(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The U.S. Justice Department’s new pardon attorney said he is going to take a “hard look” at two men convicted of conspiring to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer nearly five years ago—a case that two juries, a state judge and an appeals court have all found to be heavily fomented by undercover FBI informants and agents.
“On the pardon front, we can’t leave these guys behind,” Ed Martin Jr. said this week on “The Breanna Morello Show.”
“In my opinion these are victims just like January 6,” Martin said, referring to 1,500 people pardoned by President Donald Trump for charges stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, uprising.
The arrests of Barry Croft Jr., Adam Fox and other militia members rocked the home stretch of the 2020 presidential election. Authorities said the men wanted to grab Whitmer, a Democrat, at her vacation home and start a civil war.
Croft, 49, and Fox, 42, were portrayed as leaders of the scheme. After an initial mistrial in early 2022, they were convicted of conspiracy in federal court later that year. Croft, a trucker from Delaware, was also found guilty of a weapons charge.
Croft and Fox were convicted despite evidence that that at least 12 undercover FBI informants and agents pushed them to formulate a plan against Whitmer—much of which they were never able to present to a jury. The Sixth Circuit Appeals Court even admitted earlier that the FBI fomented the Whitmer plot, but justices upheld the convictions anyway.
“The Defendants are correct that the government encouraged them to settle on a plan,” the Sixth Circuit ruled on April 1, 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.”
Croft is serving nearly 20 years in prison, while Fox, a Grand Rapids man, is serving a 16-year term. They are being held at a prison in Colorado — the most secure in the federal system.
Meanwhile, state defendants Paul Bellar, Joe Morrison and Pete Musico are also serving seven-year, 10-year and 12-year prison sentences, respectively, due to state charges stemming from the Whitmer case.
Like with the federal case, the state defendants were convicted despite a judge acknowledging that the FBI fomented the plot to kidnap Whitmer. In the state case, Michigan Judge Thomas Wilson acknowledged in January that the III%er militias involved in the Whitmer kidnap plot were created by the FBI.
“The ‘3%’groups were established across the country and were created by the FBI,” Judge Wilson said. “The FBI used assets from other 3% groups in forming the Michigan 3% group.”
But even though the defendants weren’t allowed to present that evidence at their trial, they were able to do so during a pretrial entrapment hearing in 2022, the judge said. Their arguments were unsuccessful at the time, and Judge Wilson declined to change his mind in his recent decision, which was made on Jan. 24.
Whitmer was never physically harmed. Martin called it a “fed-napping” plot, not a kidnapping plot, apparently referring to the numerous undercover FBI agents and informants who had infiltrated the group and built the case.
He said it looked like the “weaponization of government.”
“I have complete confidence that we’re going to get a hard look at it. The president will want to know the facts about it,” Martin said, pledging to “get on it as quick as I can, I promise.”
In 2020, Whitmer blamed Trump for stoking mistrust and fomenting anger over coronavirus restrictions and refusing to condemn right-wing extremists. Later, when he was out of office, Trump cast doubt on the kidnapping scheme, calling it a “fake deal.”
Whitmer has apparently forgiven Trump for his perceived transgressions, as she’s made appearances at several Trump events in recent months.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
