The grand jury’s new indictment bluntly calls the kidnapping of Michigan militia conspirators “home terrorists.”

The same conspirators – who referred to themselves as the “Wolverine Watchmen” – had a much broader original plan that involved invading the Michigan Statehouse in Lansing with 200 armed militiamen, taking state officials hostage, and then executing them on television. When they found the logistics of such a plan overwhelming, they returned to the simpler conspiracy of kidnapping Whitmer.

This week’s indictment centers on four men – Adam Fox, 40, of Wyoming, Michigan; Barry Croft Jr., 45, of Bear, Delaware; Daniel Joseph Harris, 23, of Lake Orion; and Ty Garbin, 25, of Hartland, who carried out the surveillance and bought explosives to prepare to carry out their kidnapping plans. They were charged with conspiracy – along with co-defendants Kaleb Franks and Brandon Caserta, who have already been charged on that charge – while Harris and Croft added additional gun charges to their case.

Garbin pledged guilty to the original indictment of conspiracy to kidnap the governor in December 2020 and is now awaiting conviction. He is reportedly working with investigators as part of the plea. He appears to have been a major source of the information in the indictment, along with the federal informant who provided most of the original evidence.

The men had held their first paramilitary training exercise to prepare for their plan in Wisconsin in July 2020. They tried to detonate a couple of improvised bombs but failed. They continued to build similar devices – including a balloon filled with steel ball bearings. When the men reassembled for another meeting in September, the men had greater success by firing some of the bombs near silhouette targets that were shaped like humans and were pleased with the resulting damage from the splinter.

In preparation for this later meeting, Garbin proposed in an encrypted text message to his co-conspirators that they “dismantle a motorway bridge near the governor’s holiday home”. After the training session, the men drove to Whitmer’s summer home for surveillance.

On the way there, Fox and Croft “stopped to search the underside of a freeway bridge near the vacation home for a place to place an explosive charge,” the indictment said.

The men then ordered $ 4,000 worth of explosives from the FBI informant who pretended to be someone who was able to provide the men with such materials. Fox, Franks, and Harris drove to Ypsilanti, Michigan to pay the down payment.

If the five defendants are convicted of kidnapping conspiracies, they face life sentences in prison, while the conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction includes a maximum of life in prison.

Whitmer told CNN on Thursday that any incremental disclosure of the details of the plot was increasingly “worrying”.

“I’m incredibly grateful to the FBI and (Michigan State Police), and that gratitude only grows with more revelations about how serious and scary this group was. And how anxious they were not only to harm me, but also to harm our law enforcement agencies and communities, ”Whitmer said on New Day. “The rhetoric has to stop. We must all face this challenge and stop defaming and encouraging these native extremists to harm our fellow Americans. “