← Chameleon
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- [00:00]
A
Hey Campside listeners, this is Josh Dean here. Just dropping in to let you know that five campside shows, including the one we're talking about today, the Michigan Plot, have been nominated for Signal Awards and you get to decide whether we win. So if you've enjoyed listening to Campside shows and want to support us, please go to Bit ly votecampside and click on the links to vote. We'd really appreciate it. Voting ends on Thursday, October 17th. That's this Week Sunday, so make sure to get your votes in by then. Once again, that's Bit ly votecampside. Thanks so much.
- [00:39]
B
Campside Media.
- [00:47]
A
Hey Chameleon listeners, Josh Dean here, host of the OG season, Season one Hollywood Conqueen. But I'm here today because I want to play you an episode of Inside the Tent, a new podcast we're making here at Campsite Media with exclusive behind the scenes content and extra stories about the shows you love. Every week we'll explore how one of our podcasts is made with the help of our hosts and producers. It's a great way to learn more about the process, the people who make our shows, and to hear some juicy behind the scenes anecdotes straight from the source. Today we're talking about the Michigan Plot, Season seven of Chameleon, which you may already know, is hosted by two all star journalists, Ken Bensinger and Jessica Garrison, and tells the story of the ridiculous attempted kidnapping of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. If you want more behind the scenes content and extra stories about the shows you love, head to joincampside.com to become a free member of the campside community. That's joincamps side.com now here's my conversation with Ken and Jessica. So take me back to the beginning. Where were you guys when you found this story and how did it come to be?
- [01:57]
C
Okay, so it was the fall of 2020 and it was the pandemic. And it was also a period here in Northern California of like pretty hideous smoke. And so we had sort of quarantined for a while and then we had fled the smoke because the sun done was blotted out by smoke. And we'd gone to my mom's house and she lives down further west where there was no smoke, but she lives in a pretty rural part of California, so there was no smoke, but there was also no cell service. And I was kind of planning on, you know, one of those days where you're air quote working. And then this happened. And as you know, I am a walking technological problem, but I Truly didn't have cell service and was trying to coordinate all these reporters to chase this story. And at a certain point, I think I called Ken and said, can you come help? And Ken, you came in and saved the day. That is how this all started. That's my recollection.
- [02:58]
B
Yeah.
- [02:59]
A
Ken, what does that mean? What does she mean by you save the day?
- [03:01]
B
Well, this was a story that popped up, and we were both at BuzzFeed News at the time. There was still enough staff and people covering things that they had breaking news type reporters writing up what was the headline in every newspaper around the country, which was that the FBI and the Attorney General of Michigan. Michigan had announced this big story. And so they all kind of jumped into it with just like writing off the press releases from the government, that kind of stuff. But there was interest in some other reporters kind of stepping back and digging a little deeper into what was known at the time and writing a story that provided more than just the sort of bullet point headlines of what was going on. And so because interest was there and Jessica was asking for help, I jumped in to try to wrangle some of the information into a story. And so with her expert guidance, I put all those words on a piece of paper to a digital piece of paper, and she assembled them into sentences and paragraphs that make sense. And we put out a story that ran, I think, later the same day or the next day, kind of what you would call a second day story.
- [03:58]
C
No one should go back and read it.
- [04:00]
B
Yeah. Which, you know, like, pretty much all the coverage from that time didn't age particularly well.
- [04:06]
A
But did you both at the outset think this is what the headline was like? It's a group of terrible guys who tried to kidnap a governor, perhaps kill her, and this is a very dangerous thing to be happening in America.
- [04:19]
C
I think we absolutely thought that.
- [04:21]
B
Yeah, I think that's. I mean, remember this press conference that was held on October 7, 2020. This is a month before the presidential election. And things were really tense. It was a tense time. We were still very much deep in Covid right then. People were feeling nervous that we'd just gone through a summer of political violence and, you know, upheaval over the Black Lives Matter protests and all that. And there was all these reports in the media and elsewhere that violence was just sort of bubbling under the surface of everything. And this seemed to confirm all those feelings. And our thinking was like, let's get to the bottom of what is going on with right wing violence in this country and why it's so pervasive. That was our thinking at the time.
- [04:59]
A
And even after January 6th, you still didn't understand the nuances of this story. Like you didn't yet understand what had happened, how dangerous it was versus a setup?
- [05:10]
C
No, no, no, no. We had no idea. I think our first inkling of it, and correct me if this is wrong, came when, for reasons that I no longer remember, I got very interested in this meeting at the Drury Inn, if that's how you say it, in Ohio, where all the kind of folks from all the 3 percenters from all over the country came and had this meeting. And I was sort of fascinate that. And so we started trying to figure out, you know, learn what we could about that meeting, because that seemed like, you know, crazy, right? That there was a summit of militia people from all over the country. And I think we eventually, through calling a lot, a lot, a lot of people found a couple of people who were there who were like, this is a total setup. They were like, this was like a picnic. We were just having a picnic. We were talking about the Constitution. There was no violence planned. You know, there was no violence discussed. And having now heard the tapes of that, we know that that's not completely true. E. But many of the folks that were there were so vehemently outraged at the idea that they had been plotting the murder of governors that I think was the first inkling of like, huh, this is interesting.
- [06:24]
B
Yeah. And I think also, you know, we had kind of an unusual opportunity because this story was a huge story when it first broke, but then just a series of wild political events kind of overshadowed it. Right. We had the presidential election then we had President Trump denying that he lost the election and the kind of endless craziness and circus around the whole big lie as it developed back then, the election denial movement. And then you had January 6th and the fallout from that. And so really, what happened in Michigan with the Whitmer plot kind of receded from the public view very quickly. Much more quickly, I would say, than it normally would in a normal sort of news environment. And Jessica and I, I think we're lucky in terms of reporting to be able to jump into that gap. We hadn't forgotten the story and found time in between our other work to keep poking at this thing and looking at it and not giving up on it, and found ourselves doing things like watching preliminary hearings in this case that almost nobody else was even paying attention to.
- [07:23]
C
Oh, yeah, that was the second thing that you listened to that. In fact, that might have been the first thing you listened to that preliminary?
- [07:31]
B
Yeah, there was, there was a three.
- [07:33]
C
Day hearing in March and, and found out about this. The other informant. Oh, I just. I'm so sorry for editing you out of the formative stage of this story. My apologies.
- [07:44]
B
Okay, but there was a. You are the protagonist. But there was a hearing in March 2021 that I listened to, a three day hearing. And my only protagonism was that I was able to get up at the ungodly hour to listen to it because I think it started at 8:30 or 9 Eastern Easter.
- [08:00]
C
It was very early here both of.
- [08:02]
B
Us are in Pacific time. So I was getting up at like five in the morning to listen and to three straight days of this. But it was really incredibly revealing. So much more came out about the case than had come out in the court documents. And by the time it was over, the feeling was like, whoa, whoa. This is really different than what they told us in October. There are government informants crawling all over this case in a way they didn't really talk about it before. And the main informant, who testified for a full day during this hearing has this story that basically puts him at the center of every single activity that ever happened in this case. And so at that point we thought, well, we've really got it. We gotta find people, we gotta source up. And we were fortunate. We also had editors overseeing us that gave us the room and time to do that.
- [08:49]
A
So we're all journalists and we're not supposed to have political stances, but we probably all do. And generally they're probably not on the far right part of the spectrum. But did this story challenge you in ways that surprise you in terms of like who you were identifying with or who you felt sympathetic for or who you felt was necessarily right or wrong?
- [09:10]
B
Yeah, it's tricky because, you know, at no point would I ever say, nor did I ever feel in the course of reporting this that the people we were writing about, the defendants in this case, were these sort of like innocent lambs or these wonderful, you know, upstanding contributors to society that just got framed for zero reason whatsoever. I think a phrase I use over and over again with people is like, these are not guys you'd want to have a beer with. They're very precariously perched in society. They're angry people. They have insane ideas. Even the ones who aren't like scary and threatening will talk you endlessly about the meaning of the US Constitution to a degree that you just, you really want to cut your own veins after a while because it just never stops. They're not the most sympathetic bunch of people. But what I think I did draw from this was that even unsympathetic people deserve fair treatment, fair and honest and good faith treatment from something as powerful as federal and state prosecutors. And so for me, it was like a big reminder of how powerful the government can be and how sometimes it really feels like the deck is kind of stacked, that the government for motives that aren't, I don't think, sinister in a deep state way or conspiratorial, but more sort of in a kind of boring bureaucratic way, which is FBI agents want to make cases to improve, to move up the ladder. Prosecutors want to get convictions so they can get jobs at fancy law firms. Everyone wants to advance their career and look good for those kind of prosaic reasons. The deck can sometimes get stacked and people can overlook inconvenient truths or push angles or theories that may not really hold up because there's an incredible systemic resistance to going anywhere with a case like this except towards charging people.
- [10:55]
C
I think that I didn't go into this case thinking that our criminal justice system is perfect, and I didn't come out of it thinking our criminal justice system is perfect. I mean, if these people are, quote, unquote innocent, they are far from the only innocent people in prison in America. And I think, you know, what was interesting about this case all the way through from day one to day now is that it's kind of a nuanced question of, you know, they were being recorded the whole time. So we know what they said and we know what they did, and it's sort of in the eye of the beholder. Well, do you think that's a crime? And I think that's part of why you've seen split juries on this, right? Because some juries are like, no, that's not a crime. And other juries have, you know, I mean, you can argue very reasonably about whether all the juries got all the evidence because they didn't. But I do think people are really wrestling with, is what these people did in conjunction with FBI informants a crime or not? And that's what's interesting about it, I think.
- [12:06]
A
Yeah, it can satisfy any opinion in a way, but also subverts your expectations. That's what I hear from a lot of people who listen to it, just that it's like, I didn't come out of it feeling the way I thought I would come out of it. And you can understand both, like how Whitmer's chief of staff feels. I'm sure if you were like, come on, man, this thing is ridiculous. They're gonna say, are we supposed to not take it seriously when someone threatens to kidnap the governor? And what happens the time that we don't take it seriously and the governor's killed? Right. And then on the other hand, it's like, it's a very good chance these guys don't do anything if the FBI doesn't put the metaphorical gun in their hands. Right. It was like, very much possible that a bunch of yahoos smoke weed in a vacuum store basement and nothing ever happens.
- [12:48]
C
Right.
- [12:49]
A
Until you inject somebody competent, provided by the government. Right. Which also seems pretty absurd. So I don't know. I don't know what there. Well, there probably is no right or wrong.
- [12:59]
C
Yeah.
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A
I mean, I think it's clear the government overstepped. But also, shouldn't they sometimes?
- [13:04]
C
I mean, that's what interesting about it, right? Because if the government had been listening to all this and been like, don't even worry about it. We're just going to move on, we would not think that was cool either. Right?
- [13:15]
A
Totally. It's. And I think it's really been interesting to see people's reactions to it. People can listen to the podcast and form their own opinions. I don't want to spend too much time on that. But what was it about the story? I mean, I know. Can you and I knew each other a little bit. We had friends in common. They suggested there could be a podcast in this, and that's kind of how it happened. But did it ever occur to you guys that there might be something more than just the series of articles? Was there something that felt like this could be a podcast?
- [13:41]
B
I guess we maybe. We sometimes speculated about what could be done with this. There was so much. There's much more than you could ever fit into a book. Excuse me, into an article. And so maybe we had, like, sort of not particularly advanced conversations about, is there a book someday? Is there something else? You know, podcast was something we thought about a little bit because I think a few people actually said it to us. One of the issues we thought early on was, well, for podcasts, it's an audio format. You need lots of audio. And we were already having problems with the course or with the prosecutor's office, more like in terms of getting copies of the audio that they were playing in court. So we had problems, which we technically continue to have intransigence issues with both federal and state prosecutors in this case about not wanting to hand over things that we believe are in the public record from the case. And so early on, we weren't really. We didn't have that much audio to work with. So I think it was only later that it became clear that a podcast could be possible.
- [14:41]
A
Yeah. Trying to imagine this podcast had we not gotten all those recordings from the wiretap.
- [14:47]
C
It would have been a really different situation.
- [14:49]
A
Yeah. A lot more of you guys summarizing your reporting and reading from court transcripts. And it's really incredible what we heard. Literally, like riding shotgun on the conspiracy or conspiracy in quotes.
- [15:01]
B
Yeah, that's right. And, you know, it's a luxury, I guess, because we got that material to be able to let the sort of story, so to speak, tell itself, as opposed to the audio equivalent of talking heads, you know, explaining what they did in the past and then maybe having actors do recreations. I think we had to do recreations for one or two things, but it was more like just people reading scripts. But it was, you know, we didn't make it. We didn't have to make up anything or pretend we were in a situation we weren't because we had the audio of what really happened.
- [15:30]
A
It also helped turn what could have been a very heavy, dark, serious, overly political podcasts into something that a lot of people enjoyed too. Like that it was fun because those characters, you guys could never bring them to life in the way they brought themselves to life. Right.
- [15:47]
B
Yeah. And I think there's a lot of stuff that we didn't know about that came out through these files. It simply just wasn't anywhere that we would have reported on it because it was like some of the funniest scenes we focused on the road trip to Wisconsin or whatever. It's not gonna be like no one on the prosecution or the defense is gonna ever bring that up on their own. They're not gonna talk about the jokes these guys told or the songs they sang in the car, because they're not germane to the criminal charges at hand. Right. But they are super germane to giving the audience a sense of who these people are, what they're like. And also maybe, as you talked about, removing some of the heavy atmosphere from the topic.
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A
Yeah, they're. They just sound like a bunch of 20 somethings going on a road trip.
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B
Right. Some goofballs.
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A
Yeah, we all have. Jessica, you have teenage boys, or maybe they're not teenagers anymore. But that road trip is not so different than, like a lacrosse team, probably.
- [16:39]
C
No comment.
- [16:44]
A
Well, sadly, Buzzfeed News is, is no longer. So the outlet that you covered this for is gone. But what are you guys doing now?
- [16:52]
B
I am a reporter for the New York Times. After the great bulk of our reporting for buzzfeed about the Whitmer case was over, unfortunately buzzfeed was going through some tough financial times and offered me and some other people the opportunity to leave. So we did, and I got lucky to get a job at the New York Times where I'm a politics reporter. So I've been very busy this year covering the presidential campaign.
- [17:14]
C
I'm a reporter at the LA Times. I covered Northern California.
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A
So you're doing more fires. And what does that beat mostly contain?
- [17:22]
C
Let's see. I mean, it's half the largest state in the country, so there's a lot of criminal justice, it's a lot of water. I'm going to go kayaking down the Russian river next week. And last week I was at the oldest Chinese restaurant in America.
- [17:38]
A
Those both sound like very fun stories.
- [17:40]
C
They are fun. Yeah.
- [17:42]
A
Meanwhile, Ken's like in the darkest corners of 5chan hanging out with Pepe the Frog and through enthusiasts.
- [17:50]
B
Yeah, pretty much. I have really fun friends who message me on social media and offer curious theories about humanity and me and my children and all sorts of things. So it's always delightful every day.
- [18:01]
A
Did you go to the Republican Convention?
- [18:04]
B
I did, yeah.
- [18:05]
A
How'd that go? They love the New York Times.
- [18:08]
B
You know, actually, you would think it would be a nightmare.
- [18:10]
C
I think they do, actually.
- [18:11]
B
They do. That crowd definitely does. There are people who like, want to harass New York Times reporters, but the RNC crowd and all these delegates. Delegates turn out for the most part to be not the crazy MAGA types. They tend to be like longtime Republican apparatchiks and they have some sense of liking different structures and institutions in the country. And so they sort of were all very cheerful. A lot of them were like, I'm a New York Times subscriber, was a common refrain at the rnc. So the really, the crazy people at the rnc, where the people in the media hall, or they call it Radio Row, which is like where all the podcasts are being done. And that's where all the like hardcore right wing podcasts that you hopefully never have to listen to are a raid. And you can truly like, an amazing thing is to walk around Radio Row at a, at the Republican Convention and see like, it's like a central casting. It's like, what's like the, the cantina from, from Star Wars.
- [19:05]
C
Catch yourself in trouble.
- [19:07]
B
It's like that. I know. It's like the cantina from Star Wars. Every, like, wild personality you could possibly imagine in the right wing ecosphere is just like walking around, going from booth to booth doing interviews.
- [19:19]
A
My last question you can lie to me about this is, would you make another podcast? Did you like making a podcast? It's different than what you do.
- [19:25]
B
I definitely would, given the right topic. I think this is, you know, for the most part, all projects have their ups and down moments, but I thought this project, probably because the chemistry of all the people involved in it was so great, was at times super fun to do, and learned a lot about storytelling, too. You know, our producer on this project, Ryan Sweichart, who I think Jessica and I both agree is kind of like a genius, he taught me a ton about storytelling and about research and how to sort of marshal facts into a coherent whole. I mean, I don't know if Jess feels this way as well, but one of the great gratifying moments for me was that Ryan kind of disappeared for a while and submerged himself in all this audio and listened to countless dozens, scores, hundreds of hours of audio that was from the whole case. And when he came out of it, he kind of built a timeline of what he thought the case was about and an impression about what he felt like the takeaways were. And what was really gratifying for me was that it wasn't a perfect match, but it very closely fit the version of the story that Jessica and I had figured out over a year and a half of reporting on the case from using different materials. And so the fact that he used a kind of a different data set to come to a similar conclusion really boosted my confidence in the story and also in this case, taught me a lot about how powerful the audio medium can be.
- [20:41]
C
Yeah, I would agree with that. I mean, I think the team that Campside put together to support this podcast was incredible. I have one and only one complaint about Ryan Sweikart, which is that having traveled to Michigan with him, he does not eat nearly as often as I do. And that was a source of some conflict. But other than that, I think he's incredible. And it was like a poor man's version of what must happen when someone makes a movie out of something in your head. Right. It was just. It was watching this thing come to life in a way that I. You know, I really don't feel like I can take much credit for it because I didn't figure out how to put it together in an audio way, but it was amazing. So, yes, I would do another podcast.
- [21:23]
A
I'm glad you guys mentioned, you know, hosts get most of the credit for podcasts, and I'm a host myself, so I often take the credit, but it is a really collaborative process. So I'm glad you both mentioned Ryan. Also, Ewan, who's on this call right now, did a lot of the music and sound design.
- [21:42]
B
Mike Meyer, let's not forget our. Our story editor was great.
- [21:45]
A
Yeah, it's. It really is a. It's a collaborative effort to make these things, and we try and pair the hosts, who typically in our case are journalists, like you guys are me. And then we can't do it alone. And I think the result here was a really a meeting of various minds, some of whom had never heard of the story or worked on it before. And then you guys, who knew it really well, but maybe knew it too well. And it's sometimes hard when you know a story super well and it sprawls like this one to, like, figure out, like, how do we make this into a single coherent narrative?
- [22:14]
B
And yeah, to springboard off that. And to answer your other question about doing another podcast, I mean, the answer is an unqualified yes. If I get to work with people like you guys again, absolutely.
- [22:23]
A
All right, we appreciate that. Thanks for listening to this special episode of Inside the Tent. If you want more of these behind the scenes chats, not to mention original articles and special bonus material from our shows, head to joincampside.com to become a free member of the campside community. That's joincampside.com See you there.