The second jury to consider the hotly disputed charges against two defendants in the Gretchen Whitmer kidnap case came back with a clear message and threw the book at them. Whether you let the FBI trick you into it or not, trying to kidnap a state governor is something which deserves serious accountability. They’re looking at life in prison at sentencing.
Jury not hung this time
The first trial against Adam Fox and Barry Croft resulted in a hung jury because the defense team was really good at showing how the unstable patriots were set up, directed and prodded at every turn by the FBI, into breaking the law. This time around, their peers weren’t buying it.
Even if they were entrapped by well paid rats working for the Federal Bureau of Instigation, they should have known to start with that what they planned was too far across the line to even consider. This time around, the panel showed no mercy. It’s a good thing that Michigan is liberal enough not to have a death penalty or the defendants would be hung after this round.
On Tuesday, August 23, the federal jury declared both defendants guilty as charged in the 2020 kidnap attempt. The maximum sentence is life for conspiracy to kidnap. They were found guilty on one count each of “conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction.” Special Agent in Charge James A. Tarasca, who works at the FBI’s Detroit Field Office, couldn’t wait to gloat over the result.
“These defendants believed their anti-government views justified violence. Today’s verdict sends a clear message that they were wrong in their assessment. Violence is never the answer. The FBI will continue to investigate anyone who seeks to engage in violence in furtherance of any ideological cause and hold them accountable.”
Originally a whole herd of people were charged all the way up and down the line from local to federal level. The charges didn’t stick on the rest of the conspirators. Their attorneys had no problem showing they would have never left their couch without the FBI prodding them at every step.
One jury after another failed to convict. In the first trial against Fox and Croft, some of their co-defendants walked. They came close because the panel couldn’t agree to convict.
Case built on secret recordings
As witnesses paraded in front of the jury it became obvious that the prosecution built their whole case on “secret recordings of conversations among the men, who prosecutors said were angry about pandemic restrictions and the possibility of vaccine mandates.”
They didn’t just want to spout off on social media, they wanted to harm or kill Governor Whitmer. “Today’s verdicts prove that violence and threats have no place in our politics, and those who seek to divide us will be held accountable. They will not succeed,” she announced when she heard the verdicts.
It’s pretty clear that the government was so afraid of patriotic nationalists that they went out of their way to round up the highly impressionable and vulnerable fringe element and give them something which could be used to engineer the narrative in favor of the police state.
BREAKING: A jury has convicted Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. of conspiring to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020. It was the 2nd trial for the pair after a jury in April couldn't reach a unanimous verdict. More to come.
— CBC News Alerts (@CBCAlerts) August 23, 2022
This most recent jury came to the conclusion that no matter how unstable you are, or what convinced you to do it, actions like the ones they planned are simply not acceptable. Ever. Even if they were talked into it, they made the decision to do it and that should be a crime.
According to the statement issued by Governor Whitmer on Tuesday, the jury in this case made it clear that the feds have a lot of housecleaning to do on their side. As she notes, “we must also take a hard look at the status of our politics.”
“Plots against public officials and threats to the FBI are a disturbing extension of radicalized domestic terrorism that festers in our nation, threatening the very foundation of our republic.” Things like raiding the home of Donald Trump while Hunter Biden vacations with the Big Guy tend to annoy conservatives. Even the ones who aren’t crazy enough to kidnap and kill people.
