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The alleged kidnapping plot aimed at Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) and detailed by law enforcement Thursday steamed up headlines worldwide. But the state has been a boiling kettle for months, with armed groups demonstrating and widespread protests cheered on by the President.
Much of that outrage has had a specific target: Whitmer, and her COVID-19 public health orders.
The alleged plotters were involved in the protest movement from the very start: In a picture captured at a rally on April 30, Michael Null and his brother William — who were both charged with a firearms violations and providing material support for terrorist acts — stand defiantly with assault rifles on the the grounds of Michigan’s Capitol building.
Later that day, armed demonstrators occupied the building, clashing with security.
That protest, the “American Patriot Rally,” rounded out a turbulent April for Michigan. In the middle of the month, a car-based rally dubbed “Operation Gridlock” had flooded the streets of Michigan’s capital, Lansing, with vehicles. One of the organizers of the event sat on the Trump campaign’s advisory board, the Washington Post later reported.
Two days later, President Donald Trump took up the cause. “LIBERATE” he ordered followers in Michigan and elsewhere.
LIBERATE MICHIGAN!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 17, 2020
In May, the Null brothers were back at the capitol building, demonstrating.
Around that time, William Null stood on stage next to a county sheriff at a rally against the governor’s orders in Grand Rapids this past May. Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf used his time on stage to compare Whitmer’s “stay-at-home” orders to an unlawful arrest.
“What’s the definition of an arrest?” Leaf asked the crowd, as Null stood stone-faced and armed behind his right shoulder. “It’s basically taking away your right to free will, your right to move about. And an unlawful arrest is when we do it unlawfully. So when you’re ordered to your home, are you under arrest? Yeah! By definition you are!”
Asked Thursday about the alleged kidnapping plotters, Leaf said “a lot of people are angry with the governor and they want her arrested.” (According to a state detective sergeant’s affidavit, Null and others helped surveil Whitmer’s vacation home, while armed, as part of the kidnapping plot.)
Later that month, Whitmer faced a PR disaster when a dock company accused her husband of using his leverage to request an expedited construction job at the couple’s lake house. Whitmer eventually said her husband was joking. But just two weeks after that, on June 14, Adam Fox allegedly said in a phone call that he needed 200 men to storm the state’s capitol building, take Whitmer hostage and try her for “treason” before the November elections, according to the affidavit.
On June 25, Fox referred to Whitmer as “this tyrant bitch” in a live Facebook video and complained about the state controlling the opening of gyms, according to the affidavit.
“I don’t know, boys, we gotta do something,” he said.
From there, authorities allege, it was a matter of planning, training, and surveilling the governor as the group staged their kidnapping attempt. All the while, protests raged in Michigan — and Whitmer, leading her state’s COVID-19 response and now in contention as a potential vice presidential pick, increasingly became the subject of attacks.
On Sept. 12, the gang of alleged kidnapping plotters had their busiest day of the summer, according to the affidavit. They tested an improvised explosive device, inspected a bridge near Whitmer’s vacation home for possible locations to seat an explosive charge, and then used a multi-vehicle caravan to surveil Whitmer’s home.
“She fucking goddamn loves the power she has right now,” Fox alleged said during the surveillance operation. “She has no checks and balances at all. She has uncontrolled power right now.”
Per the affidavit, his alleged partner-in-crime, Barry Croft, replied “all good things must come to an end.”
