Six people charged in plot to kidnap Michigan
governor Gretchen Whitmer
FBI said plot involved contacting members of a militia
who ‘talked about murdering tyrants or taking a sitting governor’
Amanda
Holpuch and agencies
@holpuch
Thu 8 Oct
2020 19.06 BSTFirst published on Thu 8 Oct 2020 17.22 BST
Six people
have been been charged with plotting to kidnap the Michigan governor, Gretchen
Whitmer, that involves links to a rightwing militia group, the Federal Bureau
of Investigation announced.
Additionally
another seven people were charged with plotting to target law enforcement and
attack the state capitol building. The state attorney general, Dana Nessel,
announced additional charges under Michigan’s anti-terrorism law. Seven men,
all in custody, are linked to the militia group Wolverine Watchmen.
They are
suspected of attempting to identify the homes of law enforcement officers to
“target them, made threats of violence intended to instigate a civil war”. They
also planned and trained for an operation to attack the Michigan capitol
building and to kidnap government officials, including the governor, Nessel
said.
The news
sent shockwaves through a country facing one the most contentious elections in
its history and already marred by accusations of voter suppression, civil
unrest linked to police brutality and sometimes violent incidents and protests
by heavily armed rightwingers.
The FBI
said in an affidavit that the plot to kidnap Whitmer had involved reaching out
to members of a Michigan militia. The criminal complaint states that the
alleged plot involved her second home in northern Michigan.
“Several
members talked about murdering ‘tyrants’ or ‘taking’ a sitting governor,” an
FBI agent wrote in the document. “The group decided they needed to increase
their numbers and encouraged each other to talk to their neighbors and spread
their message.”
The six men
charged with plotting against Whitmer were arrested on Wednesday night and each
faces up to life in prison. US attorney Andrew Birge called them “violent
extremists”.
“All of us
in Michigan can disagree about politics, but those disagreements should never,
ever amount to violence. Violence has been prevented today,” the Detroit US
attorney Matthew Schneider told reporters.
The
affidavit was filed on Wednesday hours after FBI agents raided a home in
Hartland Township, a community about an hour outside of Detroit.
The
criminal complaint identified the six as Adam Fox, Ty Garbin, Kaleb Franks,
Daniel Harris, Brandon Caserta, all of Michigan, and Barry Croft of Delaware.
Whitmer, a
Democrat, has been the frequent target of protests by often heavily armed
anti-lockdown groups who have launched numerous demonstrations against her
efforts to control the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. She put major
restrictions on personal movement throughout the state and on the economy,
although many of those limits have been lifted.
The Detroit
News reported that the investigation dated to early 2020 when the FBI learned
via social media that individuals were discussing a violent overthrow of
several state governments. A confidential paid informant then recorded a
meeting between more than a dozen people from several states that took place in
Dublin, Ohio.
“The group
talked about creating a society that followed the US Bill of Rights and where
they could be self-sufficient,” the affidavit said. “They discussed different
ways of achieving this goal from peaceful endeavors to violent actions. At one
point, several members talked about state governments they believed were
violating the US constitution, including the government of Michigan and
Governor Gretchen Whitmer.”
Through
electronic communications, two of the alleged conspirators then “agreed to
unite others in their cause and take violent action against multiple state
governments that they believe are violating the US constitution”, the FBI said.
One of the
alleged conspirators, Adam Fox, said he needed 200 men to storm the capitol
building in Lansing and take hostages, including the governor, according to the
FBI. He said he wanted to try Whitmer for “treason” and would execute the plan
before the 3 November election, the government said.
Later,
however, the group shifted to targeting the governor’s vacation home, the FBI
said.
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