Two men convicted in Gov. Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot
Two ringleaders in the plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer were found guilty by a federal jury Tuesday.
Barry Croft and Adam Fox were convicted on charges of kidnapping conspiracy, as well as conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, among others.
The convictions come after an earlier case against the two men ended in a mistrial when jurors were unable to agree on a verdict.
“You can’t just strap on an AR-15 and body armor and go snatch the governor,” Assistant US Attorney Nils Kessler told jurors in closing
“But that wasn’t the defendants’ ultimate goal,” Kessler said. “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 pair, along with several other men, planned to kidnap Whitmer at her vacation home, ostensibly over anger stemming from coronavirus restrictions, federal prosecutors said.
The crew had surveilled the Democratic governor’s home and conducted field training exercises to practice combat tactics to prepare for the ambush, prosecutors said.
They were arrested after four of them met with an undercover FBI agent to buy $4,000 in explosives for the scheme.
The plot was initially reported to the feds by an Army vet who joined Croft and Fox’s paramilitary group, but became alarmed when talk turned to killing police.
Defense attorneys argued that Croft and Fox were victims of entrapment — and that the two were just “big talkers” who were simply venting.
“This isn’t Russia. This isn’t how our country works,” Croft attorney Joshua Blanchard told jurors. “You don’t get to suspect that someone might commit a crime because you don’t like things that they say, that you don’t like their ideologies.”
Croft and Fox face life imprisonment at sentencing.
Two other men charged in the scheme were acquitted last spring and two more pleaded guilty.
Whitmer, in a statement, praised the guilty verdicts against Croft and Fox, saying violent threats “have no place in our politics.”
With Post wires