(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Barry Croft, one of the so-called ringleaders of the 2020 militia plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, is being transferred into a “communications management unit”—a prison wing notorious for housing political prisoners.
Croft’s supporters expected him to be transferred into a CMU ever since February, when he was sent from a Michigan county jail to Terre Haute, home to one of the country’s two CMUs. Croft’s transfer came one day after Headline USA published a statement he recorded for the House Weaponization Subcommittee.
Croft himself informed Headline USA of impending transfer to a CMU in a letter last month, telling this publication, “My contact with the outside world will cease soon.”
Whitmer kidnap plot 'ringleader' Barry Croft told me in a letter last month that he was being transferred to a wing designed for political prisoners.@NotRadix said yesterday that the transfer is underway. pic.twitter.com/5fAROaij3s
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) July 21, 2023
Independent journalist Christina Urso, who’s working on a documentary on the Whitmer case, said Thursday that Croft’s transfer to a CMU is underway.
“They are moving him to the CMU for no reason other than to punish him for speaking out against the government’s corrupt actions in his case,” Urso said.
According to Urso, prison officials are confiscating money that Croft’s elderly and disabled mother and aunt put in his commissary each month. They have reduced his calls to one 15 minute phone call per month, she said.
“Because they take his commissary funds, he is unable to purchase the envelopes and stamps he needs in order to reply to letters—these letters are now basically his only means of communication with the world, his family, and his children,” she said.
“They monitor all the mail and they will ‘delay’ his receiving letters for weeks to months. I am told he is currently unable to reply to my letters and I am beyond appalled and angry.”
CMUs were first created during the Bush administration, ostensibly to house terrorists and prevent them from communicating to their outside networks.
But only 60% of CMU inmates are incarcerated on terrorism-related charges, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights. Other inmates are arguably political prisoners, including “hacktivist” Marty Gottesfeld and Donald Reynolds Jr., the latter whom Headline USA has written about here.
And while Croft was convicted for a terroristic crime, his case revealed widespread FBI malfeasance that government has worked to conceal.
In his letter last month to Headline USA, Croft said his transfer to the CMU is due to him continuing to be outspoken about the case.
“‘Proper conduct fears no exposure’ should be a maxim of law!” said Croft, who has appealed his conviction. “If I were truly guilty, why all the smoke and mirrors, and effort to conceal the facts?”
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
