A federal grand jury indicted six men in December 2020 in a conspiracy to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer “in what investigators say was a plot by anti-government extremists who were angry over her coronavirus policies,” The Associated Press reported.
Those indicted of federal crimes included Adam Fox, Barry Croft Jr., Ty Garbin, Kaleb Franks, and Daniel Harris of Michigan, and Brandon Caserta of Delaware.
Eight others were charged with committing state crimes. They included Paul Bellar, Shawn Fix, Brian Higgins, Eric Molitor, Michael Null, William Null, Pete Musico, and Joseph Morrison.
The men were involved with a militia group, the Wolverine Watchman Militia, who were among the armed protestors who entered the Michigan Senate gallery to confront the governor’s stay-at-home order.
Whitmer blamed President Donald Trump in part for the kidnapping plot by saying that the president had provided aid and comfort to white supremacists with his words.
The suspects’ defense attorneys claimed their clients were “big talkers” who had no intentions of following through on their kidnapping plot – even though the men had talked in great detail about kidnapping Whitmer and other governors, participated in live-ammunition exercises, surveilled Whitmer’s vacation house, and made plans to destroy a highway bridge near Whitmer’s house to obstruct police attempts to pursue them.
During a training exercise, the indictment said, the men “practiced assaulting a building in teams, and discussed tactics for fighting the governor’s security detail with improvised explosive devices, a projectile launcher, and other weapons.”
The Associated Press quoted the indictment as saying that Caserta was quoted in an electronic message as saying, “that if the men encountered police during a reconnaissance mission, ‘they should give the officers one opportunity to leave, and kill them if they did not comply.’”
https://apnews.com/national-national-10f7e02c57004da9843f89650edd4510
You know, just a bunch of heavily armed guys chewing the fat about being inconvenienced by a few lockdown policies.
They were arrested after scheduling a meeting to buy explosives and other supplies from an undercover agent, the Associated Press reported.
https://apnews.com/national-national-10f7e02c57004da9843f89650edd4510
And speaking of big talkers …
Whitmer criticized the Trump Administration for not doing enough to address the pandemic as the death toll surged in April. Trump responded as any overly defensive, thin-skinned, sulking man-child might be expected.
Trump went on Twitter and called her “Gretchen ‘Half’ Whitmer,” charging that she was “way over her head” and said didn’t “have a clue” about how to handle the health crisis.
https://fortune.com/2020/04/01/trump-coronavirus-twitter-whitmer-michigan-governor-feud/
In the words of Pee Wee Herman, “I know you are but what am I?”
The men were arrested in October 2020, two weeks before the Presidential Election and a couple weeks after Trump gave members of the Proud Boys a shout out during a presidential debate with Democratic candidate Joe Biden by telling the white supremacists to “Stand back and stand by.”
How did Trump respond when he heard about the foiled kidnapping plot, which was inspired in part by his own coddling of extremist groups and his own verbal attacks on Whitmer?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-stochastic-terrorism-uses-disgust-to-incite-violence/
Did he condemn the plot and offer his sympathy toward Whitmer?
No, that would have required a conscious – and sociopaths lack a conscious, “an understanding of right and wrong no matter who gets hurt.”
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/sociopath-personality-disorder
Trump is a sociopath, according to his niece Mary, a clinical psychologist who wrote in her book about her uncle.
“Donald’s pathologies are so complex and his behaviors so often inexplicable that coming up with an accurate and comprehensive diagnosis would require a full battery of psychological and neuropsychological tests that he’ll never sit for,” Mary Trump wrote in her book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.
Trump called Whitmer “a dictator” by ordering businesses closed to slow the spread of the deadly virus.
Trump’s words repeated those of the alleged kidnappers.
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN27206U/
Fox Business anchor Stuart Varney did not respond to the president’s brutal, cold-hearted, heartless, ruthless – the adjectives jump off the page – response to Whitmer’s attempted kidnapping.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/trump-whitmer-dictator-michigan
When Trump criticized Whitmer during one of his campaign rallies, the crowd responded by chanting, “Lock her up! Lock her up!”
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN27206U/
In response to Trump’s words, Whitmer said: “Hate groups heard the president’s words not as a rebuke, but as a rallying cry, a call to action.”
Barry Croft Jr. was sentenced in December 2022 to 19 years and seven months in prison for conspiracy to kidnap Whitmer, conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction against persons or property, and knowingly possessing an unregistered destructive device, which was a commercial firework refashioned with shrapnel to serve as a hand-grenade.
Adam Fox was sentenced a day earlier to 16 years in prison.
Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, who testified against Fox and Croft, received prison sentences of 2 ½ years and four years, respectively.
Brandon Caserta and Daniel Harris were acquitted.
Paul Bellar, Joe Morrison, and Pete Musico, who were early supporters of Croft and Fox, were convicted of charges including “materially aiding a terrorist” and being part of the ploy to kidnap Whitmer.
Pete Musico and Morrison, his son-in-law, were given 12-year and 10-year prison sentences, respectively. Bellar was sentenced to seven years in prison.
https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/3-men-tied-to-leader-of-whitmer-kidnap-plot-face-sentencing
https://michiganadvance.com/blog/final-two-sentences-handed-down-in-plot-to-kidnap-and-kill-whitmer/
In addition, Shawn Fix was sentenced to three to 20 years a prison – yes, a bit vague. Brian Higgins, who testified against the other defendants, was given a sentence of 36 months probation.
Three other defendants, brothers William and Michael Null, and Eric Molitor, were exonerated during a jury trial.
https://michiganadvance.com/blog/final-two-sentences-handed-down-in-plot-to-kidnap-and-kill-whitmer/
