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A jury on Tuesday convicted two men accused of conspiring to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, handing the U.S. government a victory in its second attempt to prosecute the case.
The verdict against Adam Fox, 39, and Barry Croft Jr., 46, comes about four months after a federal judge in Grand Rapids, Michigan, declared a mistrial in the same case. Two other defendants were found not guilty in the first trial.
The pair, who the government said were members of the Three Percenters militia group, was also found guilty of conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction – an explosive device that prosecutors say was intended to hinder law enforcement’s response to the planned kidnapping. Croft was found guilty of an additional charge of possession of an explosive device.
The men face the possibility of life in prison.
In their closing arguments, attorneys for Croft and Fox told jurors that the government’s case was entrapment. They said their clients committed no crimes and they criticized the use of FBI informants in the case, the Detroit News reported.
“The FBI should not exist to make people look like terrorists when they aren’t,” Joshua Blanchard, an attorney for Croft, told jurors.
The FBI has faced multiple allegations of entrapment in the case, adding to the heightened scrutiny the agency has invited on itself in recent months over its increasingly partisan handling of multiple high-profile cases involving prominent politicians, including former President Donald Trump.
One of the biggest scandals in the history of the FBI is their Gretchen Whitmer entrapment misconduct.
And what's happened since then?
The guy who was in charge of the FBI’s Detroit field office is now in charge of the January 6 investigation. #Verdict https://t.co/VVwbHhfi66 pic.twitter.com/6VMYVqdldL
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) August 19, 2022
The 12-member jury panel deliberated for about eight hours over two days before announcing the verdict, according to the Detroit News.
In the retrial, prosecutors again used testimony from FBI informants and two key witnesses who pleaded guilty to kidnapping conspiracy charges.
The plot was allegedly aimed at forcing an end to the Democratic governor’s draconian COVID mandates.
“They didn’t want to just kidnap her,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler said, referring to Whitmer. “They wanted to execute her.”
Fox compiled a list of tools, including handcuffs and a hood to cover Whitmer’s head, for the plot, prosecutors said. Additionally, a makeshift house was built to simulate breaking into the governor’s vacation home in northern Michigan and abducting her, the Detroit News reported the prosecution as saying during the trial.
Defendants argued that FBI informants orchestrated and masterminded the plot, which equates to entrapment on the part of the FBI.
The two are among 13 men who were arrested in October 2020 and charged with state or federal crimes in the alleged kidnapping conspiracy. Seven of them are facing charges in state court.
Copyright 2022 Thomson/Reuters (Edits and additional reporting by Jacob Fuller, FISM News).