Defense grills FBI witness in Whitmer kidnap plot case

Aug. 30—TRAVERSE CITY — An FBI agent's testimony about an alleged plot by five men to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was abruptly interrupted Tuesday when a defense attorney for one of the men asked the witness whether the government created the Three Percenters.

Two national non-profit organizations, the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center, have previously labeled the Three Percenters — also known as III%ers — as part of a broader anti-government militia movement and an extremist group, respectively.

According to that movement's literature, the name comes from a belief that only 3% of American colonists fought against the British in the Revolutionary War — a claim many historians say is unproven.

"Let me ask you about the Three Percenters for a moment," Grand Rapids attorney Damian Nunzio, who represents William Grant Null, said Tuesday during questioning of FBI Agent Henrik Impola, a central figure in the investigation into an accused plot in 2020 to kidnap the governor.

Impola, the state's star witness, spent all day Monday and Tuesday morning in 86th District Court testifying about various activities of state defendants Null, his twin brother Michael John Null, Shawn Michael Fix, Eric Molitor and Brian Higgins.

Nunzio was questioning Impalo about a field-training exercise the agent said was hosted by Wisconsin-based Three Percenters in Cambria, Wis., in July 2020, which the agent said the Null brothers and others, both named and unnamed, had attended.

"Were the Three Percenters, the ones we're talking about, was that created by the Bureau, the federal government, or was that an independently created organization?" Nunzio asked.

William Rollstin, a Michigan assistant district attorney and one of the prosecutors in this case, shot out of his chair before the witness could answer. He asked 86th District Court Judge Michael Stepka for a meeting in chambers, which the judge granted.

The meeting was brief. The 10 attorneys involved in the case all returned to the courtroom, the judge returned to the bench, and Nunzio resumed questioning Agent Impalo, without further mention of the Three Percenters.

But the question, whether it was a stunt by the defense, a reference to activity by confidential sources, or based on prosecutorial evidence not in the record, underlines the role anti-government sentiment is playing in the case for both the prosecution and the defense.

Previous testimony by Impola stated the men were aligned against "tyrannical governors" and, in some recordings, they characterized Whitmer as a tyrant.

"They talked about the justification behind why they would be able to kill people," Impola said, during questioning Monday by lead prosecutor and Assistant Attorney General Sunita Doddamani. "They talked about how tyrannical governors were ruining the United States and that needed to be a focus of their action."

The Null brothers, Fix and Molitor, all of Michigan, are charged with one count each of providing material support or resources for an act of terrorism and one count each of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.

Higgins, a resident of Wisconsin, is charged with one count of providing material support or resources for an act of terrorism.

Testimony this week also highlighted the leadership role the FBI says Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. — who Impalo testified were Three Percenters and Fox was a leader in Michigan — played in assigning tasks related to the plot to one or more of the defendants.

During the federal trial, testimony showed the men were angry about state and federal government pandemic restrictions and possible vaccine mandates.

Last week, a federal jury in Grand Rapids found Fox and Croft Jr. guilty of conspiring to kidnap the governor and conspiracy to possess weapons of mass destruction. Croft was convicted on an additional weapons charge and the two men, who face sentences of up to life in prison, are expected to be sentenced in December.

A previous jury could not reach a unanimous decision on the case against Fox or Croft Jr. and, in April, acquitted Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta, two other men who were charged in the case.

Two other Michigan residents, Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, previously pleaded guilty and testified in the federal case they agreed to kidnap Whitmer from her lakeside home.

During this week's proceedings, Doddamani, Rollstin and two other state attorneys have provided voluminous material to Stepka as exhibits — from social media posts by the defendants, screen grabs from encrypted group chats in which the men were included in a list of members, to videos taken of and by the men, and recorded phone and in-person conversations.

FBI undercover agents and confidential human sources were imbedded with the defendants during some of their planning and training activities, such as during two separate car trips, one from downstate and one from Luther, to surveil Whitmer's vacation home on Birch Lake north of Elk Rapids.

There are six defense attorneys representing the five defendants and, during two days of testimony, all of them have repeatedly objected to some of the state's evidence as hearsay; as not being directly related to the crimes charged; and as focusing on activities, which, while disturbing to some, could nonetheless be legal.

"I don't think, by just being present, they did anything illegal," Impola said, not about the defendants, but about others who had fired weapons and practiced moving through a structure colloquially known as a "kill house" while attending the FTX, or field training exercise, in Wisconsin, but were not indicted in the kidnapping plot.

The preliminary hearing is scheduled to resume at 9 a.m. Wednesday.