GRAND RAPIDS (AP) — Members of anti-government paramilitary groups implicated in an alleged plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor ahead of the November election because of her measures to slow the coronavirus also discussed abducting Virginia’s governor, an FBI agent testified Tuesday.
The disclosure came during a federal court hearing in Grand Rapids, where agent Richard Trask revealed new details about investigators’ use of confidential informants, undercover agents and encrypted communication to thwart the purported scheme to abduct Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
A judge ordered three of six men charged in the case held without bond until trial, delaying rulings on two defendants. Another was ordered returned to Michigan from Delaware.
“They discussed possible targets, taking a sitting governor, specifically issues with the governor of Michigan and Virginia based on the lockdown orders” they had issued to deal with the pandemic, Trask said, referring to a June 6 meeting in Dublin, Ohio, attended by roughly 15 members of anti-government groups from “four or five states." A criminal complaint said at least two of the defendants were among them.
It wasn’t immediately clear if talk of targeting Virginia’s Democratic governor, Ralph Northam, continued beyond the meeting. Nothing from the complaint or Trask’s testimony indicated that anyone had been charged with plotting against Northam.
But the mention of another governor who, like Whitmer, has drawn attacks from President Donald Trump — and the alleged intent to carry out the kidnapping shortly before the bitterly divisive U.S. election — escalated political tension surrounding the case. Trump urged supporters to “LIBERATE” Michigan, Virginia and Minnesota in a series of tweets in April, encouraging protesters who turned up at state Capitols to oppose restrictions aimed at minimizing the spread of the virus.
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