Europa Terra Nostra Vice-Chairman Sascha Rossmüller recently had the pleasure of sitting down for an extensive conversation with Christina Urso from Radix Verum. Christina Urso is an independent journalist and content creator, and her prior work in law further informs her research and analysis of news and current events, which is often at odds with the mainstream media and popular narratives. Christina Urso is currently working on a documentary regarding the dubious methodology of the FBI in the context of the alleged kidnapping of Gretchen Whitmer, Governor of Michigan. It seems that the FBI resembles more so a criminal organisation than a national secret service. In any case, Christina Urso’s upcoming documentary is proving to be very much a promising one.
ETN: First of all, before we begin talking about the documentary that you are working on, could you please inform our European readers about your political engagements and media activity?
Christina Urso: I have a background working in law, so this gave me a unique perspective on politics. The legal community is often very small, so you learn quickly how politics works. You see the backroom deals, the donations to re-election campaigns, the preferential treatment some firms get, etc. You see how powerful and wealthy people can game the system, while the most vulnerable in society often fall victim to it. I believe that power corrupts, regardless of what side of the political spectrum you fall on. I am an Orthodox Christian, which informs my values and how I understand politics and the world in general. I have been working as an independent journalist for several years now. I usually find myself in opposition to the “mainstream media,” who act mainly as stenographers for the federal government and other special interests. I think it is important to have independent journalists out there, who are willing to challenge the blatant propaganda and lies broadcast by these media outlets 24/7. That is what I have been focused on prior to my work on the documentary.
ETN: You are producing a documentary regarding the alleged kidnapping plot of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, back in October 2020. However, you claim that instead of the official narrative of militia groups, we are confronted with an FBI “terror plot”, so to speak. Why did this particular issue become so important for you that you decided to make a documentary about it?
Christina Urso: The documentary will explain how the FBI essentially fabricated the “plot” to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. It is important for your readers to understand, the FBI is probably akin to the German BND. It is America’s domestic federal police force. The FBI prides itself on being the “world’s premier law enforcement agency,” but in the wake of 9/11 and the expansion of the national security state – thanks to legislation like the Patriot Act – the FBI has become corrupt to the core. The FBI and DOJ alleged [that] these men plotted to kidnap and possibly kill Governor Whitmer. The mainstream media repeated these unproven assertions about scary “militia” groups and “white supremacist domestic terrorists.” When the story broke and I saw this, I knew there was probably far more to the story. Sure enough, as the case went through the discovery process on the way to trial, we learned about how the FBI was the one doing the “plotting.” When I began to research the story and the defendants, it became clear to me that these men were innocent – albeit flawed – individuals. Moreover, the political and legal implications of the case deeply concerned me. We live in a very ambivalent and chaotic world – a world where, often, acts of kindness are punished and acts of cruelty rewarded. When an injustice occurs, there is usually a diffusion of responsibility, and no one does anything to fix it because they assume someone else will. This case is important to me because the FBI is an incredibly powerful institution. There is no real accountability or oversight of them. They have a monopoly on force and unlimited resources. They can hide behind the veil of “national security” and we have seen so many scandals in recent years about them flagrantly violating the constitution and doing so with impunity. I basically decided that someone had to try to hold them accountable, and if no one else was willing to do it, I would.
ETN: Let us delve deeper into the complex of infiltrating not just an accused group, but the developing plot itself by the FBI. What can you tell us regarding the questionable nature of paid informants? Were those people spearheading the plot? Isn’t there a vicious circle there in that the more that they push forward a plot, the more money they receive?
Christina Urso: The Michigan Whitmer case perfectly illustrates the problem of infiltration and the use of informants. Not only are there financial incentives for FBI informants, but we need to step back and look at the FBI itself for a moment, as an organization as well as the federal government. There is a level of corruption, and for this big national security apparatus, a self-serving agenda to either create “threats,” or inflate the appearance of “threats.” America has 17 different intelligence agencies, all competing for resources and prestige. I believe there are incentives both financially and professionally for these agencies and individual agents to kind of create fake terror threats that they can then “foil”.
One thing that might be helpful to your readers to consider is the East German Stasi and their informant program. The Stasi had a massive network of informants – not all willing informants – that they recruited and employed utilizing fear, blackmail and the desire for personal gain. The Stasi had a program for targeting and neutralizing dissent, and that was called Zersetzung, meaning “decomposition” or “disruption.” I am sure your readers are aware of the political repression the Stasi subjected East German citizens to. Just as the goal of Zersetzung was to “switch off” a group by rendering it ineffective, as well as hindering positive media or public exposure and discrediting the group or individual target, the FBI’s use of informants seems to have the same objective.
Not only did the FBI use informants to infiltrate the Wolverine Watchmen militia group, but they also created fake militia groups that the FBI controlled and operated themselves. They created Facebook pages that were run by FBI informants. We know the FBI used 12 “CHSs” – a.k.a. “Confidential Human Sources” – as well as two undercover FBI Agents, UCE Mark and UCE Red. Based on documentation from the trial that I have reviewed, it appears that the FBI had numerous targets across multiple states. The “Whitmer Plot” investigation may in fact be connected to a larger operation that involved the infiltration of the Midwest Militia Movement.
Not all the identities of the CHSs have been revealed to the public. We know the identities of some and we have speculation on the identities of some of them. Steve Robeson was one of the main CHSs and he was a 20-year career criminal, a felon and a convicted pedophile. Robeson, a Wisconsin native, played a major role in building the criminal case, which resulted in the October 7th 2020 arrest of six men charged federally with conspiring to kidnap Governor Whitmer and eight men being charged in separate state cases for “providing material support” for terrorism.
It was Robeson who called and chaired a “nationwide” meet-up of militia groups in June of 2020, where the FBI claims the first outline of the plan was hatched. In court documents filed in the case that show out-of-court statements, we can observe that Robeson, wearing a recording device at the meeting, is the one pushing for a plan. He is recorded on the listening device complaining about the lack of a plan. On a recording device, he is picked up encouraging and suggesting violence. He says, “You can’t just grab brick and mortar without a human to go with it. You’ve done nothing but grab brick and mortar.” Another FBI informant who was at the Dublin meeting then backs up Robeson, saying, “You take brick and mortar and you’ve locked yourself down and made yourself a target.” Robeson then says, in response to another potential FBI informant saying, “We did not leave that meeting with a plan.” “No, we didn’t and I’m a little frustrated about that, but what we do know that we have to communicate – this group right here.”
So, what can we glean from this interaction that was picked up by the FBI’s own recording devices? We can see that the government was lying when they said this Dublin June 2020 meeting is when the “plan” was first hatched. Here is the government’s own informant on a recording device telling another potential FBI informant they left the Dublin meeting with no plan. The evidence itself directly contradicts and refutes the government’s claims about that meeting.
This is not unique to this case. We see the same thing over and over. Steve Robeson, along with the second main CHS Dan “Big Dan” Chappel, basically orchestrated the entire plot. They were the ones who introduced some of the defendants to one another. Informant Dan Chappel became the second-in-command of the Wolverine Watchmen militia group, and he was recognized by the members as the de facto leader of the group. It was Dan, at the FBI’s behest, who ran the tactical FTXs (field training exercises) or defensive firearms training.
Another CHS, Jenny Plunk, posed as a leader of the Tennessee chapter of a fake three-per-center militia group created by the FBI through their other informant, Steve Robeson. The FBI paid these informants with envelopes of cash that said “Chase Bank” on them. Steve Robeson, for his part, was paid around $20,000. Dan Chappel was paid over $54,000. He [also] received a new laptop, a smart watch, he was relocated to a different home, and after the men were arrested, he got another $23,000 cash bonus in December of 2020. The FBI’s own informants steered the plot, introduced the defendants to one another, lured people to locations under false pretenses; they set up each training exercise and meeting in advance. It was the informants always pushing and suggesting offensive acts.
It absolutely creates a vicious cycle where the more they push and try to radicalize members of the group, they are rewarded by their FBI handlers. They are given more cash incentives and they are given praise by the government. I do feel a distinction should be made when discussing informants. For Americans, when they hear the word “informant,” they assume that means someone who is observing and informing back to law enforcement on a crime already in motion. That is not what happened here. The FBI informants were tasked with acting not as “informants,” but as agents provocateurs, to create a crime where none existed.
ETN: What is known about the in-group dynamic concerning the Whitmer case? How did the FBI manipulate group members? Were there particular psychological methods? Were even drugs put into play?
Christina Urso: From what I have been able to gather, from my own independent research into the case, is that the FBI took control of the Wolverine Watchmen militia. I believe they did so with the sole intention of manufacturing a fake “domestic terror plot”, with these guys set up to take the fall as patsies. They would employ a variety of disturbing tactics to achieve this goal. The FBI had their informants contact people the FBI had indicated they wanted to target. These informants would befriend the target, then introduce them to other targets and informants and begin a pressure campaign, trying to manipulate the targets on behalf of the FBI. For example, there are thousands of phone calls, text messages, etc. from FBI informant Dan Chappel to Adam Fox, the so-called “ringleader” of the group. FBI informant Dan presented himself as an Iraq War veteran and hero who was part of the elite unit that helped rescue American sniper Chris Kyle. Fox said that he saw Dan as a “father figure” and said Dan took an interest in him when his own father did not. He would say offensive, crazy things trying to impress Dan, talking rough, but with no real intent to do anything violent or illegal.
FBI informants provided the targets with copious amounts of alcohol and marijuana, would get them intoxicated, and then would record them saying outlandish things. They would ask the targets hypothetical questions like, “hypothetically speaking, when would it be okay to use force or violence,” then record the response and the FBI would play that response in court out of context to make these guys look violent and bad. FBI informants offered $5,000 credit cards to targets, trying to get them to make a large purchase of weapons or ammunition that the FBI could then use as evidence that there was indeed some kind of actual “plot.” None of the targets took or used the credit cards, though. One FBI informant admitted to planting evidence on one of the defendants, so the FBI could later “seize it” when they arrested him. They target people who are vulnerable or going through a hard time; they have informants befriend them and then proceed to try to isolate them from everyone else. Once isolated, they start pressuring, pushing and trying to radicalize. They use peer pressure, and the informants rile people up and try to get them angry; they lure them to places under false pretenses; they used offers of wings and beer to get people to show up to events; they offered to pick people up and pay for their hotel rooms. The FBI and their informants ran the entire operation.
ETN: I have heard that there were also some impediments for the lawyers, including being barred from inquiring about misconduct by FBI agents and their informants. What can you tell us about the trial?
Christina Urso: There was so much corruption [that] it would be impossible to get into all the details here. For brevity’s sake, I will limit it to a few examples. The entire case really from start to finish involves corruption by FBI informants and agents. Let’s start with FBI Special Agent Jayson Chambers. Chambers was a lead handling agent of CHS Dan Chappel. 18 months before the Whitmer guys were arrested, Special Agent Chambers had incorporated his own private security firm, called ExeIntel. He had spent much of 2019 trying to drum up business, and his private company was seeking a multimillion-Dollar contract with the federal government to advise on cases of domestic terrorism. Moreover, text messages that came out show him telling another FBI agent that he was going to run the Whitmer case as a TEI – or Terrorism Enterprise Investigation – whether he got approval (from higher-ups at the FBI, as is required for TEI cases) or not. TEI is the highest threat level for a terrorism case and it requires approval. The FBI refused to disclose whether Chambers had gotten permission to set up a private for-company venture while still employed at the FBI, as is required, and after news of the business venture broke, the government removed Special Agent Chambers from the witness list.
Then another lead FBI agent, Special Agent Richard J. Trask, who had signed off on the criminal complaint and served as the Bureau’s public face of the case, was charged with beating his wife after they had attended a “swingers party” in Kalamazoo. He was suspended from the FBI. Local journalists uncovered unhinged anti-Trump Facebook posts Trask had made while he was on the Whitmer case, going off on “anti-vaxxers” and “Trump supporters.”
The third lead FBI handling agent, Special Agent Henrik Imploa, was accused of perjury by former Assistant Federal Prosecutor Brian Lennon, who sent a 10-page letter to Stuart Platt, the Assistant Director of the FBI, outlining the fact that Special Agent Impola committed perjury on two separate occasions, contrary to 18 U.S.C sec. 1621. To date no investigation into SA Imploa’s perjury, nor any charges, have been forthcoming.
After that, a State Prosecutor was removed from the case, because of prior corruption involving other cases. Assistant Attorney General Greg Townsend was “reassigned” after Prosecutor Karen MacDonald announced she found evidence of “prosecutorial misconduct” and breaches of “ethics” in prior cases Townsend worked that involved the use of Informants. Another Assistant US Attorney, Mark A. Totten, who previously worked for Governor Gretchen Whitmer, recused himself from the retrial of Adam Fox and Barry Croft. Defense lawyers for Mr. Croft filed an FOIA request to obtain the recusal memo, and there was no response. They were suing to obtain the Recusal memo, which, to date, has not been produced. The memo could shed more light on what Whitmer knew and when she knew it. The trial was basically tightly controlled, and the Judge granted all the government motions while denying almost all the defense motions. Judge Jonker wouldn’t allow the jury to hear about the FBI misconduct, or about the misconduct of the three lead handling agents. The defense was not allowed to call ANY witnesses, due to the government engaging in witness tampering and witness intimidation. The first trial resulted in zero convictions – two men were acquitted and found innocent, and the jury declared a mistrial on Adam and Barry. The retrial was even more corrupt, and Adam and Barry and both trying to appeal the convictions that came from the retrial.
ETN: I would like to talk about Adam Fox, whom the authorities labelled as the ringleader of the group. If I have been informed correctly, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison. How would you characterise Adam Fox? Does he have a criminal record? Does he suffer “special treatment” in prison?
Christina Urso: Adam Fox just turned 40 back on April 12th 2023, while sitting inside Florence Supermax in Colorado. The government saw Adam as sort of the perfect patsy, I think. Adam has zero history of violence, he has no prior criminal record, he had never been to jail prior to getting caught, up in the FBI’s entrapment scheme. Adam was never even a “member” of the Wolverine Watchmen militia. He was homeless at the time, in a very vulnerable position and didn’t have a lot of friends. FBI informant Dan Chapel was a father figure to Adam. He had taken an interest in him when his own father had not. Adam really wanted to impress Dan and he probably would have done anything Dan asked him to do. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison, and after he began conducting jailhouse interviews with me, he was promptly moved to Florence Supermax and his appeal lawyer has not been able to call him or visit him. His family is deeply concerned they are going to try to make him “disappear” in Supermax. They are very concerned for his safety. Right now, he is in 23-hours-a-day isolation. He is not allowed access to the commissary, he is incredibly depressed and he cannot communicate. He is allowed one fifteen-minute phone call per month. That is all.
ETN: Is this FBI plot a singularity or have you learned of more comparable framings of fake conspiracies by the FBI during your research? What is your opinion on the FBI in general?
Christina Urso: Prior to these men getting arrested in October of 2020, I had been investigating FBI corruption. Specifically, I had been looking into a little-known FBI operation called PATCON, which stands for “Patriot Conspiracy.” This was an operation the FBI ran back in the 1990s, trying to infiltrate and disrupt the right-wing militia movement. I believe that Ruby Ridge, WACO and OKC were all PATCON operations, orchestrated by the federal government. The FBI has been corrupted to its core. It should be abolished and all its internal files released to the public. I do not believe the FBI can be reformed. The entire agency is weaponized and out of control, waging a war on the American people.
ETN: Finally, what support do you receive for producing the documentary, entitled Kidnap & Kill: An FBI Terror Plot? What possibilities are there to support the project? Have there been any attempts to stop the production of the documentary?
Christina Urso: Thank you so much for asking! The documentary is entirely crowdfunded and crowdsourced. I spent several thousand Dollars of my own money to get the project started and off the group, to show people the kind of work we can do. We produced the trailer for the documentary already, which we are so proud of! There are ways to support the documentary. To make a donation online, you can do so anonymously, even if you like, at www.kandkfilm.com, which is our website. It is still under construction right now, so it redirects to our fundraising page on Give, Send, Go. You can also just go to https://givesendgo.com/radixverum to donate. You can help support us by subscribing to all our social media accounts and channels, which you will find linked on our Give, Send, Go fundraising page and helping to spread the word about the Whitmer Case and the documentary.
There have been a lot of attempts I think made to intimidate me and to try to shut the film down. I had my house “swatted” or raided two times within a three-day period, one time at 4:30 in the morning, while my daughter was sleeping. After I started conducting jailhouse interviews with Adam and Barry, they were moved to different Supermax prisons – mid-appeal, mind you – where I can no longer speak with them. They call this diesel therapy. It’s psychological torture, designed to wear the men down. Witnesses have been intimidated, and some outright threatened. But we refuse to be silenced or intimidated. That just confirms our suspicion that there is a lot more they are hiding. Eventually, it will all come to light.
FOLLOW CHRISTINA URSO ON TWITTER:
NotRadix
