Two Men Convicted In Whitmer Kidnapping Plot

A federal jury in Michigan convicted two men on Tuesday on two counts of conspiracy to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction.

Adam Fox, 39 and Barry Croft Jr, 46, face life in prison. A sentencing date has not been set.

The two men planned to kidnap Whitmer, a Democrat, from her lake house in Antrim County, Michigan, in October 2020. Croft was also convicted of possessing an unregistered destructive device that was intended to blow up a bridge to distract police from responding.

The guilty verdict comes four months after a different jury failed to reach a unanimous decision on Croft and Fox, and acquitted two other men in the plot.

“There are a lot of things that are complicated today. There’s one thing that’s pretty simple still – kidnapping is wrong. You can’t just strap on an AR-15 and body armor and go snatch the governor. You can’t snatch anybody, and you certainly can’t make bombs that are meant to maim and kill people. And this case is about a plot to abduct Gov. Whitmer. But that wasn’t these defendants’ ultimate goal,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler said in closing arguments Monday.

“They wanted to set off a second American Civil War and the second American Revolution,” Kessler said.

Fox allegedly was the one who plotted the kidnapping while Croft handled the explosive preparation. Croft is reportedly from Bear, Delaware, and worked as a trucker, while Fox was described by his attorney as poor and living in the basement of a vacuum store in the Grand Rapids area, according to the Associated Press.

The lawyers for Croft and Fox have vowed to appeal. The legal team argued that Fox and Croft were just “big talkers.”

Prosecutors argued that the two men took multiple steps toward executing their plan.

“Here in America, if you disagree with your government, you have options. You can criticize your government, you can protest, you can vote your elected officials out of office,” David Porter, an assistant special agent in charge for the FBI’s Detroit office, told reporters outside the courthouse.

“However, what you cannot do is plan or commit acts of violence. Violence is never the answer,” he said.

Eight other men who were involved in the kidnapping plot face state trials.

Whitmer was unharmed in the incident.

In a statement after the verdict, Whitmer said that “violence and threats have no place in our politics and those who seek to divide us will be held accountable. They will not succeed.”