In trying to salvage its historic domestic terrorism case, the prosecution left jurors with one final image Monday to remember as they deliberate the Gov. Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping case: a group of men casing the governor’s house in the middle of the night.
“Don’t forget the most important thing — these defendants were outside a woman’s house in the middle of the night with night vision goggles, and guns, and a plan to kidnap her. And they made a bomb. That’s real enough, isn’t it,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler said in his closing arguments, which focused heavily on attacking defense claims that this was just make-believe, and entrapment.
“Look at how close they got, yards away from her house — where she stayed with her family — casing her house,” Kessler said.
Kessler argued repeatedly in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids that Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. were willing participants in the kidnapping scheme and portrayed them as angry militiamen who wanted to set off a second civil war.
“And they wanted to do it long before they set sights on Whitmer,” said Kessler. “They didn’t want to just kidnap her. … They wanted to execute her.”
Fox and Croft are being retried on charges they plotted to kidnap the governor out of anger over her handling of the pandemic. The defense is expected to make its closing arguments later Monday.
The first trial in April ended in no convictions. Two men were acquitted and the jury deadlocked on charges against Fox and Croft, whose lawyers have long maintained their clients were set up by rogue FBI agents who enticed them into saying and doing things they wouldn’t have otherwise.
Not quite, countered the prosecution, which urged the jury to remember comments that Fox and Croft made in the spring of 2020, before the FBI infiltrated their group.
“Remember what they said … ‘Which governor is going to be dragged off and hung first. … God knows the governor needs hung. …. Take the governor, we have to do something bold for once in our lives. … If we can get to her, we can get to you.’ “
They were talking about Whitmer, Kessler said, telling jurors that Croft recruited Fox to be part of a national militia movement that involved targeting governors and law enforcement with the hopes of sparking a second civil war.
“Adam Fox is totally on board,” Kessler said. “He wants you to believe he’s just some poor sap who got suckered into this.”
But he wasn’t, Kessler said, arguing that Fox was a willing participant who in the summer of 2020 told an undercover FBI informant the following:
” ‘We’re gonna kidnap the bitch. We need a seven to eight member team. We’re gonna go up to her house and take a look at it … and we’re going as low profile tourists, pure Michigan bro.’ “
Kessler later added: “The recordings are the strongest witnesses … you heard them saying in their own voices over and over again, saying they were going to do it.”
But they didn’t just talk about it, Kessler said, stressing that Fox and Croft also made several overt acts — took action — to carry out the kidnapping plan, including:
- They cased Whitmer’s house during the day to scope out her vacation home and Fox said, ” ‘That’s it, dude, that’s it. Let’s turn around and see it again.’ “
- They cased Whitmer’s vacation house a second time at night with a crew of three cars, and Fox gave orders to each person on who would do what. His job was to stay at a boat launch with Croft and wait for a flashing signal from two co-defendants, whose job was to find the house. Those co-defendants testified at trial, during which the jurors saw video of the men driving in a van at night down Whitmer’s street, looking for her house.
- Fox drew a map of the area around Whitmer’s house, and took photos of a bridge, where he had stopped to look for a good location to place a bomb.
- Fox held a meeting with militia members in the basement of a vacuum shop, where he lived, to discuss the kidnapping plan, and made everyone leave their phones upstairs because he didn’t want anyone to record the meeting or law enforcement to know what they were doing.
- Croft built explosives made of fireworks and pennies, and is heard telling his daughter at a training exercise: ” ‘Honey … I’m building explosives.’ “
Even if kidnapping Whitmer wasn’t a realistic possibility, Kessler said, the threat was still present..
“They would’ve killed somebody,” he said. “How far do you let something like this go?”
Fox and Croft are facing kidnapping conspiracy and weapons of mass destruction charges. If convicted, they face life in prison.
Their lawyers were up next to give their closing arguments, following a rebuttal by the prosecution.
Contact Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com.
