With a Second Acquittal, FBI's Whitmer 'Kidnapping' Scheme Blows Up Spectacularly in Its Face. (Or Did It?)

Perhaps the FBI’s primary goal was not to put Eric Molitor and the Null brothers behind bars.

Writing on her Substack Declassified, Julie Kelly breaks down the total collapse of the FBI’s scheme to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020, following Friday’s acquittal of three men who had been indicted on various charges over their alleged role in the plot.

“Michael and William Null, twin brothers, and Eric Molitor were found not guilty of providing material support for an act of terrorism and unlawful possession of firearms. Jurors began deliberations Thursday afternoon following a 14-day trial before Judge Charles Hamlyn.

The verdicts represent the second time a jury has acquitted individuals charged in the FBI-orchestrated plot. In April 2022, a Grand Rapids jury acquitted Daniel Harris, Jr. and Brandon Caserta on federal kidnapping and weapons charges. The jury hung on the remaining defendants, Adam Fox and Barry Croft, Jr.; both were convicted after a second trial in August 2022. (Two co-defendants pleaded guilty and testified for the government at both trials.)”

Once again, defense attorneys were able to effectively show that this high-profile “domestic terror plot” was orchestrated by the federal government itself. 

“In this Case, the undisputed evidence…establishes that government agents and informants concocted, hatched, and pushed this ‘kidnapping plan’ from the beginning, doing so against defendants who explicitly repudiated the plan,” defense attorneys said a December 25, 2021 motion. “When the government was faced with evidence showing that the defendants had no interest in a kidnapping plot, it refused to accept failure and continued to push its plan. The government’s exploitation of its virtually unlimited resources, poured into its investigation, further underscores entrapment as a matter of law.”

In other words, there was no domestic terror plot until federal agents handpicked several targets to radicalize, and even then the FBI struggled to get its targets to commit to their handiwork.

Consider the defendant who was dubbed “the ringleader” of this terror plot: Adam Fox. Before he became the “mastermind” of the FBI’s scheme, Fox was “living in the basement of a vacuum repair shop in a Grand Rapids strip mall without running water or a toilet.”

Fox was doing little beyond existing in his shabby home and posting on social media until the FBI hired U.S. Postal Service truck driver Dan Chappel as an asset. Chappel, Kelly points out, “ingratiated himself with Fox, sending thousands of texts over a five-month period and offering him a pre-paid credit card in the amount of $5,000 on numerous occasions.”

Fox is now in prison serving a 16-year sentence for his role in what the government has described as “one the biggest domestic terrorism cases in recent American history.” But as his attorney pointed out, Fox was “abiding by the laws of the State of Michigan" before the FBI came knocking on his door.

The FBI was not so lucky with the Null brothers and Eric Molitor, who were acquitted of all charges after their two-week trial. Brandon Caserta, one of the defendants acquitted last year, told Kelly this:

“The acquittals solidify the truth that this was an FBI set up. Out of all the people charged, half were found innocent by law. And that’s a big deal. It proves that the FBI is targeting innocent people to frame them for political and career advancement.

At first blush, it occurred to me that this case blew up spectacularly in the FBI’s face. Nearly all of the people they charged in the “domestic terror plot” have now been acquitted, and the FBI itself has been exposed as the orchestrator of the plot.

But then it occurred to me that perhaps the FBI’s ultimate goal was not to put Caserta, Molitor, the Null brothers, and others behind bars.

It’s worth noting that the FBI’s domestic terror crackdown occurred just a couple of weeks before the 2020 presidential election, which allowed the plot’s victim to go on national TV and accuse the president with fomenting domestic terrorism.

Sound crazy? Absolutely. Ten years years ago I would have laughed off the possibility of such a thing. I’m less certain today that this speculation is crazy.

After all, the infamous letter claiming Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation that was signed by "51 intel experts" wasn’t just false. It was orchestrated with the specific purpose to help Joe Biden win the election.

That’s not me saying this. It’s the former deputy director of the CIA, Michael Morrell, the man who orchestrated the letter, who earlier this year explained to Rep. Jim Jordan, the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, why he wanted to help Joe Biden.

“Because I wanted him to win the election,” Morell replied.

It’s no secret that US agencies for years have been overthrowing governments and tipping elections in other countries. Perhaps it was only a matter of time before they started putting their fingers on the scales here.

I’m willing to entertain the possibility that the timing of the FBI’s orchestrated plot was a total coincidence, of course. Maybe it was.

The thing is, it’s getting harder and harder for me to believe in coincidences.