Commentary: The Other Phony Kidnapping Plot

In the spring of 2020, President Donald Trump posted three tweets in a row aimed at Democratic governors continuing to impose draconian lockdowns amid the COVID-19 pandemic. “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” Trump tweeted on the morning of April 17, 2020. A few moments later, he tweeted “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” and “LIBERATE VIRGINIA!”

His tweets coincided with anti-lockdown rallies in several states, including a blockade around the Michigan Capitol building in Lansing a few days prior. As usual, the media expressed shock and horror at the innocuous tweets, insisting the president was encouraging violence against his political rivals. 

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Commentary: More Trouble for the FBI in the Whitmer Kidnapping Case

Gretchen Whitmer

The media went wild last week after Joe Biden’s Justice Department finally produced a criminal indictment to support the claim that January 6 was an “insurrection” planned by militiamen loyal to Donald Trump: Eleven members of the Oath Keepers, including its founder, Stewart Rhodes, face the rarely used charge of seditious conspiracy for their brief and nonviolent involvement at the Capitol protest that day.

Journalists luxuriated in the news, jeering those of us who had correctly noted that the Justice Department had failed to charge anyone with insurrection or sedition for more than a year.

But the press does not share the same zeal in covering another politically charged investigation: the imploding criminal case against five men accused of plotting to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020. The kidnapping narrative shares many similarities with their preferred telling of January 6, not the least of which is that alleged militias incited by Trump attempted to carry out a domestic terror attack.

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