The trial of four men accused of trying to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer before the 2020 presidential election is producing some interesting and unusual testimony. The inside information is coming from an FBI informant and two men involved in the kidnapping plot who have pleaded guilty.

The four men on trial are Adam Fox, Barry Croft Jr., Daniel Harris, and Brandon Caserta. They are on trial in federal court in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Why were they planning to do it? Whitmer, like governors in other states, was getting people upset over her stay-at-home orders and other restrictions to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. But the upcoming presidential election was another major motive.

Dan Chappel, the FBI informant, said the plotters wanted to abduct Whitmer before the election because if Joe Biden got elected she might join the president’s administration and suddenly get extra Secret Service protection.

Chappel’s involvement was interesting. An Army veteran, he said he went from simply looking for camaraderie among gun-rights guys to becoming a covert operative winning the confidence of extremists and recording hours of conversations.

Things turned sour, he said, when they wanted to target law enforcement and kill them. Chappel confided in a friend in law enforcement and was contacted by the FBI about a week later.

“They asked if I would stay inside the group and monitor their activity,” he told the jury.

In August 2020, less than two months before the FBI made arrests, Chappel said he was driving a pickup truck with Fox and another man as they took pictures and video of Whitmer’s vacation home in Elk Rapids in northern Michigan.

The group made a return trip two weeks later. Some drove past Whitmer’s house while others with night-vision goggles were stationed at a boat launch.

A key final step was scraping up $4,000 for an explosive that could be detonated at a bridge near Whitmer’s home to confuse police. Jurors heard Croft say on a recording he wanted to put the governor on trial, adding, “Treason is a hanging offense.”

Kaleb Franks, who pleaded guilty in February, told jurors the group was prepared to use a grenade launcher and machine gun to fight security officers at Whitmer’s vacation home. Ty Garbin was another man who admitted a role in the wild scheme.

Authorities said the men were armed extremists who, after weeks of training, practiced dashing in and out of crude structures built to resemble a house or office.

Franks said Fox, the alleged leader of the plot, talked about snatching the governor “every time I saw him.” Franks was a drug rehabilitation coach. He said he joined a militia, the Wolverine Watchmen, to work on his gun skills.

Franks said he eventually met Fox and Croft, who weren’t in the militia, and found himself in the middle of a conspiracy. He said he stuck with the group because he hoped he would be killed in a shootout with police during the kidnapping.

“I no longer wanted to live,” he said. “A large portion of my family had died. I was struggling financially. Just wasn’t happy.”

Garbin, an airline mechanic, testified that Whitmer’s kidnapping could serve as the “ignition” for a U.S. civil war involving antigovernment groups and possibly prevent the election of Biden. He started cooperating with prosecutors soon after the group was arrested.

The Associated Press said Garbin was rewarded with a relatively light six-year prison sentence, a term that could be reduced after the trial. Franks hasn’t been sentenced yet but is also hoping for a break.

Defense attorneys claim informants and agents improperly influenced the four defendants. They are trying to show the jury that there was no credible plot, just a lot of profane, violent, and crazy talk about Whitmer and other politicians trampling their rights during the pandemic.

Franks said he was hoping that “LARPing” — live-action role playing — would explain the firearms … all the stuff that was a part of the crime.”

An assistant U.S. attorney asked Franks, “If you were LARPing, would you have pleaded guilty?” Franks said he wouldn’t have.

Federal prosecutors rested their case Wednesday, the 13^th day of the trial. They were trying to show that the four men charged with conspiracy to kidnap Whitmer were firmly committed to a plan without influence by informants or undercover FBI agents. The defense is up next.

This case has to rank as one of the weirdest of many wild stories we have heard about the pandemic and presidential election over the last two years.