(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Despite finding that the FBI indeed encouraged them, the Sixth Circuit Appeals Court has nevertheless upheld the convictions of the alleged “ringleaders” who were accused of plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020.
“The Defendants are correct that the government encouraged them to settle on a plan,” the Sixth Circuit said in its Tuesday decision, referring to the informants and undercover agents who repeatedly encouraged militias to engage in criminality throughout 2020. “But as the government points out in its supplemental briefing, the jury heard the substance of most of these statements and yet still convicted both Fox and Croft.”
This is batshit crazy:
"The defendants are correct that the government encouraged them to settle on a plan … but a jury of sub-literates convicted them so we're affirming convictions anyway"
OK I'm paraphrasing the last part a little, but still. This is the American justice… https://t.co/vBeReElDDk pic.twitter.com/0GopBBdDth— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) April 1, 2025
Fox, 41, and Croft, 49, had appealed their late 2022 convictions on several grounds, including that they were improperly limited in questioning government’s star witness at their second trial, and that their lawyers were denied the ability to vet a juror who had expressed bias against them. Perhaps most critically, Croft and Fox weren’t allowed to present full statements made by FBI informants and their handling agents out of court.
The statements that Croft and Fox wanted their juries to hear indicate that the FBI was working to entrap Fox, Croft and the other defendants—five of which were acquitted. For instance, at one point, an FBI informant named Steve Robeson said in August 2020: “If we don’t talk about actually doing what the fuck we need to be doing, I’m done with meetings”—clearly pressuring Fox and Croft to formulate a plan.
In another statement that was excluded from court, an FBI informant stated, “I don’t know where he’s really at, but I just know that [he’s] backing off as hard as he has from other stuff, I have concerns with”—referring to the fact that Croft was having second thoughts because he was nervous that law enforcement may have been watching.
But while the Sixth Circuit agreed that District Judge Robert Jonker erred in not allowing the defendants to present those and many other statements, the appeals justices nevertheless upheld the convictions. According to the Sixth Circuit, Fox and Croft already showed that they were predisposed to committing terrorism.
And even though they weren’t allowed to admit the FBI’s out-of-court statements in court, the defendants could have taken to the stand themselves, according to the Sixth Circuit.
“Here, neither Fox nor Croft testified in support of their entrapment defense, nor do they claim that they were prevented from doing so. And the evidence they may not have been able to testify to due to the district court’s hearsay order could have been explored through cross examination of the confidential informants,” the justices said.
“Because Defendants had other avenues available to them to support their entrapment defense and chose not to use them, they cannot establish that the harm they purportedly suffered gave rise to a constitutional injury,” they said.
“The government has sufficiently demonstrated that the jury’s verdict was not ‘substantially swayed’ by the district court’s error. We, therefore, conclude that the exclusion of the informants’ statements was harmless,” they concluded, upholding the convictions.
Fox and Croft are being held at a supermax prison in Florence, Colorado — the same jail that holds inmates such as Oklahoma City bombing accomplice Terry Nichols — after being sentenced to nearly 20 years for Croft and 16 years for Fox.
The Sixth Circuit’s decision has already prompted calls for President Donald Trump to pardon the men.
Now that these two men have had their wrongful convictions upheld, it’s time for Trump to pardon Adam Fox and Barry Croft
I hope the families don’t mind me using these pictures, I prefer these over the government dehumidifier them and only using mugshots pic.twitter.com/p9wo18qcyb
— Guyvermectin 〽️ (@Guyvermectin) April 1, 2025
