On Tuesday, a jury found two men guilty of attempting to kidnap Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer.
The case was not without controversy. According to The Daily Wire, the government “failed to secure a conviction on a single charge in April … but federal prosecutors chose to pursue the case against [two of the defendants in the April trial] Fox and Croft again.”
According to the Associated Press, on Tuesday, in addition to being convicted of conspiring to kidnap Whitmer, Barry Croft and Adam Fox were “convicted of conspiring to obtain a weapon of mass destruction.”
Croft was found guilty of an additional explosives charge. The two men face life in prison.
The Daily Wire reported that the decision is a victory for prosecutors and the FBI, who suffered legal setbacks in April when a “jury deadlocked on charges against Croft and Fox and acquitted two other men of conspiracy charges.”
Allegedly, Croft and Fox were coordinators of a plot to kidnap Whitmer and try her for treason over her handling of the pandemic.
According to prosecutors, Croft and Fox were part of separate militia groups but worked together to plan to kidnap the governor of Michigan.
One such plan involved abandoning the governor on a boat in the middle of Lake Michigan. Another plan involved blowing up a bridge to cut off a police response while coconspirators kidnapped the governor from her cottage near Elk Rapids, Michigan.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler said of the plan: “You can’t just strap on an AR-15 and body armor and go snatch the governor,” according to the AP.
“But that wasn’t the defendants’ ultimate goal,” Kessler explained. “They wanted to set off a second American civil war, a second American Revolution, something that they call the boogaloo. And they wanted to do it for a long time before they settled on Gov. Whitmer.”
The FBI’s seven-month investigation caused some to question the FBI’s methods and conduct — particularly of bureau informants, often referred to as confidential human sources.
The defendants’ attorneys argued the FBI baited Fox and Croft to exaggerate their schemes, claiming their client’s heavy use of marijuana, sometimes “facilitated by FBI informants,” contributed to extreme statements.
Fox’s attorney, Christopher Gibbons, told the jury: “Adam Fox was never predisposed to the crime of kidnapping Gov. Whitmer. He talked a big game, but talk is just talk.”
Croft’s attorney, Joshua Blanchard, accused the FBI of entrapment and behavior unbecoming of federal officers:
“You don’t have to agree with Barry’s politics — I certainly don’t. But we should all agree that the principles of truth and justice are the foundation that our country was built upon.”
Blanchard continued: “The FBI has told us that the truth doesn’t matter to them … you have the power to put a stop to that today … you can tell the government that half-truths are not enough.”
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