Trump says he'll look at pardoning Whitmer kidnapping plot convicts
The Justice Department charged 14 people from an anti-government group called the Wolverine Watchmen in a plot to kidnap Whitmer for her role in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, and nine were convicted or pleaded guilty. Barry Croft Jr., 47, of Bear, Delaware, described as a ring leader of the group, got the longest prison sentence at more than 19 years.
"I'll be honest with you," said Trump. "It looked to me like some people said some stupid things, you know, they were drinking and I think they said stupid things."
Defense lawyers for Croft and Adam Fox, who is serving a 16-year prison sentence for kidnapping conspiracy and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, have accused the FBI of engaging in entrapment by infiltrating the group as informants and undercover agents.
Last week, the Justice Department's new pardon attorney, Ed Martin, said he is going to take a "hard look" at the prison terms of Croft and Fox and describing the incident as "fed-knapping."
"On the pardon front, we can't leave these guys behind," Martin said during an interview with The Breanna Morello Show. "In my opinion, these are victims just like January 6."
On his first day in office for his second term, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 of his supporters who attacked the U.S. Capitol during a deadly riot on Jan. 6, 2021, aimed at stopping the certification of the 2020 presidential election won by Joe Biden.
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal
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And I think what we're seeing in the litigation across the board, particularly when it came to some of the executive orders, is that firms can be practically, morally and financially impacted in ways that could not just hurt the business, but undermine the rule of law and the ability of lawyers to fulfill their constitutional duties." Rosen said he hopes the record created by the prosecutions of Jan. 6 defendants helps shape how the attack is perceived in history, even as political actors chip away at its reality. "What I hope the takeaway will be to citizens of this country is that what happened on Jan. 6, 2021, was a national disgrace and then the prosecution that followed reaffirmed the principles of the rule of law and vindicated the rights and the bravery of law enforcement," Rosen said. 'I would not change a thing about the way we conducted ourselves and the honor in which we brought to the court and to the system,' he added.
