#Whitmer plot

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy at USA Today:

President Donald Trump said he will consider pardoning people convicted for conspiring during the COVID-19 pandemic to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. “I will take a look at it,” Trump said during a May 28 event at the White House in response to a reporter’s question.  “I did watch the trial. It looked to me like somewhat of a railroad job.”

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 to either federal or separate Michigan state charges. Barry Croft Jr., 47, of Bear, Delaware, described as a ring leader of the group, got the longest federal 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 federal 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.

What an irresponsible idea by TACO Trump to even consider the pardons of the domestic terrorists who plotted to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) over COVID mitigations angst.

[triviareads]

In other news there are insurrection themed romances on NetGalley now.

[batboyblog]

Now we need to get even more people out to vote for biden because the most recent thing that happened to trump is absolutely going to radicalize right-wingers and some people who were on the fence, regardless of what the outcome is. I'm so terrified.

sadly we live in age of political violence, just off the top of my head someone shooting up the Congressional Republican baseball team and nearly killing Steve Scalise in 2017, the guy who mailed pipe bombs to Obama, Biden, Hillary Clinton and George Soros in 2018, the plot to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020, the guy who nearly beat Paul Pelosi to death with a hammer when he tried to kidnap Nancy Pelosi in 2022, and the attempt to stab Republican Congressman and candidate for governor Lee Zeldin on stage at a rally also in 2022.

So sadly our political system has a cancer of violence, we don't know why right now this person took a shot at Trump, if it was political or someone wanted to be famous or he thought Trump was an alien we do not know why.

whatever the reason I don't think it'll change the race very much, I do worry what Trump will say, Republican Congressmen have already said wild and insane things about this being Biden's orders, so thats unlikely to make our problem of political violence better.

oh and it was, yet again, an AR-15 style weapon, so you know, I guess thoughts and prayers?

[alyfoxxxen]

Trump says he's considering pardoning defendants in Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot - CBS News

[saywhat-politics]

Whitmer, who met with Trump multiple times this year, once placed some of the blame for the plot on Trump's rhetoric.

May 28, 2025, 10:27 AM MST / Updated May 28, 2025, 11:00 AM MST

By Katherine Doyle

President Donald Trump said Wednesday he would look at pardoning the men convicted in a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and swiped at the legitimacy of the case.

“I will take a look at it. It’s been brought to my attention,” Trump said while speaking to reporters in the Oval Office. “I did watch the trial. It looked to me like somewhat of a railroad job.”

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 14, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUL 15, 2024

Shortly after 6:00 yesterday evening at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a shooter on the roof of a building about 400 feet from the stage appears to have shot eight bullets at the former president and into the crowd. Trump appeared to flinch and reach for his right ear as Secret Service agents crouched over the former president. When the agents got word the shooter was “down,” they lifted Trump to move him out. He asked to get his shoes and then to put them on.

With that apparently accomplished, Trump stood up with blood on his face, exposed to the crowd, and told the agents to wait. He raised his fist in the air in front of an American flag in what instantly became an iconic image. He appeared to yell, “Fight, fight, fight!” to the crowd before being ushered offstage.

Pennsylvania firefighter Corey Comperatore, 50, was killed. David Dutch, 57, was injured and is hospitalized in stable condition. James Copenhaver, 74, was also injured and is in stable condition. 

The FBI has identified the shooter as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was killed by a Secret Service agent. Crooks used an AR-type semiautomatic rifle that apparently belonged to his father. Crooks was wearing a gray Demolition Ranch tee shirt advertising a YouTube channel for gun enthusiasts and people interested in explosive devices. The channel has more than 11 million followers. Crooks appears to have been a registered Republican.   

Trump said he had been “shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear.” So far, no doctors have briefed the public. 

In the confusion immediately after the shooting, MAGA Republicans blamed the Democrats for the violence. “Today is not just some isolated incident,” Ohio senator J.D. Vance, who is in the running to be Trump’s vice presidential pick, posted on social media. “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.” Representative Mike Collins of Georgia called for a Republican district attorney to “immediately file charges against Joseph R. Biden for inciting an assassination.” Indeed, he said, “Joe Biden sent the orders.”  

Edward Luce of the Financial Times noted, “Almost any criticism of Trump is already being spun by Maga as an incitement to assassinate him. This is an Orwellian attempt to silence what remains of the effort to stop him from regaining power.” Indeed, MAGA Republicans appear to be trying to stop discussion of their extremist plans— which are enormously unpopular— by claiming that such a discussion is polarizing. 

The idea that Democratic opposition to authoritarian plans like those outlined in Project 2025 caused violence might convince MAGA Republicans, but it will likely be a hard sell for Americans who remember things like: 

•Trump’s own suggestion in 2016 that “Second Amendment people” could solve the problem of Hillary Clinton picking judges; or his 2020 attacks on Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, who became the target of a kidnapping plot; or election workers bombarded with death threats as Trump lied that the 2020 election was stolen;

•the October 2022 tweet by Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. mocking then–House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul after a home intruder hit him in the head with a hammer; or Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s 2022 campaign video in which she promised to “blow away the Democrats’ socialist agenda” as she took aim with a rifle; 

•in 2023, House Republicans wearing AR-15 lapel pins on the floor of Congress; Representative Don Bacon (R-NE) saying his wife slept with a loaded gun after he voted against Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) for House speaker; or Republican representatives sending Christmas cards showing the whole family toting guns;

•in 2024, the Kansas Republican Party’s March fundraiser where attendees could donate to kick and punch an effigy of President Biden; or Don Jr.’s reposting an image of Biden bound and gagged in the back of a pickup truck;

•or Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson of North Carolina, who is running for the governorship and who is scheduled to speak at the Republican National Convention starting tomorrow, saying just two weeks ago: “Some folks need killing! It’s time for somebody to say it.”

Indeed, in March 2024, in Vance’s home state, Trump said: if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole…country,” and a 2022 campaign ad by Representative Collins himself showed him shooting a rifle at Nancy Pelosi’s “agenda” and at a cardboard rhinoceros he says is a “RINO,” a Republican in Name Only. 

Republicans under Trump have increasingly advocated violence as a way to gain power because they know their unpopular positions cannot lead their candidates to victory in free and fair elections. In this moment, when there is still little evidence about yesterday’s tragedy, it appears they are projecting their own behavior onto Biden and the Democrats, blaming them for advocating violence when in fact, Biden and the Democrats have tried hard to enact commonsense gun safety laws and have consistently condemned the violent language and normalizing of political violence by Republicans. 

Republicans’ embrace of violence is a hallmark of authoritarian leaders; by definition it  undermines democracy. In Nashville, Tennessee, today, neo-Nazis shouting “Hitler was right!” were involved in fights in the streets. Ending that resort to violence, which never advances society and always injures it, is key to restoring the guardrails of democracy.

Biden spoke to the nation tonight, warning that Americans need to “lower the temperature in our politics and to remember, while we may disagree, we are not enemies. We’re neighbors. We’re friends, coworkers, citizens. And, most importantly, we are fellow Americans. And we must stand together.” He condemned yesterday’s violence, noting that “[a] former president was shot” and “an American citizen killed while simply exercising his freedom to support the candidate of his choosing…. There is no place in America for this kind of violence or for any violence ever. Period. No exceptions. We can’t allow this violence to be normalized.” 

The framers of the Constitution, he said, “created a democracy that gave reason and balance a chance to prevail over brute force. That’s the America we must be, an American democracy where arguments are made in good faith, an American democracy where the rule of law is respected, an American democracy where decency, dignity, fair play aren’t just quaint notions, but living, breathing realities.”

Biden rejected the idea that criticizing the Republicans’ extremism was polarizing. While they can “criticize my record and offer their own vision for this country,” he said, “I’ll continue to speak out strongly for our democracy, stand up for our Constitution and the rule of law, to call for action at the ballot box, no violence on our streets. That’s how democracy should work.” 

Biden paused all campaign ads and events after the shooting and told staffers to “refrain from issuing any comments on social media or in public.” Trump is fundraising off the attempt on his life, but he spent the day golfing rather than campaigning. 

The Secret Service has launched an investigation of how a shooter could get so close to Trump; Biden has ordered an independent investigation as well. Biden said he has also directed the Secret Service to review the security measures in place for the Republican National Convention, which starts tomorrow in Milwaukee.

Within hours of the shooting, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) announced that “THE HOUSE WILL CONDUCT A FULL INVESTIGATION OF THE TRAGIC EVENTS TODAY,” saying, “The American people deserve to know the truth.” Although the FBI investigation has barely gotten underway and Congress has no law enforcement power, Johnson promised to have officials from the Secret Service, the Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI “appear for a hearing before our committees ASAP.” 

Observers noted that it sounded like MAGA plans to have yet another investigation designed to spread a narrative, in this case, that the “Deep State” was involved in the shooting. 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[darkmaga-returns]

Early Wednesday morning, a radical Islamic terrorist drove his truck through a crowd of people celebrating the start of the New Year in New Orleans. Fifteen people were murdered and more than 35 injured. But maybe this tragedy could have been avoided if the FBI spent less time targeting parents, Catholics, and countless other dissidents and instead focused its resources on catching actual terrorists.

Shamsud-Din Jabbar plowed through a crowd in his Ford F-150 Lightning EV truck draped with an ISIS flag before shooting at police officers, who fatally shot Jabbar. Jabbar “recently converted to Islam” and “began acting erratically in recent months,” according to The New York Times.

Unfortunately under the leadership of then FBI Director Christopher Wray, the FBI was too busy doing things like helping to orchestrate a kidnapping plot targeting Democrat Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to catch a terrorist.

Here are some others the FBI was too busy targeting while a terrorist became radicalized on U.S. soil.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jennifer Bendery at HuffPost:

In a Sunday night Oval Office address to the nation, President Joe Biden called on Americans to come together and “lower the temperature in our politics,” a day after a man shot at former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. “While we may disagree, we are not enemies,” Biden said in his televised address. “We’re neighbors. We’re friends, co-workers, citizens. Most importantly, we’re fellow Americans. We must stand together.”

The president ticked off cases of politically motivated violence in recent years, including members of Congress being the targets of an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021; the attack on the husband of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.); and the kidnapping plot in 2020 against Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. And of course, he said, the attempted assassination of Trump. “There’s no place in America for this kind of violence, for any violence ever. Period. No exceptions,” he said. “We can’t allow this violence to be normalized.” The president said Saturday’s shooting at Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania “calls on all of us to take a step back” and think about “how we go forward from here.” Biden noted that he called Trump on Saturday night and is “grateful” he is doing well. He also offered his condolences to the family of Corey Comperatore, who was shot and killed at the rally while sheltering his family from the bullets.

Sunday night’s Oval Office from President Joe Biden laid home what America is about.

Biden’s line is golden for this time in need: “While we may disagree, we are not enemies. We’re neighbors. We’re friends, co-workers, citizens. Most importantly, we’re fellow Americans. We must stand together.”

Another solid Biden quote: “There’s no place in America for this kind of violence, for any violence ever. Period. No exceptions. We can’t allow this violence to be normalized.”

See Also:

The Guardian: Biden urges US to reject ‘extremism and fury’ after Trump assassination attempt

Daily Kos: Watch: Biden gives Oval Office address on attempted assassination of Trump

The Dean's Report: Dear corporate media: Biden has denounced violence while Trump has incited and celebrated it

[basedhighsenberg]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

FBI EAT MY ASS 1000 YEARS

[simsllama]

🛍️ Welcome to Whitmere – a brand new seaside district where ambition meets opportunity.

The streets are freshly paved, the plots are wide open, and the future? Still unwritten. Ellis Whitmore will be the first to open a business here, but others won’t be far behind.

This is where Silverbrook’s next chapter begins – not in drama or heartbreak, but in storefronts and fresh starts.

[vague-humanoid]

In a Thursday article on Smith's dossier, the Guardian reported that Giuliani's plot to subvert election results was complicated by him apparently texting the details of the plot to the wrong number.

While the identity of the intended recipient is unknown, Giuliani appeared to have intended to send instructions to a Republican lawmaker in Michigan on how to disrupt the awarding of the Mitten State's Electoral College votes to Biden.

“So I need you to pass a joint resolution from the legislature that states the election is in dispute, there’s an ongoing investigation by the legislature, and the Electors sent by Governor Whitmer are not the official electors of the state of Michigan and do not fall within the Safe Harbor deadline under Michigan law,” Giuliani texted.

In the recounting of the event, Smith's team of prosecutors wrote in the 165-page dossier unsealed Wednesday that Giuliani ultimately never got in touch with the presumed Michigan lawmaker because "he put the wrong number into his phone."

[mariacallous]

On Saturday, former U.S. President Donald Trump became the latest major political figure worldwide to face an assassination attempt, in an incident that experts say may reflect a broader global pattern of increasing threats and violence against politicians.

In recent years, for example, both Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico and former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan have survived being shot (Fico in May this year and Khan in November 2022), while then-Argentine Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner narrowly escaped a shooting attempt in 2022 when the gunman’s pistol jammed. South Korean opposition leader Lee Jae-myung was stabbed in January, and former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was stabbed in 2018. And assassinations claimed the lives of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (in 2022) and British politicians Jo Cox (in 2016) and David Amess (in 2021). 

“We seem to be seeing that assassinations are on the rise now,” said Jacob Ware, a terrorism expert at the Council on Foreign Relations and the co-author of God, Guns, and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in America, although he noted that he was drawing on anecdotal evidence. 

“Politicians and political figures are finding themselves in the crosshairs, and the people are determining that the ballot box and elections are no longer the best way to exercise political grievances,” Ware said. 

The United States is no stranger to high-profile assassinations and attempts, both on the lives of sitting U.S. presidents and presidential candidates. Four former U.S. presidents—Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy—were killed during their presidential terms. A handful more survived failed attempts, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush, the latter of whom had a hand grenade thrown at him while in Tbilisi, Georgia. In 1968, U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, was assassinated. 

In recent years, the number of threats issued against U.S. public officials has grown, according to a 2024 study conducted by the researchers at the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center. The study, which examined federal charges over the past decade, found that threats have “steadily risen” over that time period, coinciding with a surge in political polarization across the country. 

“In the last six years, the number of individuals who have been arrested at the federal level for making threats has nearly doubled from the previous four years,” the study’s authors wrote, while the number of federal prosecutions for such threats is “on pace to hit new record highs” in 2023 and 2024. 

“The mistrust and distrust of government is so great that it leads to almost the dehumanization of political figures,” said Bruce Hoffman, a counterterrorism expert at the Council on Foreign Relations and the other co-author of God, Guns, and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in America. “That’s also contributed to this demonization of individuals that can, in the minds of certainly a minority of Americans, incite violence.”

Two recent examples are incidents involving former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who were the targets of failed abduction and assassination plots, respectively; in the Pelosi case, though the former speaker avoided the attack, her husband was brutally assaulted with a hammer. And in 2020, the FBI announced that it had arrested more than a dozen people in connection with a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and put her on trial for treason; nine people were ultimately convicted or pleaded guilty in the plot, and five were acquitted.

“It certainly feels like we’re in a different era. There’s a lack of civility that I think permeates our political discourse, and it’s frequently peppered with references to violence and extreme violence” said Colin P. Clarke, the director of research at the Soufan Group. That includes Trump himself, Clarke said, who “has been a big purveyor of this.”

That may not be a uniquely American phenomenon, either. While assassinations of high-profile leaders in the world’s most-developed nations may be relatively rare today, the outlook may be different for other government figures around the world.

One key example is Mexico, which recently reached a bleak new political milestone in holding its deadliest election season ever. During the country’s 2024 election cycle, 37 political candidates were assassinated, many of whom were vying for local office. In the country’s 2021 midterm election, 36 candidates were assassinated, according to Integralia, a security consultancy. 

Beyond the issue of assassinations, other violence against candidates was also more pervasive in Mexico this year. Integralia logged 828 nonlethal violent incidents during the 2024 election season, eclipsing the 389 attacks recorded in 2018 during the country’s previous presidential election. 

Pakistan has also experienced a rise in such threats in recent years. According to the University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database, whose data only goes as far as 2020, Pakistan experienced a marked uptick in assassinations and attempts against government officials from 2012 to 2016, peaking at 36 in 2013 and 2015. 

While variations in laws and data collection make it difficult for researchers to measure whether there’s been a broad global uptick in violence, these examples indicate that they’re hardly uncommon. Now, the attempted assassination of Trump may serve as an alarm bell for other officials around the world. On Sunday, John Woodcock, a member of the U.K. House of Lords and a former government advisor on political violence, said in an interview with the Guardian that the attempted assassination is “a vivid reminder of the vulnerability of all politicians” and warned of the possibility of similar attacks in the United Kingdom. 

“We have seen the growth in the UK of US-style politics of aggressive confrontation and intimidation which is unfortunately, exactly the toxic environment that could lead to another assassination attempt on a UK politician, of which we have already tragically seen a number in recent years,” he said. 

Ware, the Council on Foreign Relations expert, said that the attempted assassination of Trump, a former U.S. president, presents an “opportunity for Americans to come together and decide: ‘Is this really the kind of country that we want to build for the next generation?’”

[alphaman99]

Vivek Ramaswamey - "If you’d have told me nearly 3 years ago when I was just a CEO that Jan. 6 was an inside job, I would’ve said that’s crazy talk. It’s not. There is now clear evidence that there was at the very least entrapment of peaceful protestors, similar to the fake Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot & countless other cases. The FBI won’t admit how many undercover officers were in the field on Jan 6, Capitol police on one hand fired rubber bullets & explosives into a peaceful crowd who they then willingly later allowed to enter the Capitol. That doesn’t add up & the actual evidence turns the prior narrative upside down: if the deep state is willing to manufacture an “insurrection” to take down its political opponents, they can do anything. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it."

[bighermie]

HERE WE GO AGAIN: The Same FBI That Plotted Whitmer Kidnapping Psyop Charges Man for Allegedly Plotting a Mass Shooting With Undercover Informants to "Incite a Race War" Before Election (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Jordan Conradson

[virgoanmaenad]

Remember all the jokes and memes made about Whitmer’s kidnapping plot or when Pelosi’s husband was attacked with a hammer?

Don’t let the right wing act like making uncouth jokes about Trump getting shot is any different.