Five whistleblowers expose covert operation to brainwash Christian grassroots in effort to destroy Michigan GOP
Part 1 in a series of 5.
Note: This is the story that launched Bigger Truth Media on January 23, 2024. I was told by those who shared it directly with President Trump that he read it. Three days later he began to intervene to assist in the removal of Karamo, with Michael Whatley’s help. When I met Michael Whatley at an event in October, 2024, he told me that he was familiar with this and other reports I wrote. This report had over 150,000 page views before I migrated it to this Substack. Not a bad start!
Five whistleblowers with extensive direct experience with ousted Michigan Republican Party (MIGOP) Chair Kristina Karamo have gone on the record with Bigger Truth Media to expose the covert operator with self-professed ties to the national intelligence community (IC) who has systematically brainwashed Karamo and every member of her inner circle within MIGOP.
This operator, Mike Labadie, who was a registered Democrat in California in 2016, has engaged in a plan that appears to have begun in 2017 or even earlier to raise up a previously unknown Christian conservative, bring her under his complete and domineering control and make her into a powerful political figure who would ignite the imaginations of the conservative grassroots. He then caused her to brainwash hundreds of grassroots GOP delegates throughout the state into absolute, unquestioning support as they helped her to make the party into an ideological dictatorship at war with itself while deliberately bankrupting the party and embroiling it in legal troubles.
All just in time for the 2024 elections.
The whistleblowers state that the level of control Labadie has over Karamo is absolute. He is responsible not only for every major decision of her campaign but for every word and phrase that she and MIGOP put out to the public and especially to delegates.
In upcoming installments of this story, Bigger Truth will show how Labadie designed a delegate training organization that is organized similarly to a secret society. It was created to train and indoctrinate delegates on scale throughout the state. The messaging of the organization is clearly focused on emotionally manipulating the delegates into becoming extreme zealots who are marked by irrational hatred towards members of their own party who speak out against Karamo.
Two of the whistleblowers were key administrators within Karamo's campaign for secretary of state, including Kristy Klamer, Karamo's personal “handler” and unofficial campaign manager who spent up to 80 hours every week for 21 months working intimately with Karamo and Labadie to try to get her elected.
Their testimonies show that Labadie deliberately sabotaged the campaign and was much more focused on messaging than on winning. He even frequently said to Danette Besley, Karamo's assistant campaign manager, throughout the campaign, “We're going to lose.” Karamo lost by over 600,000 votes and never conceded.
Their testimonies suggest that the purpose of the SoS campaign was never to win the election, but instead to win over the hearts and minds of the large wave of incoming grassroots delegates, who would then ensure her eventual election to MIGOP chair.
An upcoming installment of this story will show how Labadie further influenced the delegates to utilize a particular script designed to cause the county, district, and state conventions to descend into complete chaos orchestrated in such a way to ensure Karamo's victory as chair.
Further upcoming installments will explore whether similar plans have been executed in other states where state Republican parties are also bankrupt and similarly divided heading into the 2024 election.
The fired leader who refuses to leave
If you're unfamiliar with the situation, this document, produced by former 9th District Chair Warren Carpenter, one of the whistleblowers for this story who played a significant role in getting Karamo elected to MIGOP chair and RNC attorney Troy Cummings, is full of receipts.
As of today there are two state parties. Each has its own chair, leadership team, website, fundraising efforts and mailing lists. They are both fighting for the hearts and minds of the majority of delegates, who will ultimately determine the outcome of this situation.
The Karamo team is marked by complete opacity, authoritarianism, vindictiveness, secrets, anger and bitterness. At republican meetings the Karamo supporters are easy to spot – they're the angry and controlling ones.
The last week alone has seen no shortage of drama.
Instead of resigning like one would expect of a leader who has been asked to leave an organization she cares about, Karamo is clearly trying to take the ship down with her. She has vowed to never step down. She held a meeting on Jan. 13 where she claims 59 of the state's 107 committee members affirmed her then removed interim chair Malinda Pego and 6 other dissidents from membership for working to remove her.
On Jan. 18, Karamo's attorney, Dan Hartman, sent a cease and desist letter to Pego and seven of her most vocal supporters for “trademark and copyright violations” for claiming they officially represent MIGOP. Hartman claims that only Karamo and her team represent MIGOP and threatens to take the dissidents to court. While that lawsuit would appear to be unlikely to result in legal victory for Karamo, it certainly would succeed in increasing chaos and distraction instead of focusing on winning elections.
On Jan. 19, Erin Clark, National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) General Counsel, sent a scathing letter to Hartman about Karamo's team's mismanagement of funds. She concluded the letter by saying, “These do not seem to be the actions of a state party that adheres to conservative principles; or frankly, one that has the desire or ability to elect Republicans to office.” (emphasis added)
It is most interesting to see the lead attorney for the NRCC suggest that Karamo's team doesn't appear to even want to win elections.
On Jan. 20, the group opposed to Karamo held a special meeting to elect a new chairman. Former U.S. Representative Pete Hoekstra was endorsed by President Trump and elected after Trump asked Vance Patrick to endorse Hoekstra.
After the meeting, Karamo posted the following lengthy, scathing message on one of the Telegram channels she uses for her "official" communication, claiming the process of removing her was illegal and said, "the attacks are being orchestrated by the same group of elitist individuals who maintain the corrupt status-quo caste system within the Michigan Republican Party."
In the last few weeks she has consistently used the following words to attack the members of her own party who want to remove her, often all in the same letter or speech:
illegal
cohorts
RINO
co-conspirator
deceitful
treacherous
diabolical
demonic
cabal
liars
operator of the oligarch
undermine the will of the delegates
sabotage
small fringe
pro-democrat
anti-republican
massive disinformation
elitist
chaos
contempt
confusion
She has said repeatedly that she hopes the party will unify but how can that happen when this is how she treats the center-right of the party, which comprise a substantial portion of republican voters?
None of the above words originate from Karamo herself. And this is where we get to the most disturbing part of this whole story:
His name is Mike Labadie.
In just 7 years, Mike Labadie has risen from a registered California democrat to become the shadow director of MIGOP and thus most powerful person in Michigan politics. He has done more damage to the GOP and the state than any democrat ever could, wielding his power with the apparent intention of destroying MIGOP. He is ultimately responsible for the party being completely unprepared for the 2024 election. Unless something changes very quickly, he will also have tremendous influence over the outcome of the upcoming March 2 convention of delegates, which will select 70% of the state's presidential primary delegates.
The whistleblowers cited in this story all independently believe that Labadie has emotionally and mentally manipulated Karamo into a state of complete co-dependency and control. He is consulted by Karamo and others in her inner circle on every major decision for the party. He is involved in every personnel decision. He is responsible for all strategy decisions. He is particularly specific and demanding about the exact words and phrases that Karamo and other spokespeople for the party are to use with the public and with delegates.
Who is Mike Labadie and where does he come from?
Labadie is a mysterious figure. Very little information can be found about him online. A single news story featuring Labadie was published after Karamo claimed during her campaign for chair the he was “just a friend” and “was never in consideration for serving in my administration in any capacity.” The story is worth a read as it gives a small glimpse into his background.
One other news story claims that “Karamo's longtime adviser Michael Labadie joined her” when she was the only public figure from Michigan to attend the 2021 Arizona audit of the 2020 election. That occurred shortly after she began her Secretary of State (SoS) campaign.
According to a background check, Labadie lived in the Houston, TX area in the early 1990s and entered a guilty plea in 1992 to a charge of cruelty to animals.
Most of the addresses associated to him following that time were in Ventura County, CA, where public records show he owns a large estate valued in the $4-7M range and sold a condo in 2021 for $495,000.
It appears that he used the condo as his office, where he studied and got into character in preparation for his operations in Michigan. Here's a picture of his workspace from the listing photos of his condo. It looks like a place where considerable time was spent.
Note the dog tags hanging on the lamp on the left. He has told multiple people that he served in the military in Granada and was stabbed in an armed conflict. The service records did not turn up in a National Archives search.
Labadie registered as a Democrat on September 29, 2016 in Ventura, CA, shortly before Trump's election.
In 2017 he got a real estate license in Michigan with an address in Waterford. On his Zillow bio he wrote, “I grew up in the landscaping business and then launched my own specialty construction firm where I developed property, renovated homes and managed Fortune 500 critical system projects for firms such as Pepsi, Amgen, Baxter & Clorox.”
The whistleblowers all said that he makes extraordinary claims when he introduces himself, mentioning a book, “The Startup Game” by William H. Draper III. that mentions Labadie and describes him as a contractor for Fortune 500 companies.
His spiel also includes a story about how he used to work for the United Nations and has connections with the intelligence community. Carpenter said, “When I first met Kristina, Mike came and talked to me in front of my shop. He proceeded to tell me that he worked for the UN on behalf of the IC community to train diplomats on how to deal with these 'globalists and authoritarians – these killers!' from other countries so they can know how they think and what they mean when they say what they say.”
Klamer said that, “he told me he used to work as a contractor for or with the U.N. and worked with these deep state evil type people.”
He then concludes his spiel by claiming that he had learned all that so he could “take down the globalists” and “save this state and nation for future generations.”
But he doesn't talk to just anyone. JD Glaser is the Chair of the 5th District. He was initially a strong supporter of Karamo and he worked closely with Labadie to develop curriculum and systems for Michigan Precinct First (MIPF), an organization Labadie created and continues to be involved with to train – and ultimately control – the large wave of first time precinct delegates who were elected in 2022.
Glaser said of Labadie, “He's the kind of person who doesn't make himself known. He is really good at staying in the background. He chooses people after observing them. He's very disciplined about it. He discards you if you don't fit his profile.”
“That's how he's able to keep such control.”
The indoctrination method
The whistleblowers revealed the following method that Labadie consistently uses to emotionally and mentally manipulate people into ever increasing states of co-dependency and control. The method is reminiscent of common grooming techniques, as well as Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" and Karl Marx's dialectic materialism.
Step One: Observation
One common thread in the whistleblowers' testimonies is that Labadie only speaks with people that he has already determined to be useful to him.
Glaser said of Labadie, “He doesn't talk to you unless he's already decided to work with you.”
Labadie surveils his potential targets long before they know they are a target. Three of the whistleblowers said that he often instructs someone else to speak to his target and covertly record the conversation so he can listen to it.
Klamer said, “At this stage he's assessing their competency, but more importantly whether he can control them. The people he has targeted are people who are respected, influential, and most of them have been leaders over an organization."
Step Two: Establishing his authority
When he approaches someone, he first seeks to build himself up as an expert operator with secret knowledge without which the conservative cause will surely fail.
A key tool Labadie uses to establish his authority is the Bible. He has many passages of scripture memorized – especially from the Old Testament – and uses scripture to establish his authority, persuade his subject that he is a trustworthy fellow believer and lull him or her into a state of receptivity.
Klamer said, “Mike told me once that free masons know scripture better than pastors do. He never actually said he was a free mason but he talked about them often. When we first met, he told me that his mission was to get the church more involved in politics.”
Free masonry was a common theme. Glaser said, “On a couple occasions he texted me pages from the free mason book – you know, the one nobody's supposed to have – with the suggestion that we could use that against them.”
The passages from scripture he uses tend to focus on exposing and confronting evil and the dire consequences of sin. He promotes the idea that it is a righteous cause to fight against evildoers. He comes across as being very heartfelt and sincere.
Carpenter said if the scripture didn't have its intended effect he would effortlessly pivot to the founding fathers. He said, “I shut him down on the way he used scripture. Then he used the founding fathers on me.”
Step Three: Affirmation
Having established his authority, he then expresses an interest in his subject, asking questions and affirming them.
He maintains his focus on politics and scripture during this affirmation process. He recognizes and praises his subject's unique strengths.
Step Four: Declaration
In this step he makes a profound declaration of his subject's importance in “saving the state and nation from the globalists for future generations.”
Klamer said, “He tells you what your role is in the mission, that you have a really important purpose and that you can help save this state and country for your children and grandchildren.”
Who doesn't want to have a critical role in saving this country? This is a universal appeal for right and left. There might be different motives and enemies, but the process is the same.
For conservatives who are deeply concerned about the state of this country, the opportunity to have a grand purpose like the founding fathers is extremely appealing.
Step Five: Warning – the enemy is in our ranks
Next, Labadie provides a dire warning, that the “deep state globalist RINOs [Republicans In Name Only]” have completely infiltrated the republican party at every level and they are even worse than the democrats because they lie about who they are.
He talks frequently to his subject about how the globalists need to be removed from within the republican party before the democrats can be defeated. This step continues long after the first meeting and Labadie's rhetoric is pervasive throughout all of the Karamo team's communication to its delegates. Here is an example. Note that all of the focus is on people that are being demonized from within the party. There is rarely talk of taking on actual democrats from the Karamo camp.
Step Six: Test
This step and the next are repeated frequently as long as someone continues to work with Labadie. Initially the tests are just little things, like making an introduction or performing a task. But he uses the tests to slowly and gradually coerce his subjects into violating their conscience. This results in Labadie having ever expanding control over his subject.
Klamer gave an example of a time Labadie was trying to get her to divulge some information to them that was told to her in confidence during the SoS campaign. She said, “Mike was wanting specific information from me and I said, 'Well, I can't answer that question because I told this person that I wouldn't share.'
“He said something to the effect... 'Kristy this information is very important and in times like these you HAVE to share this type of information.'”
“You know how negative situations tend to be imprinted in our minds?” Klamer continued. “I remember right where I was standing. Why? Because I remember feeling a lot of pressure to compromise my values and felt irritated that he thought this was OK.”
Often the tests were more subtle. Glaser said, “He never directly tried to get me to violate my conscience, but I always had to do things his way, even if I disagreed. If I didn't, he made it clear I'd be cut off.”
Step Seven: Evaluation and Correction
If the subject passes the test, he or she receives praise and eventually a new test. If they fail, there is correction. A common adjective used by whistleblowers to describe Labadie is “abrasive.”
Glaser said, “If you don't agree with him, he hangs up on you and says, 'I'm out.' Then he doesn't talk to you again until he thinks you can't proceed without him, which is often true because he holds the organizational piece of the team you're working on. With some people it is really effective, depending on how he's gotten to them emotionally.”
More than one whistleblower described the correction step as a “struggle session.” Klamer's earlier example is reminiscent of a communist style struggle session meant to tear the subject down.
Carpenter witnessed what he called a struggle session used against Karamo. “I sat in on one of their struggle sessions, where [Labadie] told her how to talk and what to say. He had a camera out and he said, 'No, no, say it like this!' He was very abrasive.”
“It's cult behavior,” Carpenter said.
Rinse and Repeat
This test and correct cycle continues as long as the subject is useful and loyal to Labadie. The longer it goes, the more complete his power over the subject becomes. The object is a state of absolute codependency and control.
“If you look at the behavior of the people who work with him a long time they all become very bitter,” Glaser said. “They all start out as very patriotic people who profess strong Christian principles, and as they get closer to him they become really bitter and angry.”
Indeed, Bigger Truth had an experience with this when speaking with Lori Skibo, Karamo's chief of staff. She got extremely angry because this journalist didn't agree with her assessment of the bylaws. She was trying to argue they said something they clearly did not say, and as questioning continued she become increasingly angry until she shouted, “Sir, I'm going to hang up on you now!”
Karamo “scored off the charts”
Carpenter first met Labadie during the SoS campaign. While Labadie was building himself up, Carpenter said, “He told me, 'I was sent here to recruit SoS candidates. When I met Kristina she tested off the charts.' I told him, 'Yeah, I can see that she's a great orator. I think she's got bigger things ahead than SoS.' He told me, 'Oh yes, we have big plans for her.'”
Carpenter continued, “What he said about scoring off the charts, I see now that he wasn't talking about her political or speaking skills. She tested off the charts for manipulation. It was kind of a facetious way of saying she scored well in his profiling system.”
Similarly, Glaser said, “With Karamo, she's the perfect candidate because she does exactly what she's told. I've never seen her make a decision without [Labadie]. And he has excellent emotional control over her. She's paralyzed without him.”
“That's one of the things people don't understand, how she could be so fiery as a public speaker and how such a fiery person could be controlled,” Glaser said.
Carpenter offered a likely explanation, suggesting that Labadie found her at perhaps the lowest point of her life, during her divorce after a time when her ex husband claimed in court documents that she received psychiatric evaluation for self harm and attempted suicide.
Carpenter said, “[Labadie] built her from nothing. He was everything to her at her lowest point. He put her out there to run as secretary of state, became her number one confidante, ostracized everyone closest to her and for everyone he pushed out, he put new people in their place.”
Labadie's communication with Karamo was extremely frequent. Dawn Beattie worked as Executive Administrator for Karamo in the first half of 2023 before she was fired abruptly for asking too many questions. In her position, she often spent days driving long distances across the state, just Karamo and Beattie in the vehicle together.
Beattie said, “We could be driving 3-4 hours together, and much of that time she would be on the phone with Mike. But she wouldn't say anything, just Mike talking the whole time. She never had him on speaker phone so I don't know what he was saying to her. But I know that before the call, she'd be really happy and sweet and talkative, but after they got off the phone with Mike, she just went quiet.”
Was the SoS campaign really about winning the GOP Chair?
When considering Labadie's alleged statement to Carpenter, “we have big plans for her,” the obvious question is, what are those plans?
It is likely that Labadie's plans for Karamo were never to win the SoS race at all, but to use the race to springboard her into the state chair position, where she could cause maximum chaos and contribute to a Trump defeat in 2024. Could this have been the plan even before Labadie moved to Michigan in 2017?
Kristy Klamer worked as Karamo's unofficial campaign manager and handler and Danette Besley served as assistant campaign manager to Karamo during her SoS campaign. They both indicated that even when they were in the midst of giving everything they had, donating all the time, energy and even their families' money to the campaign, the campaign made highly questionable decisions with Labadie at the unofficial but actual helm.
"Mike said often, 'We're going to lose,'" Besley said.
“There were times when I thought, 'are we trying to lose?'" Klamer said. "I was giving everything I had to try to win but sometimes what we were doing just didn't make sense. We never had enough money. Fundraising was always a problem. And Kristina just wouldn't ask for donations.”
Besley gave a striking example of the type of sabotage Labadie's leadership caused, “We were trying to develop a system and data source for door knocking. You know, door knocking is one of the most important parts of any campaign. MIGOP has a sophisticated system with great data. But Mike didn't want to use it. We couldn't afford it and Mike said something like there were 'deep state' people who had access to that system so we couldn't use it.
“So we went back and forth. Finally Mike came up with the idea that was so stupid I can't even believe I'm saying this. His idea was to use a real estate app to keep track of the doors our volunteers knocked on and keep their notes,” Besley continued. “Mike had me research and figure out how to do that. I tried everything I could think of, wasting a solid week on that. In all we spent a few weeks going back and forth about it.
“In the end, Mike just said, 'Forget it, we just won't doorknock.'”
The biggest indication that the intention was to lose the SoS race was in the messaging. The media frequently reported on her messaging, which the whistleblowers all claim is “all Labadie.” The focus of her messaging was exclusively centered around the ideas of election fraud and fighting against globalism – ideas that clearly appeal to her base but were also a big turn off to all democrats and even many Republican voters.
In polls at the time it was clear that her messaging could never win a general election but it didn't deter Labadie at all. He just had Karamo press on. She lost by over 600,000 votes.
Carpenter described Trump's final campaign stop in Michigan, held in Macomb County in the final weeks of the campaign. Tudor Dixon was there, along with Matt DePerno and Karamo.
Carpenter said, “They all met with Trump and his team before the event and Trump told them all what to say. But Karamo is the only one who didn't do what Trump asked. She said what Mike wanted her to say. She talked about globalism and election fraud.”
“I think she did that because Mike wasn't really having her run for SoS. He was having her run for state chair even then. That messaging wasn't meant for a general election but for the incoming grass roots republican delegates.”
Was that the plan from the apparent months that Labadie spent in his Ventura condo office before he ever moved to Waterford in 2017? If so, that seems like mastermind-level planning and patient execution.
Conclusion
If Labadie were a grifter motivated by financial gain he would have raised more money so there would be more to skim. But both his shadow leadership in the SoS campaign and at the helm of MIGOP are marked by catastrophic failure when it comes to fundraising.
Could he be a lone wolf democrat out to be a hero by ensuring Trump could never repeat 2016 in Michigan, possibly funded by some big money democrat donors? Possible, but consider the following factors.
The lack of background information about Labadie on the internet.
The democrat voter registration in 2016 followed by his Michigan real estate license in 2017.
There is no recorded public declaration of a change in political ideology from left to right that we could find, unless it exists under an alias.
He immediately got involved as a GOP precinct delegate starting in or shortly after 2017, working his way up to district involvement in 2019.
Despite working up the ranks as a delegate to the district level, Labadie was a complete unknown to multiple well-connected and involved delegates in the same county.
The only person in the party that I could find who knew of Labadie prior to 2021 was a former district chair who asked to remain anonymous for this story. He knew who Labadie was but described him as reclusive and quiet without any friends. He was also fairly certain Labadie met Karamo in 2019, when he recalls both attending the same meeting.
Labadie accompanied Karamo on her trip to the Arizona audit in 2021.
Labadie arranged for and attended a five hour long informational session with Matt DePerno about election integrity issues either immediately prior to or after her trip to AZ.
There are multiple indications documented at length in this report that suggest that the SoS campaign was sabotaged from within and Labadie's intention was never to win it.
The convention at which Karamo was elected to chair has been described by several individuals on both sides and by the media as being completely chaotic and often marked by hostility. As I will cover in future installments, a script designed to stoke chaos and secure Karamo's election was tested at county and district conventions prior to it being used at the state convention.
From the very beginning the Karamo MIGOP administration has been a contrived failure. One party insider who worked within the Karamo administration for several months said at a private event I attended, “Chaos has been far too sculpted and consistent to be an accident.”
Labadie has an extremely consistent and effective means of engaging with someone in a manner developed to enable him to gain emotional and mental control over them. He is extraordinarily disciplined with that system, which shares many commonalities with Saul Alinsky's “Rules for Radicals” and Karl Marx's dialectic materialism.
Labadie appears to have complete, domineering control over Karamo – including over every decision and the specific words, phrases, and themes of her communication.
Labadie speaks frequently about free masons and, as I will show in upcoming installments, he designed a training and indoctrination system for delegates that in many ways mirrors a secret society.
Labadie has claimed to many people to have connections to the intelligence community.
There are similar outcomes in multiple states, in terms of a militant grass roots fighting against the rest of the party and the party being on the verge of bankruptcy. The parallels with Idaho are particularly stunning. But AZ, CO, MN, FL MA and others are also bankrupt or close.
I have seen multiple other allegations of connections between Labadie and other individuals who may be higher up the food chain in the IC. I am still seeking access to witnesses who may have more direct knowledge of this before I get more specific.
This is the part where you come to your own conclusions.
Stay tuned. Much more to come.