The Michigan Plot I 1. The Man in the Vac-Shack Basement
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Okay, show me what you got.

This is Chameleon, Season 7. The Michigan Plot. A production of Campside Media. Oh. The bitch. Oh, I can't read from here, bro. Hello. Hello. How you doing? Good, how are you? Good, thank you for asking. What can I get for you today? I'll do a number one as a single with a large Sprite.

It's October 7, 2020, in the drive-thru of a Wendy's, somewhere on the outskirts of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The guy you're hearing ordering the number one? He's a 34-year-old Iraq War veteran named Dan Chappell. A number one large. You got it. Put that there. A number three. A number three. Let's do spicy. Spicy. Spicy.

This second guy you're hearing ordering the spicy number three is Adam Fox, a burly 37-year-old with dark brown hair and a bushy beard. Actually, just do regular. I'm sorry, do regular. Can we do regular instead of spicy? Okay. Adam Fox works part-time as a clerk in a vacuum cleaner store, where he also lives in the basement.

For the past few months, Adam and Dan have been almost inseparable. Dan has been training Adam on things he learned in the Army, like how to take cover in a firefight and how to shoot and reload on the move. Adam's the kind of guy who can't decide what to order at Wendy's. But with Dan's help, he's come a long way. You got a couple different kinds of sauces, right? Just tell him no. I do all this. He'll get out, you get in.

Today, Dan and Adam are picking up a few of their friends, members of a ragtag militia group called the Wolverine Watchmen. Once they're all together on the highway, Adam shows the guys his latest purchase. A taser. Do it again.

Like most groups of friends, these guys like to do a lot of the same things. Like smoking weed, shooting guns, and talking trash. Word of advice here, you cannot light a cigarette with a taser. I think you can. We should try that. It will shock you. Adam, Adam, you have to do it. I don't smoke cigarettes. Adam, Adam.

Dan, the Army veteran, is driving them all to Ypsilanti, a town just west of Detroit. The plan is to meet up with Dan's buddy, who has some gear he's giving away: extra body armor, holsters, and other accessories. It's a treasure trove for a group of cash-strapped gun nuts. And while Dan drives, one of those nuts repeatedly cocks and uncocks a 9mm pistol and puts it to Dan's head.

I don't know, man. Hey, guys, how are you? After they get the gear, they'll head over to one of their favorite places on Earth, Buffalo Wild Wings, to eat chicken and drink beer. Dan pulls the car off the interstate in Ypsilanti and turns into an empty parking lot next to a warehouse where he said his buddy was going to meet them. We got to piss and we can block this. He's bringing some shit out for us.

As the guys hop out and look around, Dan goes to pull something out of the back. Flashbang grenades explode around them as FBI agents in military-style tactical gear sprint out, guns drawn. After the chaos, there's a tense silence where the men are lying on the ground, completely still.

Only the yips of police dogs can be heard. When Dan's truck is secure, the agents move in for the arrest. Look at the fucking truck, dude, right there. Look at the fucking truck. Turn your head the other way. There you go. Stop right there. There was no free gear, and there would be no chicken wings. The men would spend the night in interrogation rooms and jail cells. The charges against them would shock the nation. According to prosecutors, these guys were part of a sprawling multi-state conspiracy.

A plot to kidnap and maybe even kill the sitting governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer. Good afternoon. Earlier today, Attorney General Dana Nessel was joined by officials from the Department of Justice and the FBI to announce state and federal charges against 13 members of two militia groups who are preparing to kidnap and possibly kill me.

Even in a tumultuous year marked by a global pandemic, violence in the streets, and a wild election season, news of the alleged plot to kidnap Governor Whitmer was stunning. At a press conference, Whitmer was relieved. Thank you to the fearless FBI agents. I also want to thank Attorney General Nessel and the U.S. attorneys for pursuing criminal charges that hopefully will lead to convictions, bringing these sick and depraved men to justice.

Fourteen men from three states would ultimately be arrested. Prosecutors would call the plot a deeply disturbing anti-government conspiracy. Our efforts uncovered elaborate plans to endanger the lives of law enforcement officers, government officials, and the broader public. The Whitmer case was one of the FBI's most important domestic terror investigations in a generation. And when the story broke, it divided the country along political lines.

To people on the left, the plot was another example of the rise of right-wing violence during the presidency of Donald Trump. After the president tweeted out, "Liberate Michigan," extremists took that as a kind of call to arms. To people on the right, the investigation was evidence that the federal government was being weaponized against so-called patriots. So it seemed like a terrorism plot was in fact a setup to make a group of ordinary people in Michigan look like terrifying right-wing extremists.

The truth is, neither side was right. My name is Ken Bensinger. And I'm Jessica Garrison. Back in 2021, Ken and I were reporters for BuzzFeed News, and we decided to take a closer look at this notorious plot to kidnap the governor. What we found was far more complicated than the story the government wanted the public to believe. In its seven-month investigation of the Wolverine Watchmen and their associates, the FBI secretly recorded hundreds of hours of audio.

But at trial, only tiny snippets of that audio was ever heard by a jury. The rest of those tapes have never been heard by the public. Until now. Testing recording. Special Agent Henrik Impella. It's Wednesday, October 7th. Testing. Testing. We're going to take you on an unprecedented journey inside one of the most important FBI domestic terror investigations in a generation.

We'll follow what prosecutors called a calculated plot to kidnap Governor Whitmer from its inception. This is about pointing rifles at fucking police officers and fucking politicians and squeezing the fucking trigger. And we'll look for answers to the burning questions that remain about this case. Were these men really the masterminds of a credible domestic terror plot? We had to just thump her in the fucking head. We could take you for a little ride. Or just a group of hyped-up stoners who talk too much.

He's got boots. Was there really a plot to capture the governor? Well, just a plot to capture the watchman. From Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, this is Chameleon Season 7, The Michigan Plot. Episode 1, The Man in the Vac Shack Basement. The following interview is being videotaped at the Dade County Public Safety Department, Miami-Dade County, Florida.

In 1976, a man in Florida tells a cop he has a confession to make. But instead of becoming his victim, I became his confidant.

one of the people closest to him, as he recounted and was tried for his horrific crimes. From Orbit Media and Sony Music Entertainment, listen to My Friend the Serial Killer. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts to binge all episodes now or listen weekly wherever you get your podcasts.

If somebody says the right words, promises the right things, anybody can become a victim. Since the early 2000s, millions of handwritten letters were landing at people's doors all across America. She truly believed that this was going to save her mind from going further.

into the depths of demand shut. I'm investigative journalist Rachel Brown, and I'm going to tell you the story of a scam unlike anything I've ever seen and the shape-shifting mastermind who evaded capture for more than 20 years. We never in our wildest dreams thought that these schemes were at this scale. They'd been without water for two months. All they wanted in return was whatever it was that Maria Duval was promising them.

From ITN Productions and Sony Music Entertainment, listen to the greatest scam ever written. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts to binge all episodes now or listen weekly wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, show me what you got in here. What are we looking at first of all? So this is what's called a to-go bag or a 72-hour kit. Basically what it has is anything to survive.

My producer Ryan and I are visiting with Amanda Keller in her apartment in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She's taking us through her bug-out bag. A backpack stuffed to the gills with survival gear. What's that right there? This is my gas mask. Wound dressing. So if somebody gets shot, we can put the tourniquet on.

The bug-out bag has been a staple of militias and preppers for decades. A ready-to-go rucksack that they believe can help them survive and thrive in the event of an apocalyptic calamity. We've got seeds because if shit hits the fan and you have to start over new. Seeds. Flex cuffs. You know, what if we're invaded and we capture an enemy? You put the flex cuffs on them. Who would be invading? United Nations. China.

Amanda is one in a long tradition of Michiganders preparing for something. Famine, adverse weather events, nuclear or civil war. This generalized paranoia is a big part of how Amanda met a guy, fell in love, and briefly became a target of a massive terrorism probe.

I need your help because you're just as knowledgeable as I am. And you got to think I was in shock for a long time after this happened. I've lost a lot of the memory, but if somebody's like, you were there at this, I'm like, okay, yep. For Amanda, it all started back in 2019. The political climate was explosive. Police shootings were rampant and violence had spilled out into the streets in places like Memphis and Portland.

I seen our country going up in flames. I started seeing our country burning and what these different groups were doing and nobody was stopping them. I was like, "What's going on in our country?" I decided I needed to learn how to protect me and my family. I need to start getting ready for anything. I got on Facebook.

And I just typed in Michigan Militia. And this page popped up, and I joined Michigan Home Guard. The Home Guard was one of Michigan's many citizen militia organizations. A group of men and women who hung out in the woods, worked on survival skills, and, of course, shot guns. And that's where I met Adam. He got out of the truck, and I just seen this tall, muscular, cute little guy. Ha ha!

This was Adam Fox, a Home Guard member with a thick Abraham Lincoln-style beard and a body built by long hours in the gym. Do you remember what you liked about him? His ass. No hesitation? No. It was round. It looked like two perfect bubbles. I felt like a schoolgirl. I just was like, that ass. Like, it was so perfect. They were on opposite teams for that day's training, so they didn't talk much.

But later, Adam slid into Amanda's DMs. So how did your relationship kind of progress from there? Booty call. Right away. I don't think this is going the way you want it to. No, this is great. It's the truth, right? Yes. Adam told Amanda to come over to where he was living. The place was in a gritty little strip mall on the south side of Grand Rapids.

It wasn't an apartment complex or a house. It was a vacuum cleaner store called the Vac Shack. When Amanda walked in, Adam lifted a plywood trapdoor on the floor and led her down into a dank, unfinished basement. Down the stairs, it's creepy. It's very creepy. It smells like old buildings.

The basement was littered with vacuum bags, hoses, and other spare parts. There was no bathroom. He had a little area roped off with sheets and whatnot for his sleeping area. It wasn't really off-putting in the beginning. It was more like, "Oh, I feel sorry for this guy."

What he told me was he just got kicked out of his grandfather's house. His grandpa hated him and wanted him out, and he was just going through a rough patch, and he would get back on his feet. I didn't know he's been going through a rough patch for 35 years and never ever once got on his feet. My son was at school, and honestly, I went up there for a quickie.

After that, Amanda and Adam were inseparable. We would go out to eat, go to the gym. We would go on hikes together, walk the dogs. We were just a really normal couple.

Over time, Amanda learned more about who Adam was. He'd had a rough childhood. His father had hardly ever been around. He had trouble making and keeping friends, and even more trouble holding down a steady job. Adam's main outlets for stress were pumping iron at the gym and smoking a ton of weed. He's very opinionated. He always thinks that he's right. He gets very animated when he gets

passionate about something, which people find intimidating. Adam's a very hard person to get along with. Adam was a hothead. At a Michigan Home Guard meeting, when another member told Amanda to shut up, he reacted. They were just going at it like men do, talking shit. But Adam took it too far. Adam kind of went overboard.

The argument almost escalated into a fistfight. It was so bad that the Home Guard leadership took action. He got us kicked out. He can't control his temper. And I'm his girlfriend, so I gotta get kicked out too. This was not the first place Adam had been kicked out of. He was a lifelong outcast. But this particular blow came at a really bad time. Because not long after, the COVID-19 pandemic struck.

an unprecedented act. Today, the entire city of Wuhan is on lockdown. We were all scared. Nobody knew what was going on. And China's throwing video of all these people dropping like flies in the street. In Wuhan, behind the scenes footage shows extreme measures being taken to contain the virus. I was scared. I was really scared.

By March 10, 2020, Michigan had its first cases. And two days later, Gretchen Whitmer became one of the first governors in America to close schools. In an abundance of caution, I am ordering the closure of all K-12 school buildings in Michigan for three weeks. The move was intensely polarizing.

Some in Michigan saw Whitmer as a hero, making a difficult choice to keep people safe. Others saw the closure as an overreaction, an abuse of power. Meanwhile, those first few COVID cases quickly skyrocketed.

Michigan saw a major spike in cases too. Officials have confirmed 334 cases in our state. On March 23rd, with hospital ICUs filling up with COVID patients, Governor Whitmer made another difficult decision. She issued a three-week stay-at-home order for the entire state. Without aggressive additional measures, more people will get sick, more people will die, and our economy will suffer longer. Michigan was on lockdown.

Like everyone else, Adam and Amanda hunkered down. And as Amanda scrolled on her phone, looking for information, her view on the pandemic started to change. Honestly, a lot of the news that I get is from TikTok. I don't like TV. I don't like the news. I don't like none of that stuff.

There's statistics, there's scare tactics. We immediately knew this was bullshit and this is all about control. Nobody was dropping like flies. We realized none of it was true. Like the virus? Can you just be a little bit more specific about it? Obviously the virus is true. I don't have that much of a tinfoil hat on. I got a tiara, not a hat. Amanda says she was okay staying at home. Adam was not. He missed his gym.

That took a lot out of him. He tried so hard to work out here, but psychologically it wasn't enough. Adam fell into a dark place. He smoked weed and spent hours on Facebook, talking to people in the militia community who felt that the government had betrayed them. He and Amanda started to align themselves with a movement that was growing online called Boogaloo.

Boogaloo started as kind of a joke. People sending each other memes about fighting in a second American Civil War they called the Boogaloo. They got that name from a sequel to a movie about breakdancing called Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo. But the joke started becoming a lot less funny during the pandemic, when heavily armed men in Hawaiian shirts began showing up to rallies.

Some in the Boogaloo movement were hoping for that second civil war. Others wanted to start the war themselves, to reset society at the business end of a gun. And as Adam Fox scrolled online, day after lockdown day, he started creeping towards that second camp. Keep reading all these fucking bills going through these state senates and shit about fucking taking our firearms and our AR-15s and whatnot.

Fuck your bills man, just come and try to get them. In this video Fox posted to Facebook, he's brandishing an AR-15. Who else is ready for the boogaloo? I'm ready to boogaloo on man. I'm sick of this shit. We just gonna let them keep passing laws, keep fucking violating our God-given rights? Who's gonna fire the first shot? Y'all ready? I am. I'm fucking fed up with this shit. It's boogaloo time in 2020. Get ready. I think we were all

On April 30, 2020, a crowd of people gathered outside the Michigan Capitol building in Lansing to protest Governor Whitmer's stay-at-home orders.

There are dozens of citizen militia groups in Michigan. The groups have a long history in the state. And that day, gun-toting militia members roamed outside the Capitol as activists gave speeches in the drizzling rain. Bill Gates has suggested microchipping every American.

After a while, a decision was made. The protest would move inside the building. It's so wet, rainy and wet out here, I think all of us need to walk inside the Capitol and say hello.

As the crowd surged forward toward the door of the Capitol, Adam Fox was there, taking a selfie video for Facebook. We're stacking up on the door right now. We're ready in the Capitol. He's wearing the unofficial Boogaloo uniform, a flowered Hawaiian shirt underneath a body armor vest. He's carrying a semi-automatic rifle. Amanda is next to him. We're here. We're stacked up on the door right now. We're going in, all of us.

Adam and Amanda are two of the first people to enter the Capitol building. They get all the way up to the Senate chamber before they are stopped by state police. A crowd of protesters storms in behind them. Open the door! We chanted, let us in. Let us in! Let us in! Fuck the government. I think I yelled that a few times. Fuck the government! Fuck the government!

"The winner!" "You're a tyrannous tyrant!" But there was just people mad. And rightly so. Standing a few feet away from Adam and Amanda are a couple of scruffy-looking guys in green fatigues. "This is our building!" Adam and Amanda don't know them, but they will soon. They're members of a recently formed militia group: the Wolverine Watchmen. "This is my building!" "Why?" "You work for me!"

While Adam towers over the crowd, screaming in the faces of state troopers, upstairs, militiamen push their way into the gallery overlooking the Senate chamber. They live stream themselves looming over the senators below, brandishing their guns. They don't want the people hearing what the fuck they're up to. People should be fucking pissed by now. Get the fuck off your ass and tell these fuckers to shove it up their fucking ass.

TREASURE! TREASURE! TREASURE!

Demonstrators, some with assault rifles, marched in Michigan Thursday. The Capitol building was overrun by protesters. In the days after the protest, images of those armed militants occupying the halls of state government spread across the country and around the world. Hundreds of protesters, some armed, gathered at Michigan's state Capitol. Men with rifles yelling at us, tweeted one state senator. And drew condemnation from Governor Whitmer herself.

Swastikas and Confederate flags, nooses and automatic rifles do not represent who we are as Michiganders. The day ended without violence, but the armed protest became a political flashpoint. To many on the right, the crowd in the Capitol were patriots and heroes. To those on the left, the protest was political intimidation. But one thing is certain.

The protests set off alarm bells in the sections of government responsible for keeping an eye on violent extremism. The FBI was watching. Adam Fox and his girlfriend, Amanda Keller, participated in a protest at the Michigan Capitol in Lansing that shocked the country. But ultimately, the protest fell short of its goal.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer extended the COVID stay-at-home order in Michigan for 28 more days. I was hoping we would get our rights back, but she just took them out from under us. What the hell do rallies do? Nothing changes. Nothing. Adam was still angry, but he no longer felt isolated and powerless. Being among like-minded people at the rally galvanized him.

On Facebook, Adam had been keeping tabs on a guy in the militia movement with a dedicated following, a long-haul trucker from Delaware named Barry Croft.

When your fucking stupid ass ends up hanging from a fucking tree because you licked the fucking boots that we can't stand as Americans, we don't have no tears for you. Matter of fact, no fucks given. Fuck you in your throat sideways. God bless the Constitutional Republic. In his Facebook videos and in his daily life, Croft was known for wearing a tricorn hat, just like our founding fathers. And like most of the guys in this story, he smoked an obscene amount of weed.

This, combined with his long gray beard, gave him the overall look of a stoned crazy pirate.

Croft had already been banned from Facebook a few times for his violent and profane rants. Rants that had only gotten angrier during the pandemic. There is not one motherfucker serving in this bullshit government that I don't want to take, stick to a motherfucking tree and dangle until they ass fucking tongue hang out they mouth. And you know why? Because they've allowed this to happen to my people. My people suffer because of them.

Croft was affiliated with the Three Percenters, an anti-government movement that takes its name from the debunked belief that just 3% of the American population fought the British in the Revolutionary War.

And starting in May, Croft was spreading the word on Facebook. The three percenters were planning a national militia summit in Ohio. I don't think y'all understand the patriot movement has evolved. We understand exactly the enemy that confronts us, and we ain't playing with it no more. Croft had started to reach out to his Facebook friends, inviting them to the summit. And in mid-May, he messaged Adam Fox.

It will be a significant meet, Croft wrote. Adam replied, can't wait. Adam is just, he's a follower. He just wanted to be accepted. That's all he wanted. He just wanted to be accepted. He just wanted to feel a part of something. And so you guys went? Yeah, like dumbasses.

On June 6, 2020, Adam and Amanda made the four-hour drive from Grand Rapids to the Drury Inn Hotel in Dublin, just outside of Columbus, Ohio. Outside, they were greeted by a heavyset man in his early 50s named Steve Robeson. Roby, as people called him, was a biker with a long blonde goatee. He was the kind of guy who seemed to know everybody.

Roby led a Wisconsin chapter of the Three Percenters, and he had organized this summit. Roby met us out there, and he brought us in. He offered to pay for the hotel room. At this point in the COVID-19 pandemic, most public places looked like ghost towns. But the Drury Inn was abuzz with activity. It was very sketchy because for a pandemic, there was a lot of people in the hotel. Creepy. Very creepy.

Roby got Adam and Amanda checked in, and then they all headed to one of the hotel's conference rooms for the meeting. There was one long desk, and then there was chairs all around. Roby led the meeting and started with a roll call.

Chris Phillips, Missouri. People had come from all over the country. A roofer from West Virginia, a stay-at-home dad from Indiana, a Navy vet from Virginia. I'm Frank Butler from Virginia. And then there was Adam and Amanda. Adam Fox, Michigan. Amanda Keller, Michigan. There was supposed to be one person from every state so that once everybody was done, that one person could go back and spread their state's news.

Everyone was concerned about the COVID lockdowns, with the actions their governors had taken during the pandemic, with the overall state of the nation. Concerned is a mild way to put it. They were pissed. The point was to put patriots from around the country on common footing, to come up with a plan to deal with what they saw as the rise of tyranny. But before they started, one of the men in the room issued a warning that someone might be listening to what they say.

We have to behave in this room as though we have either police here in flesh or by other means. Do not be foolish at any time. With that, Roby invited ideas from people in the room. We were all pissed off. We were all talking shit. So...

— We know that we have to take action. There are levels of action. — Barry Croft took the floor in his tricorn hat and said that he had reached the point where he was ready to commit violence for the cause. — I'm gonna go hurt people. I'm gonna go hurt people real fucking bad. And I apologize. I'm sorry. I'm gonna burn motherfuckers' houses down. I'm gonna blow shit up. I'm gonna do some of the most nasty, disgusting things that you have ever read about in the history of your life. — I like him.

Barry said a lot of extreme things. A lot. Barry was very extreme. If I have to fly through a motherfucker, burn his whole motherfucking family to the ground knowing that I have one myself, I'm sorry, Iris, but I'm going to do it. Roby liked hearing that kind of passion, but kept pushing them to come up with a real plan. When Michiganders occupied the Capitol building on April 30th, that sent a message. Michigan said the tone...

But the message wasn't strong enough. "You can't just grab brick and mortar," Roby told them. "Without a fucking human to go with it, you've done nothing but grab brick and mortar." Now it was Adam Fox's turn to speak. "We need to hit them all over at the same time, we need to take hostages. We need tyrants as hostages." This is hard to hear. He says, "We need to hit them all at the same time, and we need to take hostages. Take tyrants as hostages.

There you have value. Human life has a value. Now we're not just taking brick and mortar buildings. Now we have something of value that's in them. In the end, the meeting amounted to little more than hot air. Nothing approaching a real plan came out of the meeting. And Robeson was clearly frustrated.

He proposed another multi-state get-together in Wisconsin the next month, where they would have to really come together on what they were going to do. Despite his exasperation, Roby seemed impressed with Adam Fox, so much so that he pulled him aside to tell him he was putting him in charge of the Michigan Patriot Three Percenters. Adam would be the commanding officer.

Barry Croft was impressed with Adam, too. I just remember Barry saying that there was a group of guys in Michigan that he wanted Adam to hook up with. The Wolverine Watchmen. We knew who they were because they were very boisterous at April 30th. This is our field day! This is my field day! You work for me! We're like, oh shit, those people.

Unlock all episodes of Chameleon the Michigan Plot ad-free right now by subscribing to the Binge Podcast channel. Not only will you immediately unlock all episodes of this show, but you'll get binge access to an entire network of other great true crime and investigative podcasts all ad-free. Plus, on the first of every month, subscribers get a binge drop of a brand new series. That's all episodes all at once.

Unlock your listening now by clicking subscribe at the top of the Chameleon Show page on Apple Podcasts or visit getthebinge.com to get access wherever you get your podcasts. It's June 14th, 2020, a little over a week after Adam Fox attended a summit at a hotel in Dublin, Ohio.

Out on a property on the back roads of a rural community called Munith in south central Michigan, a militia group called the Wolverine Watchmen are gathered to do what they call an FTX, a field training exercise. An Iraq war veteran named Dan Chappell, the guy you heard at the Wendy's drive-thru at the top of the episode, is teaching the watchmen the proper way to shoot from a vehicle.

Same thing with pistols, right? When you're getting out, you ride across the serial. You can put the bottom of your frame and ride that across. Dan's a stocky man in his early 30s with a bald head and a close-cropped beard.

In his daily life, he drives a mail truck for a private contractor to the Postal Service. But over the past three months, Dan's been training with the Wolverine Watchmen on weekends, running them through drills and teaching them techniques he learned during his years in the Army. How to army crawl, how to prepare an ambush, and how to handle a firearm. Like this, fine with me? Yeah. Cool. I'll go right? Yep, I'll go left.

Here, he's working with the founder of the Watchmen, an ex-Marine in his mid-20s named Joe Morrison. All right, you go first. Dan is a guy the young men in the Watchmen look up to and trust. So it's not really a surprise when, between drills, Joe pulls Dan aside to talk. He says that someone reached out to him online, a guy who went to this national militia summit in Ohio, a guy named Adam Fox. Does he know about us?

Joe says that Adam wants to arrange a meeting with the Watchmen to share what he learned at the summit in Ohio. But Joe is skeptical. He's seen Adam's Facebook videos, calling for a violent revolution against the government. He wants to get Adam on the phone so Dan can get a read on him. I wonder if I can call him. Are you down for a call right now?

He puts Adam on speakerphone. With all the shooting and other background noise from the training, it's hard for the watchman to hear what Adam is saying.

To make matters worse, the call keeps cutting in and out. Yeah, I can hear you. Sorry, I live out in the sticks, so my reception ain't the best. Dan, the Army vet, seems to really want to get in touch with Adam. He says he'll friend him on Facebook. Hey man, I'm gonna add you on my app. Well, a couple of our guys are probably gonna add you on Facebook, so... Dan wastes little time. As soon as the training ends, he heads to a quieter spot to call Adam back. Hey, what's going on, brother?

Adam complains that everyone in the Patriot community is just talk.

He says he's not like them. He's working on writing up papers to charge Governor Whitmer with violating the Constitution. — Well, they've been using the Constitution of business. — And then, Adam reveals his big fantasy to Dan. — What are we looking to go forward with?

If you couldn't hear that, Adam says he wants to storm the Michigan Capitol and hogtie Governor Whitmer so they can pose with her like cops do after a big drug bust. If you've been listening closely to this audio, you might hear some sounds in the background.

Someone else in the room is shuffling papers and taking notes. Because as he talks with Adam, Dan is not alone. There are two people in the room with him, recording everything Adam Fox is saying. Two special agents with the FBI.

On the next episode of Chameleon: The Michigan Plot, we go back to the extremely humble beginnings of the Wolverine watchmen. They actually ended up shooting like two trees down. How do you shoot a tree down? Oh, they were lighting it up. Until Dan shows up and everything changes. Dan was very, very, "You need to learn how to clear houses. You need to learn how to," I wouldn't even say really start a firefight, but know how to be in the middle of one.

I'm not even going to lie. He was so sketchy. Chameleon is a production of Campside Media in partnership with Sony Music Entertainment. The Michigan Plot is hosted by me, Jessica Garrison. And me, Ken Bensinker. The show is produced by Ryan Swiker. Callie Hitchcock and Henry Lavoie are associate producers.

Story editing by Michael Canyon-Meyer. Josh Dean is our executive producer. Fact-checking by Annika Robbins. Additional research by Julie Denesha. Sound design and mix by Yuen Lai Tramuyen. Voice coaching by Karen Given. Music by Blue Dot Sessions, Epidemic Sound, and APM.

A special thanks to Campside's operations team, Doug Slaywin, Ashley Warren, and Destiny Dingle. Campside Media's executive producers are Josh Dean, Vanessa Grigoriadis, Adam Hoff, and Matt Scher. If you're enjoying the show, spread the word. And leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps other people find the show. And thanks for listening. Do you want to see my vampire blood before you go?

Oh my god. I don't know if I do. Wait, what is that? It's vampire blood. What do you mean it's vampire blood? Yeah, explain. It's a vial of vampire blood. I'm not touching it, but what does that mean? From Transylvania? No. I don't get that. It does appear to be blood. Is it blood? It's vampire blood. But that's, what does that even mean? It means I got blood from a vampire, and when you shake it...

Not really. Okay. But it's good for the run fair shit. Fair enough. It's just something to sell for $3.