Clockwise, from left: President Donald Trump listens as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer speaks to members of the Michigan National Guard at Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Tuesday, April 29, 2025, in Harrison Township, Mich. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon), Barry Croft Jr. (Delaware Department of Justice via AP File), Adam Dean Fox (Kent County Sheriff via AP file).
Months after cordially meeting Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on three separate occasions, President Donald Trump has suggested he could pardon the men convicted of plotting to kidnap her.
“I’m gonna look at it; I will take a look at it — it’s been brought to my attention. I did watch the trial. It looked to me like somewhat of a railroad job, I’ll be honest with you,” Trump told a reporter in the Oval Office who asked whether he will pardon the men. “It looked to me like some people said stupid things, you know? They were drinking and I think they said stupid things,” he added on Wednesday.
While the reporter asked the president whether he will pardon the men “accused” of plotting to kidnap Whitmer in 2020, four men were actually convicted in the case.
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In December 2022, Adam Dean Fox, 39 at the time, was sentenced to 16 years in prison followed by five years of supervised release for conspiracy to kidnap Whitmer and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction against persons or property. Barry Croft Jr., then 47, was given over 19 years for the same charges — as well as knowingly possessing an unregistered destructive device, “which was a commercial firework refashioned with shrapnel to serve as a hand-grenade,” the Justice Department said in a press release.
Two other men, Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, received shorter sentences after pleading guilty for their roles in the kidnapping plot, while an additional two men originally charged were acquitted.
“A lot of people are asking me that question from both sides, actually,” Trump continued on Wednesday, casting doubt on the legitimacy of the trial. “A lot of people think they got railroaded.”
Whitmer responded on Thursday to the president’s comments by saying she was “very disappointed.”
“(I’m) very disappointed that they are even considering it, frankly,” she told WOOD in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “When the president was shot at in Pennsylvania, I was one of the first people on either side of the aisle to condemn it. We have to condemn political violence, no matter who it comes from, no matter who it is aimed at. It does a disservice to everyone if we do anything short of that.”
The kidnapping case marked a flashpoint of political polarization in the fall of 2020 as the country reeled from the COVID-19 pandemic and geared up for the 2020 presidential election. Fox and Croft led a plan to kidnap Whitmer from her vacation cottage near Elk Rapids, Michigan, and use destructive devices to “facilitate their plot by harming and hindering the governor’s security detail and any responding law enforcement officers,” the DOJ’s press release on Croft’s sentencing stated.
“They specifically explored placing a bomb under an interstate overpass near a pedestrian boardwalk,” it continues. The FBI is said to have become aware of the plot through social media “that a group of individuals was discussing the violent overthrow of certain government and law enforcement components,” according to the original DOJ complaint.
Days before Trump spoke about the case from the Oval Office, the DOJ’s newly-tapped pardon attorney, Ed Martin, announced he was going to take a “hard look” at pardoning Fox and Croft, believing the case looked like the “weaponization of government.”
“On the pardon front, we can’t leave these guys behind,” Ed Martin said last week on “The Breanna Morello Show.”
“In my opinion, these are victims just like Jan. 6,” Martin said, referring to the roughly 1,500 people charged with crimes for the 2021 Capitol riot pardoned by Trump during the first day of his second term.
“I have complete confidence that we’re going to get a hard look at it,” Martin added on the podcast. “The president will want to know the facts about it,” he added, saying he would “get on it as quick as I can, I promise.”
Before being chosen to be the DOJ’s pardon attorney and director of the department’s Weaponization Working Group, Martin was the interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. The administration’s plan was for him to secure the full-time position, but such an assignment required Senate confirmation — and he did not even get a hearing.
Martin was described by more than 100 former U.S. attorneys as an “egregiously unqualified political hack.” Other prosecutors, including many who worked on Jan. 6 cases — some of which Martin himself defended — accused him of having a “fundamental misunderstanding of the role.”
Trump’s consideration of a pardon for the convicts comes at an especially notable time. Whitmer and Trump had a rocky relationship while both emerged into the national political spotlight. However, since the president’s return to office, the Democratic governor has made overtures to him — which seem to have been appreciated.
In March and April, she met with Trump at the White House. During the latter visit, she even stood in the Oval Office as Trump signed executive orders and professional photographers took pictures — though she did take criticism for, at one point, holding a folder over her face.
Later in April, Whitmer welcomed Trump to Michigan as the president announced new additions for the “saving” of Selfridge Air National Guard Base. “She’s done a very good job, frankly, and she was very much involved with the Republicans,” Trump said to a crowd of supporters on April 29. “They worked together on saving it, and it was not easy. So I want to thank you very much, Gretchen. Good job.”
What the hint of pardons — or their actual implementation — for the convicted men will mean for Whitmer and Trump’s relationship remains to be seen.
