Michigan Gov. Whitmer kidnapping plot trial: FBI raids Detroit home over threats to judge, defense lawyers

The FBI reportedly raided a suburban Detroit home in connection to alleged threats to the federal judge and defense attorneys in the Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping conspiracy trial.

The Detroit News reported that FBI agents raided the home in Hazel Park, south of Detroit, on Friday in connection to an investigation about alleged threats targeting Chief U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker and defense lawyers Josh Blanchard and Christopher Gibbons. Blanchard is representing defendant 46-year-old Barry Croft, and Gibbons is representing defendant 38-year-old Adam Fox.

No arrests have yet resulted from the raid, which happened while the federal trial in Grand Rapids for Croft, Fox and two additional defendants, Daniel Harris, 24, and Brandon Caserta, 33, was ongoing.

“FBI Detroit will work closely with other FBI field offices and with our law enforcement partners across the country to identify the source of any threat made to anyone involved with the ongoing prosecution in Grand Rapids,” an FBI spokeswoman told Detroit News. “Individuals found responsible for making threats in violation of state and/or federal law will be referred for prosecution in the appropriate jurisdiction.”

Federal prosecutors, poised to finish their case Wednesday, are trying to prove that the four men motivated by their hatred for the governor and her COVID-19-related lockdown measures discussed kidnapping Whitmer and took actions to set their plan in motion before being engaging with undercover FBI agents and federal informants during a sting operation that resulted in their arrests in October 2020. – READ MORE