President Donald Trump promised to consider pardoning those convicted of plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI).
“I’m going to look at it,” Trump said Wednesday at the White House. “I will take a look at it. It’s been brought to my attention.”
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After swearing in former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia in the Oval Office, Trump told reporters he watched the Whitmer kidnap plot trials, describing them as a “railroad job.”
“They were drinking and I think they said stupid things, but I’ll take a look at that,” he said. “A lot of people are asking me that question from both sides. Actually, a lot of people think they got railroaded.”
Ed Martin, Trump’s previous pick to be his U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia before his confirmation process was derailed this month by Senate Republicans over his past support of those accused of crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, raised the prospect of the president pardoning Barry Croft Jr., Adam Fox, and others.
“On the pardon front, we can’t leave these guys behind,” Martin, now a pardon attorney for Trump, told The Breanna Morello Show this week. “In my opinion, these are victims just like Jan. 6.”
Whitmer was never physically harmed, but Croft, 49, and Fox, 42, were convicted of leading a conspiracy in a federal court in Michigan in 2022 over their plan to kidnap the governor while she was on vacation in the hope of starting a civil war over her response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Croft was also found guilty of a weapons charge and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Fox was sentenced to 16 years behind bars.
Whitmer, who criticized Trump during the pandemic and 2020 campaign, has adopted a more conciliatory approach now that the president has returned to the White House.
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Whitmer physically embraced Trump before an event in Michigan marking his first 100 days back in office last month and met with him at the White House earlier in April to ask for federal funding to help with her state’s recovery from an ice storm that happened in March. A photograph of her hiding her face from photographers in the Oval Office with a folder later went viral.
“This is one of those moments where, as a public servant, you’re reminded your job is to put service above self, and that’s what it was all about,” she told Pod Save America last month.
