Man in plot to kidnap Michigan governor: No one twisted our arms
A second insider in a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer told jurors Thursday that the group was prepared to use a grenade launcher and machine gun to fight security officers at her vacation home.
Kaleb Franks, who pleaded guilty in February, backed up many points offered a day earlier by Ty Garbin, another man who admitted a role in a wild scheme to abduct Whitmer and somehow take her by boat out to Lake Michigan.
Franks, 27, said an alleged leader, Adam Fox, believed Whitmer's COVID-19 restrictions were “tyranni- cal” and that the U.S. Constitution gave the men a right to strike back. He said no one was forced to stick with the plan and many people had dropped away by late summer 2020.
“I was going to be an operator,” Franks replied when asked by a prosecutor to describe his role in a kidnapping. “I would be one of the people on the front line, so to speak, using my gun.”
Fox, Barry Croft Jr., Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta are on trial in federal court in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Along with Franks and Garbin, the four were arrested in October 2020, a month before the national election. Garbin, 26, testified Wednesday that Whitmer's kidnapping could serve as the “ignition” for a U.S. civil war involving antigovernment groups and possibly prevent the election of Joe Biden.
Franks, a drug rehabilitation coach, said he joined a militia, the Wolverine Watchmen, to work on his gun skills. He eventually met Fox and Croft, who were not members of the militia, and found himself in the middle of a conspiracy. Franks said he stuck with the group because he hoped he would be killed in a shootout with police during the kidnapping but kept it from others.