US Justice Department pardon lawyer pledges 'hard look' at plot to kidnap Michigan governor

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DETROIT (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department's new pardon attorney said he is going to take a “hard look” at two men who are serving long prison terms for leading a conspiracy to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

“On the pardon front, we can't leave these guys behind,” Ed Martin Jr. said this week on “The Breanna Morello Show.”

“In my opinion these are victims just like January 6,” Martin said, referring to 1,500 people pardoned by President Donald Trump for crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The arrests of Barry Croft Jr., Adam Fox and other anti-government extremists rocked the home stretch of the 2020 presidential election. Authorities said the cabal wanted to grab Whitmer, a Democrat, at her vacation home and start a civil war.

Croft, 49, and Fox, 42, were portrayed as leaders of the scheme. They were convicted of conspiracy in federal court in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 2022. Croft, a trucker from Delaware, was also found guilty of a weapons charge.

Croft was sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison, while Fox, a Grand Rapids man, got a 16-year term. They are being held at a prison in Colorado — the most secure in the federal system.

Whitmer was never physically harmed. Martin called it a “fed-napping” plot, not a kidnapping plot, apparently referring to the numerous undercover FBI agents and informants who had infiltrated the group and built the case.

He said it looked like the “weaponization of government.”

“I have complete confidence that we’re going to get a hard look at it. The president will want to know the facts about it," Martin said, pledging to “get on it as quick as I can, I promise.”

An email seeking comment from Whitmer's office wasn't immediately returned Friday.

In 2020, she blamed Trump for stoking mistrust and fomenting anger over coronavirus restrictions and refusing to condemn right-wing extremists. Later, when he was out of office, Trump cast doubt on the kidnapping scheme, calling it a “fake deal.”