanchard said. “The FBI has told us that the truth doesn’t matter to them … you have the power to put a stop to that today … you can tell the government that half-truths are not enough.”
Feds: Defense is ‘so over the top’
In his rebuttal, the prosecutor — who gets the final word during closing arguments — blasted the defense’s entrapment claims, calling them “absurd.”
“So everybody’s liars? The FBI is corrupt? … That is so over the top,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler said. “And the whole notion that we live in Russia? Do you think this is some fantasy revenge plot? C’mon.”
Kessler attacked the defense’s claims that FBI agents and informants induced the defendants into doing things, arguing, for example, that neither Fox nor Croft were dragged into casing Whitmer’s house.
“Think of the evidence: You saw a video of Fox driving up and down the street in front of the governor’s house … think back to his reaction when he saw the house,” Kessler said, reminding the jury that Fox had said: “That’s it, dude, that’s it. Let’s turn around and see it again.’ “That’s not a guy who’s being dragged against his will.”
Kessler made the same argument about Croft, telling jurors to remember what Croft said on the nighttime surveillance of Whitmer’s home as he stood on a boat launch: “‘That’s her house. By those three lights. This is how we get her out.’ This isn’t someone who’s being dragged out there.”
Kessler also scoffed at the defense argument that the FBI put “big talkers in a room together.”
“The FBI didn’t put them in a room together. You saw those FB messages … ‘We’re going to energize each other with our ideas.’ ‘I can’t wait for that meeting,'” Kessler said, maintaining Fox and Croft didn’t need any inducement.
‘Four guys with AR-15s’
Kessler also defended the credibility of Big Dan the informant, who the defense had said was the “beginning, middle and end” of the FBI’s made-up kidnapping plan. The prosecutor told jurors that Big Dan was a war veteran who had joined the militia, then agreed to go undercover because he heard the members discussing plans to kill cops.
Kessler said Big Dan didn’t go undercover to advance his career, as the defense has claimed, but because he thought “it was the right thing.”
Kessler also rebuffed a defense claim that Big Dan suggested a crime to the defendants when he talked about firing a bullet through Whitmer’s house.
“He told them if you don’t want to hurt her, then put a bullet through a house when she’s not home. He’s not suggesting crimes,” Kessler said.
Kessler also sought to rebuff the defense’s claims that the kidnapping plans were wild theories discussed by stoned men who were merely talking tough, and impossible to carry out.
“This plan wasn’t impossible at all,” Kessler said. “Four guys with AR-15s, and magazines and body armor — you think they couldn’t take one person out of her house?”
Fox, of Potterville, and Croft, of Bear, Delaware, both face up to life in prison if convicted. The two, along with Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta, were tried in April, but that trial ended with no convictions. Harris and Caserta were found not guilty, while the jury couldn’t deliver verdicts for Fox or Croft.
Two other co-defendants, Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, pleaded guilty early on and testified against the others at both trials.
Tresa Baldas:tbaldas@freepress.com
