On October 8, 2020, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced shocking news: federal authorities had arrested several men for conspiring to kidnap and possibly kill her before Election Day. After indulging in a moment of self-pity, Whitmer quickly pinned the blame on President Trump, a man with whom Whitmer had engaged in a very public feud throughout 2020 over pandemic-related lockdowns. . .
Exactly 18 months to the day, Birge’s prosecutors suffered a humiliating defeat in a Grand Rapids courtroom after a jury acquitted two of the men and deadlocked on the guilt of two others. (Two defendants pleaded guilty and testified for the government during the three-week trial). Despite endless resources and favorable rulings by the judge overseeing the case, the government failed to secure a single conviction in what the Justice Department considered one of its largest domestic terror investigations ever.
Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta, after a year and a half in prison, went home to their families on Friday night; Adam Fox, the alleged ringleader, and Barry Croft, Jr. remain incarcerated while Birge’s office prepares to retry the men—a fool’s errand, as they didn’t know each other prior to the FBI’s involvement in the faux plot and live almost 1,000 miles apart. (Croft resides in Delaware.) It’s a desperate attempt to save face, regardless of the lives and the principles of justice at stake. . .
In a redux of the 2016 Trump-Russia collusion farce designed to sabotage Trump before Election Day, the FBI used its powerful resources to again interfere in a presidential election to help the Democratic nominee for president. News of the arrests made national headlines for days; Joe Biden made the most of the political gift to his campaign. “There is a throughline from President Trump’s dog whistles and tolerance of hate, vengeance, and lawlessness to plots such as this one,” Biden said in a statement released on October 8, 2020. “He is giving oxygen to the bigotry and hate we see on the march in our country.” . . .
The media portrayed Whitmer as a victim of Trump’s bullying—and Whitmer fully embraced the role. In a Washington Post op-ed published on October 9, 2020, Whitmer accused Trump of encouraging “domestic terrorists.” When a sympathetic Chuck Todd interviewed Whitmer on “Meet the Press” several days later and asked how she was personally coping with the pretend threat against her, Whitmer condemned the president for continuing to criticize her lockdown policies “after a plot to kidnap, put me on trial and execute me,” was uncovered. She again accused Trump of inciting “domestic terrorism,” a claim she repeated during an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on October 21, 2020.
via joemiller
