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This is Chameleon, Season 7. The Michigan Plot. A production of Campside Media. The Bench. I don't know Martin Luther King around because I've never heard of him.
It's June 20, 2020, and Dan Chappell, an undercover informant for the FBI, is about to meet with Adam Fox, a man he worries might be getting ready to commit an act of domestic terrorism. Adam invited Dan and other members of the Wolverine Watchmen to meet in the basement of a vacuum cleaner store called the Vac Shack in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
This is my little fucking fallout place, man, if I got a fucking bug out. Adam is paranoid about who might be listening in, so he asks everyone to put their phones in a box that he'll leave upstairs out of earshot. We just all throw our phones in there and put them there in the fucking repair room while we go down. But Dan is carrying a backup recorder disguised as a car key fob in his pocket.
They make their way down the narrow staircase into the dark, creepy basement. The room is cluttered with vacuum cleaner parts, bags, and hoses. And off to the side, there's a bed where Adam sleeps. Adam walks around the basement, scanning the room for electronic devices that might be recording.
When Adam is satisfied that no one could be listening in, he sits down and immediately starts smoking weed with his girlfriend, Amanda Keller. And on that note, the meeting is called to order. So, this meeting is to basically kind of see...
At this point, everyone at the meeting is aware of Adam's train wreck of a plan to storm the Capitol, take hostages, and charge the politicians with crimes against the Constitution. And although even he realizes the idea is ridiculous, Adam hasn't fully given up on it.
Between drags from a joint, he unspools his master plan. What would amount to a full-scale tactical strike?
If we had a thousand men, we could do it. We could send 300 men into the Capitol to seize it and to take the hostages and charge the ones that need to be charged. And then we could have the other 700 roll in. We could have snipers from buildings, from apartments and shit. A thousand men. Snipers. A carefully choreographed, two-pronged assault. Even Adam agrees this isn't going to happen. But we don't have the detail. We need the actual men to step up, willing to fucking go do this. His friend, James McIntosh, has a simpler idea.
Well, comparatively. They all feel that Governor Whitmer has violated the Constitution with her COVID-19-related executive orders. Why not just go in and arrest her?
per the United States Constitution, all you need is two veterans that are honorably discharged and you can walk up in that motherfucking Capitol, rip her out of her seat and kick her ass down the stairs. You're going to have opposition, but you can legally do it. This is obviously not true, but this is the idea the group latches onto.
that they could somehow legally arrest the governor. -Here's another thing is that I feel like if we're gonna be doing this, we should probably get other states involved, not just, like, help us out, but... -Paul Ballard suggests they get allies in other states to do the same to their governors. -What I'm trying to say is a domino effect. If Michigan's gonna go and we're gonna be taking on our governor, I want to see more states do the same. -That's what we're trying to do.
Adam and Amanda bring up the militia summit they went to two weeks earlier in Dublin, Ohio. How it was about that very thing, getting groups in multiple states on board with the same plan.
Dan, the FBI informant, wants to know more about that summit. Yeah.
Adam says the guy who ran the meeting in Ohio, Steve Robeson, put him in charge of recruiting people in Michigan for this multi-state strategy. In fact, Robeson is planning a training weekend in Wisconsin next month. A kind of midsummer jamboree, but with guns and ammo. He's got a big fucking compound. He says the more the merrier. He's got a guest house. He's got plenty of fucking land for people to put tents and shit. Like, he's got the room. He wants a fucking army out there, he says, so...
Amanda says that Wisconsin is where they would decide on a real plan. What we're supposed to talk about is the execution. Okay. Targets, we're doing this. Okay. This is what we're fucking doing. All right. What Dan heard in the Vakshak basement sounded like the beginnings of a coordinated effort of armed extremists from multiple states to do something. To take some kind of action, maybe even violent action.
To find out what the plan was exactly, Dan would have to go to that training in Wisconsin. But what he might not have known was that the training wasn't being organized by extremists at all. It was being planned and paid for by the FBI. My name is Ken Bensinger. And I'm Jessica Garrison. From Campside Media and Sony Music Entertainment, this is Chameleon Season 7, The Michigan Plot. ♪
Episode 3, What's the Plan? The following interview is being videotaped at the Dade County Public Safety Department, Miami-Dade County, Florida. And sir, would you identify yourself? My name is Ronald F. Carver III. In 1976, a man in Florida tells a cop he has a confession to make. Arriving in Miami, I proceeded to do certain things that I considered to be necessary in the crime that I planned to commit.
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 astray.
into the depths of dementia. 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. Dan Chappell and a couple of Wolverine watchmen have just emerged from a basement meeting at a vacuum cleaner shop where they discussed arresting politicians, an assault on the state capitol, and the potential for violent civil war.
Now, it's time to celebrate. — Get McDonald's? I'm a little hungry. — Yeah, let's do it. — All right. — Ty, what can I get for you? — Uh, snag me a McDouble. — A McDouble? — Ty Garbin, the watchman who orders a McDouble, tells Dan that he's not sold on Adam Fox. Adam, he says, is a lot like Pete Musico, the watchman's resident crazy person. — I'm a loser for some people.
Garbin says if you put them in a room together, with all their anti-government paranoia, they'd need to double layer the tinfoil on their hats. Tinfoil hat time. Oh, Jesus. Make sure you double layer tinfoil. One layer doesn't work anymore. The technology's advanced. But Dan has worked hard to connect the Watchmen and Adam, and he's not giving up. He's been watching the Watchmen for months. And although they talk a lot about violent and illegal acts, they haven't actually done anything. Yet.
Adam Fox seems intent on taking action. It's time to get the crazies in a room together and see what happens. What's going on, man? So a few days later, Dan calls up Pete Musico. What's going on? Dan wants to talk up the meeting with Adam Fox.
But Pete tells Dan that something about Adam just gives him the creeps. Adam has a big mouth.
Dan invited him to come to a Watchmen training at Pete's place, and Adam turned around and invited a whole bunch of people on Facebook. Joe Morrison, the other Watchmen founder, jumps in on the call. He says he had to ask Adam to take the post down.
Yeah, he ended up taking it down, but I had to fucking message him. I'm like, yo, what the fuck, dude? Dan is trying to bring Adam in with the Watchmen to sell him as the man with the plan. But Adam's already screwing it up. I think he's real motivated. And that's just, he's like the...
A dog in a room with all sorts of shit going on and he's just wanting to go in every direction. Fox had recently been named the leader of the Michigan Patriot Three Percenters, what appeared to be the statewide chapter of a national organization.
And to Pete, that just didn't make sense. I'm trying to figure out how in the fuck this dude got national recognition.
I think the fact that he was down in Ohio, you know, and he's rubbing elbows with everybody. So, I mean, you got to give him some kind of credibility right there. By the end of the call, Dan seems to have calmed Pete's nerves and convinced him that Adam was a critical link to the National Patriot Movement. Just because he's tracking with everything that's going around with, like, the surrounding states and stuff. I mean, he's a valued asset. Yeah, I mean. Don't deny that. He's a valued asset. We just.
Dan vouched for Adam. And at the end of the day, his word went a long way. Right. I trust your opinion and I trust what you say. Right. Because you've been in some fucked up situations and you're still here. Right. Well, I'm just fine. Dan might have swayed the Watchmen's founders, but to get Adam into a training, he still had a much tougher nut to crack. Joe Morrison's wife, Jada. I'm very protective. I'm very protective.
I'm gonna meet you outside of my house before you come to my house. And if I think you're sketchy, you're not coming. And that was how Jada and Joe ended up going on a double date with Adam Fox and his girlfriend Amanda at a Denny's. It was a normal couple's dinner. Amanda Keller. They had the little girl with them. Stinking cutie. We just went there to meet each other and talk and bullshit.
and see if we vibed. Just two couples feeling each other out over Slam Burgers. We talked about family. We talked about kids, our children. We didn't talk about anything that had to do with Wolverine Watchmen. That was me getting to know him and his wife. But the two couples didn't exactly mesh. Amanda had reservations about Jada.
Jada was not impressed. No, not really.
As usual, Adam was being loud, and he wasn't being careful with his words. It's not even that I thought he was a bad guy. I mean, whenever you're living in a vacuum shop, yeah, you're tired of shit. You're wanting to get your stuff together. I mean, I thought something was off, but I was never listened to, and that was the biggest thing.
To Jada, Adam was a hothead and a loudmouth. He couldn't even behave at a Denny's. She didn't want him at her house around her kids. And this debate over whether to let Adam and Amanda come to a Watchmen training would be hotly contested over the next few days. He's not a trustworthy person in my eyes right now. Right. But Dan kept pushing. Let's say he did have a past, you know, and he, you know, started over.
I hope that's the case, but I don't know. It's just, you know, he seems like he's a f***. Right. And finally, Jada relented. I think he has potential. I mean, everybody has a past. It's just his. That's why I'm like, we'll give him a chance. Right. Still, Jada did not want Adam to know where their house was.
The plan was for Dan and Joe Morrison to go and pick up Adam at a nearby gas station. And on the morning of the training, Sunday, June 28th, Jada called Dan with one more demand. I'm trying to let you know that you're going to ride with Joe to go pick him. Okay. He's going to fucking worse because I don't fucking trust him. Right. Do you know he has more than one person coming? I'm over their heads too.
A few hours later, Dan and Joe drove to a gas station out by the interstate to pick up Adam and Amanda and a few of their pals. In the end, Dan and Joe didn't put bags over their heads. If you think about it, that would have looked pretty weird to the gas station's customers. They just let Adam follow them back to Morrison's property.
Amanda remembers watching the guys train and being wowed by the watchmen during the drills. You know what I remember thinking? If these guys just got together, how did they move together so well? They moved like they had been together for years. And I wanted to know who was training them. And it was Dan. And that day, Dan seemed to take a special interest in the greenest guy in the whole group, Adam Fox. He had patience with Adam.
He acted like he wanted Adam around. He was just so excited that Dan would want to take Adam under his wing and teach him. I was very excited. I thought Adam would have an amazing role model to finally look up to and be friends with. The guy that saved Chris Kyle. How awesome is that, you know?
This training wasn't recorded. The government's official line is that Dan's recorder malfunctioned. As you might recall from the beginning of the episode, Dan usually carried a backup recorder. But apparently that didn't work either. So we have to take Dan's word on what, in his telling, would turn out to be an extremely eventful meeting.
So, according to Dan, at the end of the training that day, Pete Musico had the group circle up and stood in the middle. He said the group was heading to, quote, real shit action that required dedication. If they just wanted to train and play soldier, that was cool. But anyone who didn't want to be a part of what was coming needed to leave immediately. According to Dan, no one stepped away.
Pete then unveiled a plan. He wanted to conduct a coordinated kidnapping of six to eight of the state's highest-ranking politicians, snatching them from their beds in the night. They would release them a few days later. This would be done to send a message to the state's tyrannical leaders. After a brief discussion, everyone rejected that idea. Next, Adam threw out his creation: the half-baked plan to assault the Capitol.
Again, the group passed. And even Adam had to admit that it still needed work. Eventually, the group moved into the house, where, according to Dan, people smoked prodigious amounts of weed. Adam told the group about the militia summit he went to in Dublin, Ohio. How the guy running it, Steve Robeson, wanted representatives from each state to come up with a plan that would send a message to the tyrannical government.
The goal was for each state to carry out some kind of attack one after another. A chain reaction that would kick off the boogaloo. The Second American Civil War. Dan was listening closely. A lot of Adams' ideas seemed like bluster, but this was different. A coordinated multi-state attack. The kind of thing the FBI took extremely seriously. You're listening to The Pocket of Dan Chappell.
It's July 7th, 2020, a little over a week after the Wolverine Watchmen's last training. Dan's recording on his cell phone, walking into a meeting with Paul Billar and some other members of the Wolverine Watchmen at Billar's home in Milford, Michigan. What's up? Come on in. At the last training, Billar had a falling out with Watchmen leader Joe Morrison and soon after quit the group. He's called this meeting because he's tired of the way things have been going.
He wants to start a new, super-secret group that's less sloppy. — I am starting my own group now. — No. — I'm trying to put together a team, basically, that's going to be a little bit more strict. I'm trying to keep it to where we're all very professional. — The first order of business: no more talking shop and group chats. No more attending protests where the news media might catch them on film.
better operational security at meetings. And on that note, Bilal asks everyone to put their phones in an ammo canister. I have an ammo case we can stick in there. That works like a charm, unless someone in your group also has a hidden recording device.
They start out by talking about the plan Pete Musico pitched at the training to kidnap politicians. Everyone agrees this is a defensive group only. They are interested in preparing for battles, not starting them.
Billar makes it clear. He says they are not interested in Adam Fox's invade the Capitol plan or the kidnapping plan or any other aggressive action. Essentially, anything illegal.
Dan, the informant, tries to keep them in the fold. He floats the idea of the group going with Adam to the multi-state training in Wisconsin. But he warns them it could be more about offensive than defensive measures. So like Wisconsin is, I don't know what all went on in Ohio, but there was basically put out from feelers about offensive. I'm going. Adam's going.
In the end, the group agrees that they'll go to the training, but they reiterate their defensive stance. The Wolverine watchmen are starting to come apart, and Dan is trying to keep them together.
In the lead-up to the Wisconsin training, he tries to get Joe Morrison and Pete Musico to come along. The two had started to pull back from the group. Pete, believe it or not, had come back to his faith. I've been focusing on God. You know, I kind of got a little bit of a straightaway, you know, but I'm still down and I'm still listening. I'm still going to put my opinions in, but I'm not going to be like I was, you know what I'm saying?
Joe Morrison, for his part, had been trying to focus on his family. His involvement with the Watchmen was putting a strain on his marriage to Jada. We were having bad marital problems, like edge of divorce marital problems, because he was spending too much time on this group. And it was just every night. And I'm like, when are you going to stop? When are you going to spend time with your kid, your family?
They were trying to get him to go to all of these out-of-state gatherings, and I had a deep-down feeling that it was a trap. It was a trap. Like I told him, I said, "You go, don't come back. Your shit will be packed." I was dead set on that. So he did not go. In the end, Dan had no choice but to go to the training without Joe and Pete. But he did convince Paul Billar and a few other watchmen to come along. It's July 10th, and he's driving to pick up the guys.
Most of the watchmen were, generally speaking, broke. Nobody could afford the gas for a long trip to Wisconsin. But Dan offered to drive and rented a big black Chevy Suburban on the FBI dime. The kind of truck that would be driven by, well, a federal agent.
I thought I smelled a Fed. Don't break it. It's a rental. That's what you do with rentals. On the road, the jokes about Dan being a Fed continue. And then Paul Ballard lets everyone in on something. Something that Pete Musico and Joe Morrison said about Dan. Pete and Joe are both my followers. I'm thinking that Dan was actually a Fed. What? What?
Dan starts to protest, but Ballar tells him not to worry about it. This road trip to Cambria, Wisconsin will be talked about in court a lot.
But in the five hours of tape of that drive, no illegal plot is discussed. There are just a lot of dumb stories. And this motherfucker leans up, looks Alex dead in the eyes, projectile vomits on him, and then tries to fling himself back on the bed, but he fucking hit his headboard and completely knocked himself unconscious. A lot of off-pitch sing-alongs. Just to get it once behind this illusion I was so in never heart
and the kind of lizard-brain antics you'd expect from a bunch of guys in their early 20s. - He's got boobs. - Boobs? - Boo-pics. - What?
And after many hours of these shenanigans, finally they get to central Wisconsin and celebrate in their usual way. What do we want? Two 20 pieces. Like for real? Yeah. Two 20 piece McNuggets. And then, gorged on McDonald's, they check into a motel and pass out. Yeah, we do a week on week off together.
The next morning, they have breakfast at a nearby diner, where they meet up with Adam Fox and Amanda Keller. Hey, what's up man? While they're eating, a guy Dan has never seen before wanders over. He's wearing a tricorn hat and looks a little like a stoned pirate. And he immediately starts talking about violent things with an earshot of the waitress. We're going to close you up. What are you guys doing? Are you guys making trouble?
This is Barry Croft, the trucker from Delaware. The guy who connected Adam Fox to the Wolverine Watchmen after the militia summit in Dublin. It's a little hard to hear, but Croft starts ranting about putting improvised cannons on the back of ATVs to wage war against the state. Adam laughs.
After breakfast, the guys all convoy out to the piece of farmland where the training is supposed to be held. It's a weird scene. Surrounded by tall rows of corn, people are shooting at targets on a makeshift range. But at the same time, cars are arriving and pulling in behind the targets. So every time a new car pulls in, the shooting has to stop. Otherwise, someone's car will end up full of holes. Fire! Fire! Fire!
It's a steamy summer day. There's a barbecue going, a pool with lots of kids running around, and of course, a bunch of guys and gals sweating through head-to-toe tactical gear. Steve Robeson, the guy who organized this hootenanny, gathers everyone up in a barn on the property. He's wearing flip-flops, a pair of American flag swim trunks, and a tank top that says, "Smell the freedom."
Despite the brief mention of a multi-state movement, there really isn't a lot of discussion of any national plan of attack.
Today is more just a straight training session, and it seems like the instructors aren't very well prepared. But that's okay. Dan jumps in to help. And as with the watchmen, the instructors seem stoked to have a real live soldier in their midst. This is great. This is fucking great. So awesome. You got that reactant?
So yeah, I can take five or six guys, and then I can do dry stuff over here behind the building. Absolutely. Gather five at a time and do it. As usual, Dan takes the watchman aside to teach them some of the tactics he learned in the Army. So let's say this is the door, right? First step, step it in. Where's the barrel at? And as usual, he spends extra time helping Adam Fox. So I'm coming, and I'm clearing this area, and then I turn to this area. Nope, you're not going to do any of that yet. No. So what's happening is me standing here...
Adam's girlfriend Amanda watches them from a distance. Her boyfriend, she knows, has an abrasive personality. He's not easy to get along with. People often don't like him. But here's this guy, Dan, giving Adam all this personal attention. At first, it had warmed her heart. But now, she's suspicious. He was too good to be true. And he was too perfect.
I wanted to think that he really was just a good patriot, really wanting to take Adam under his wing, really want to be his brother. So I was in a rock and a hard spot. Part of me had a major suspicion with Dan to the point where I was like taking covert pictures of him while we were in Cambria.
What were you going to do with the pictures? Just keep them for myself in case anything happens. I didn't know. I had no plan. I just wanted to take pictures of people that I didn't trust. The group runs drills for hours in the sweltering July heat. Dan is in full-on training mode, steely-eyed and focused. During the shooting drills, he puts on a clinic.
Reload, then you move. So it'll be hammer, hammer, hammer, moving, come in, I'll come around, set, haha, reload. - You good? - Let me know. - Dude, you look like a fucking semi truck. Yeah dude, you're fucking cooking.
The day's main event is what's called the Kill House, a roofless plywood structure that's been set up on the property so that people can practice breaching buildings and shooting targets within. When it comes time for the Watchmen members to run through the Kill House together, Dan makes sure that someone is going to get the drill on tape. We want photos or video.
Someone in attendance takes a video as the watchmen stack up on the door of the kill house, just like Dan taught them, preparing to go in. When you guys breach, my hands are like this. Can you see? All right, you're dead. In the video, with Dan guiding them, the guys enter the kill house in formation and fire at targets inside.
A few days earlier, most of these guys had been at a meeting where they specifically disavowed the idea of political kidnapping or offensive measures of any kind. But months later, this video of the kill house would be played in court and on the news. It would be used as evidence of the idea that the Watchmen weren't just training to protect themselves.
Prosecutors would claim that they were training to learn how to breach the home of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, shoot her security detail, and kidnap her.
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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. Dan Chappell and a few members of the Wolverine Watchmen are training on a piece of farmland in Cambria, Wisconsin. During a break in the action, Dan goes into a barn to take a rest.
And Barry Croft is in there in his tricorn hat, engaging in one of his favorite activities: rambling about the Constitution.
I mean, do you know what the first constitutional trespass was? Stealing West Virginia from the territories of Virginia. You didn't have their legislators' permission. You, by federal recognition, established new boundaries. I'm going to spare you some of this, but the thing about Barry Croft is, one second he's droning on about the Constitution, the next he's talking about blowing up government agents in a blaze of suicidal glory.
I got a real fuck-your-mother approach about it. If you come to my house and blow a deal with 50 of your friends straight to hell with me, we can all go together. I'll pack the bus, and I'll sit at the very back straddle in the aisle. You know what I mean? This is the kind of talk that FBI agents just go wild for. And that's why, although he doesn't know it, Barry Croft has become a principal target of an ongoing FBI sting operation.
Back in 2019, Barry was in contact with the leader of a border militia, a friend of his named K.C. Massey. Massey had skipped out on probation and was a fugitive, being chased around Texas for months by federal marshals. And in Facebook messages to Massey during the manhunt, Barry made ominous statements. He said law enforcement would have to "pay for what they have done" and that he was prepared to "destroy this whole planet."
Then, two days before Christmas, Massey was found dead in the woods. His death was ruled a suicide, but Barry suspected foul play: that the Feds had caught up with his friend and killed him in cold blood. What Barry didn't know was that the Feds had searched Massey's Facebook account and found Barry's violent messages. And soon after, Barry became a target of the FBI.
The militia summit in Dublin last month and this training were organized by the FBI with Barry in mind. They've been using Barry's contacts in the militia community to bring more people into the dragnet. People like Adam Fox and the Wolverine Watchmen.
Steve Robeson, the guy that put this training together, flip-flops into the barn and sits down by Barry. Robeson always seems to be there to hear what Barry has to say. Because for the months he's known Barry Croft, Robeson has been secretly working as an informant for the FBI. Think back for a second to that militia summit in Dublin, Ohio.
The FBI paid for it, and Robeson organized it. The idea was to get all these people together from all over the country. People who, like Barry and Adam Fox, had a tendency to post violent fantasies on the internet. The point of the summit was to see if these people would come up with a real plan. Because until these guys come up with an actual plan of action and take steps towards carrying it out, all that violent talk is just that: talk.
Steve Robeson did not agree to be interviewed for this podcast, but we have plenty of tape of him hanging out with Barry and the other guys at the training in Cambria. There's resourceful bastards that figure out ways to blow you off the face of the earth. And listen...
Barry Croft loves to talk, but usually there's very little action to go with it. And I mean, like I was telling him, I'm down for Pearl harboring a fucking state police parking lot. Oh yeah, Barry brought his young daughters to the training too. I mean, here's the thing.
Barry claims to be a kind of amateur explosives expert. He wants to put his abilities to the test. Well, see, I wanted to do some blowing shit up, but looking at that... Robeson is totally into that idea. I'm dead serious. Yeah, I mean, like, I'm for whipping shit up. I just, with the area out here, I didn't want to do that.
Barry and Daniel Harris, one of the Wolverine watchmen, go over to the bed of a pickup truck and start putting together a crude explosive device made mostly from fireworks. It's basically gunpowder and sparklers stuffed into a balloon filled with steel BBs. Croft lights a long fuse and puts it in an old junk stove on the property. Danny, take cover. That big, huh? Dan and Daniel Harris scramble for cover.
Unsurprisingly, the device fails to detonate. They decide they'll try to shoot it to get it to go off. And that doesn't work either.
At the top of this episode, in the basement of the VAC shack, Adam had told everyone that at this training, they would decide on a national game plan. Nothing like that happened. And one of the guys who's supposed to be leading this movement, Barry Croft, turned out to be pretty useless. Back at the car with the other watchmen loading up the gear, Dan seems frustrated that there is no plan. Are these guys just all behind the keyboard? Because I'm right here. Rock shit. What are we going to do? Yeah.
Steve Robeson must have been feeling the same way. So far, across two multi-state get-togethers, he'd struck out on getting these guys to commit to one feasible plot. But he'd set up a third meeting for the following weekend in Peebles, Ohio, about an hour east of Cincinnati. This time, no training, no messing around. The sole purpose was to make a plan.
Dan drove some of the watchmen there and recorded the meeting, but we don't have that audio. Luckily, some of what was said was entered in court documents. For the rest, we have to turn to Dan's report of the event as delivered to his FBI handlers. Robeson led the meeting. This is an actor's reenactment of what he said taken from the transcripts. Okay, we're going to do a roundtable now. We're going to start here with him.
Everybody has the floor for a few, so we'll take three minutes. You can get a lot of information out in three minutes if you stay on point. If that's what you need to come up with a plan to make it happen, I'll support you, motherfucker. I don't give a shit. As long as it's a very viable plan. We need to start working on something now. We have to leave here with a game plan, a direction. Barry Croft threw out a bunch of his trademark crackpot ideas.
He said he wanted to firebomb a state police training facility in Michigan. Then he said he wanted to cut down trees across highways to disrupt commerce in Ohio. Or maybe contaminate the water supply in Kentucky. These ideas were all over the place, and Steve Robeson was getting pissed off. Everybody thinks we got time to do this and hang out and fucking sing kumbaya and all this other shit.
"Motherfuckers, in two months your states are going to be locked back down again. Mark my fucking words." Dan Chappell jumped in too, trying to push everyone to come to a consensus and make a decision about the best plan of action. But it was like trying to herd cats. Adam Fox showed up to the meeting late, and he too had a harebrained idea. Governor Whitmer had a vacation home, a lake house in northern Michigan near Traverse City.
The Lake House had been in the news in May when Whitmer's husband tried to use his wife's name to jump the wait list at the local dock to get his boat in the water in time for Memorial Day weekend. People in Michigan who were still under lockdown orders were outraged, both by a perceived abuse of power and the governor's apparent flouting of the COVID recommendations she'd set out. "So, if you wanted to send a message to the tyrants in charge," Adam reasoned, "why not go after the governor's vacation home?"
That idea, like the rest, was met with little enthusiasm from the others. But it did catch the attention of Dan Chappell. The meeting went on for hours. Attendees heard lots of bad, unviable plans until everyone was completely annoyed with each other. Just so everyone knows where I stand on this, I am pissed and I have to let someone know I'm pissed beyond reproach about this.
that we have accomplished fucking nothing here today. We have to do something. We don't do it together. We have to do something. We can't just watch this shit. Honestly.
The frustration spilled out into the parking lot, where Adam Fox kept ranting about Governor Whitmer to Dan. He said he was fed up.
he was ready to do something. - This is an op real quick. Let's go do this op, and then we're done. We did it. - You got north. - Dan says, "You got north," referring to Adam's idea from the meeting earlier to do something to Whitmer's lake house. - You got north, right? - In all honesty, right now, I think that's our best bet is to start burning shit down, blowing it up, fuck it. - If you missed that, Adam says, "I think our best bet is to start burning shit down and blowing it up, fuck it."
In the days and weeks after the people's meeting, Dan would redouble his efforts with Adam, calling him almost every day. "Hello." "Hey, what's good, bro?" "What's up, man?" "How's it going, brother?" And on those calls, they would cycle through a lot of dumb ideas that could send a message to Governor Whitmer. "You know, like, she has her own office, right?" "Yeah." "Oh, there you go." "Right." "Boo." "Exactly."
But Dan kept working with Adam to hone his wild notions into a plan. Right, and that's why I told them, I'm like, you know, if you guys want to work on something, give me an objective or whatever you want to label it as a goal. Give us a direction. I don't care how ludicrous it is and we can scale that down to something or just something. You know, are we going for brick and mortar or are we going for, you know, disruption? What are we thinking, you know? And Adam, in turn, was intoxicated by all of his attention from Dan.
Remember, Adam was a guy living in a basement who had no father figure, whose own grandfather kicked him out of the house. Now he was a part of something. Not only that, but someone was looking to him for ideas. "Dan was the world to Adam. He even surpassed me." Amanda Keller, Adam's girlfriend. "If Dan called, he had to get off the phone with me. It wasn't 'Dan can wait.' Dan made him feel better than anybody ever has."
We need to get a list of what we need. Yes, I agree. And then what we want and what we have. Get yourself a little notebook. And you start writing them ideas down. And then we can go through it. No, no, yes, maybe. No, no, yes. Okay. Copy that. Oh, man. Dan, I'll talk to you every day like we do now, brother. Yeah, man.
He was living in the vac shack at the time. We were on Facebook video chat and he grabbed a notebook and started writing in it. And I was like, what are you doing? And he's like, Dan told me to write everything down. He wanted Adam to write in his notebook everything, his thoughts, any types of plans, any type of weapons, any type of material needed. I want you to write down a crime you want to commit.
Adam turned to me. He's like, what do I write? And I'm like, not a goddamn thing. You write nothing. You record nothing. I said, even if it's the thoughts of butterflies and puppy dogs and rainbows, you don't write it down. I was like, Adam, that's a manifesto. Like I tried to get it through his head. Something's not right. And that's when my eye went on Dan 100%.
Amanda knew this was a delicate situation. Adam loved Dan like a brother. I knew if I went after Dan, Adam would shut down. So I had to do it gently at first, but I was too late. They picked a great patsy. They really did. You fucking tickle his balls and call him pretty and Adam will follow you anywhere.
Over the course of the next six weeks, Dan would work with Adam to develop a scheme that was more than just damaging the governor's lake house. Over time, they came back to an old idea, a plan to arrest the governor. And if you believe the case that the prosecutors would ultimately build, the idea to arrest Governor Whitmer would turn into a more violent one, a plot to kidnap and even kill her. Adam would not physically hurt someone, but I could not see...
Nope. See, there's that rock in a hard spot, though. So while I can sit here and think Adam wouldn't hurt nobody, if Dan led the way, Adam would. I don't even fucking care anymore. I'm just so sick of it. That's what it's going to take for us to take it back. We're just going to, everything's going to have to be annihilated, man. We're at the top of it all, dude. Man, we're just going to have to conquer every fucking thing, man. On the next episode of Chameleon, Season 7, The Michigan Plot.
A wild plan with Black Hawk helicopters, exploding bridges, and a water assault. Come in by boat, grab her, leave by boat, helicopter meets us in the... And Adam and Dan take a trip up north to surveil the target. Going to recon. The Tyra bitch is fucking vacationing on her boat. Chameleon is a production of Campside Media in partnership with Sony Music Entertainment. The Michigan Plot is hosted by me, Ken Bensinker.
And me, Jessica Garrison. The show is produced by Ryan Swickert. 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. Voice acting by David Eichler. Additional research by Julie Denichet. Sound design and mix by Iwinlai Tramuin.
Music by Blue Dot Sessions, Epidemic Sound, and APM. A special thanks to our 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. I'm Ken Bensinger, and thanks for listening. Speaking of Danger Zone...
Candy Loggins? Candy motherfucking Loggins! I can't tell you how many times I've actually walked Capcom.