13 PEOPLE CHARGED IN PLOT TO SEIZE MICH. GOVERNOR
Officials say conspiracy was effort to violently overthrow government
Federal and state officials revealed Thursday that they had thwarted a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, unsealing charges against 13 people who they say were involved in various plans to attack law enforcement, overthrow the government and ignite a civil war.
Officials said the conspiracy — which was supposed to come to fruition before the election — seemed to be an ominous indication of how America’s civil unrest has energized violent extremists.
The plotters, according to an FBI affidavit, seemed to be motivated at least in part by their belief that state governments, including Michigan’s, were violating the Constitution.
One of those involved complained in June that Whitmer, a Democrat, was controlling the opening of gyms — an apparent
reference to coronavirus shutdown restrictions — and others were involved in a militia group that had contemplated targeting police in their homes, authorities said. They trained together with firearms and experimented with explosives, authorities said.
The FBI had confidential informants recording many of their meetings and discussions. Before they could attack, law enforcement moved in, arresting some as they pooled money for more explosives, officials said. Six of those were charged federally, and the rest were charged in state court, though officials announced the cases together.
“There has been a disturbing increase in anti-government rhetoric and the reemergence of groups that embrace extremist ideologies,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, said in a statement announcing the charges.
The arrests come as federal and local law enforcement are particularly attuned to the possibility of politically motivated violence in the final month before the election. The FBI is investigating potential domestic terrorists around the country and trying to determine whether any of those people are planning acts of violence before or after the election, according to law enforcement off icials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing investigations.
At nationwide protests over racial justice and other matters, demonstrators on opposite sides have periodically clashed — sometimes with deadly results. After a pro-President Donald Trump event in Portland, Ore., in August, for example, a member of the far-right Patriot Prayer group was shot and killed by a man who was a self-described supporter of the far-left antifa movement, authorities have said. The shooting suspect was later killed by police.
That same month, a 17year-old was charged with homicide, accused of fatally shooting two people and seriously wounding another during demonstrations in
Kenosha, Wis., over the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
Trump has been publicly critical of Michigan’s leaders because of state-imposed measures to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus, tweeting in April, “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!”
In an afternoon news conference, Whitmer defended the restrictions she imposed — saying she had made “tough choices to keep our state safe” — while taking direct aim at Trump. Just last week, she noted, the president had, during a debate, “refused to condemn white supremacists and hate groups like these two Michigan militia groups” and told one farright group to “stand back and stand by.”
“When our leaders speak, their words matter. They carry weight,” Whitmer said. “When our leaders meet with, encourage, or fraternize with domestic terrorists, they legitimize their actions, and they are complicit.”
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden similarly criticized the president.
“Look, the words of a president matter. ... They can cause a nation to have the market rise or fall, go to war or bring peace,” Biden said. “But they can also breathe oxygen into those who are filled with hate and danger, and I just think it’s got to stop. The president has to realize the words he utters matter.”
On Thursday night, Trump tweeted that Whitmer had “done a terrible job” and chastised her for not offering gratitude for federal law enforcement foiling the plot against her — even though she had thanked the U.S. attorneys involved in the case and praised the FBI agents as “fearless.”
“Rather than say thank you, she calls me a White Supremacist — while Biden and Democrats refuse to condemn Antifa, Anarchists, Looters and Mobs that burn down Democrat run cities,” Trump tweeted.
“I do not tolerate ANY extreme violence. Defending ALL Americans, even those who oppose and attack me, is what I will always do as your President! Governor Whitmer — open up your state, open up your schools, and open up your churches!” he continued.
Nessel said her office had charged seven people who were linked to the militia group Wolverine Watchmen with providing material support to terrorists and other related offenses. They were planning and training, she said, to attack law enforcement officers and the state Capitol and ignite a civil war.
April protests against Whitmer’s pandemic restrictions generated threats of violence, according to monitoring of fringe social media channels by SITE Intelligence Group. One user on 8kun, which is rife with extremist discussion, expressed frustration that the protesters hadn’t killed Whitmer: “You can’t seize power unless you kill those who had power. They did not.”
The FBI said in the affidavit that it became aware that people were discussing an overthrow of the government from social media postings in early 2020, and in June, two of those ultimately charged met with more than a dozen others in Ohio to discuss “creating a society that followed the U.S. Bill of Rights and where they could be self-sufficient.” In that meeting, the FBI alleged, the group discussed both peaceful and violent tactics and ultimately decided it needed to increase its numbers, according to the affidavit.
One in the group, Adam Fox, then contacted a local militia group the FBI already had been monitoring with an informant over concern that it was plotting to kill police officers, according to the affidavit. The group is not named in federal court papers. They and others continued to meet throughout June, including at a Second Amendment rally in Lansing, the affidavit said.
In a June 14 phone call, according to the affidavit, Fox talked of needing “200 men” to storm the Capitol building in Lansing to take hostages, including Whitmer. He said they would try Whitmer for “treason” before the election in November.
Court papers paint Fox as the leader of the plot to seize the governor and say he thought the governor would be most vulnerable to abduction when she was entering or leaving either her personal vacation home or the governor’s official summer residence.