Three men convicted of aiding plot to kidnap Michigan governor

CHICAGO — Jurors in Michigan convicted three men Wednesday of aiding a plot to kidnap the state’s Democratic governor in 2020, a case that grew out of a sprawling domestic terrorism investigation that revealed incendiary rhetoric and an openness to political violence on the far right.

The men on trial in state court — Joseph Morrison, his father-in-law Pete Musico and Paul Bellar — were accused of helping Adam Fox, who was convicted in federal court of conspiring to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, whose COVID-19 restrictions the men considered tyrannical.

“Their gang was organized, their gang was mobilizing, and their gang was training for action,” Sunita Doddamani, an assistant attorney general in Michigan, told jurors during closing arguments.

Though prosecutors described the defendants, who spoke openly of their hatred of government officials, as threats to democracy itself, their lawyers portrayed them as big talkers whose rhetoric was seized on by an overzealous FBI investigation. Kareem Johnson, a lawyer for Musico, said his client’s actions were protected by the First and Second amendments and that he believed Musico was being punished for his belief system.

“In this country, you are allowed to talk the talk,” Johnson told the jury. “But you only get convicted if you walk the walk.”

Andrew Kirkpatrick, Bellar’s lawyer, said after the verdict that offensive rhetoric by his client presented to the jury had been difficult to overcome.

“Even though it’s protected speech because they didn’t actually act on it, when you hear that speech, it’s really difficult to get around that,” he said.

Though the men in the Jackson County case were not accused of committing a terrorist act themselves, prosecutors told jurors that the defendants’ actions helped support a plot, which amounted to a crime.

The Jackson County trial came after federal trials this year that grew out of the same investigation. Federal prosecutors had mixed results with their cases, winning convictions against two men after an earlier trial in which two others were acquitted. Two additional federal defendants pleaded guilty. Five more men were charged in state court in another county.