After thwarting this plot, the FBI warned that far-right terrorism was the main threat to American democracy. A man was sentenced to 16 years in prison on Tuesday for plotting to kidnap the Democratic governor of the US state of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer.
Adam Fox, 39, headed a group of far-right activists arrested in October 2020. According to the indictment, these men accused the governor of being “a tyrant” due to Covid-related restrictions, and were considering the ability to remove it to submit it to a “trial”. They reportedly monitored the area around his vacation home and took photos of a bridge they planned to blow up as a diversion during the kidnapping.
armed militia
“Be assured that we will do everything to thwart such conspiracies,” Andrew Birge, a former federal prosecutor appointed by the Justice Department to oversee the trial, said in a statement.
Adam Fox had pleaded not guilty at his trial, claiming he had been trapped by undercover federal police agents and informants who, according to them, pushed them to act, train, arm themselves. A few weeks earlier, three other members of this group had been sentenced by a Michigan court to prison terms of between 7 and 12 years, and two other members had been acquitted.
In 2020, the arrest of these activists illustrated the growing threat posed by radical right-wing militias, which was later confirmed during the storming of the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021, in which members of groups such as the Oath Keepers or the Proud Boys .
