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What happened to Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer? The 2020 kidnapping plot, explained

Conspirators planned to kidnap Whitmer in 2020, but FBI involvement has led some to ask, was it ever real?

Gretchen Whitmer at DNC
Image via Getty Images News/Andrew Harnik / Staff

“Hog-tied” and “laid out on a table” said Adam Fox, one of 14 men arrested in 2020 for plotting to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Michigan had long been home to far-right militias, and Whitmer’s strict handling of COVID-19 pandemic mitigation measures inspired a plan to overthrow the state government.

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According to the FBI, in addition to Fox’s stated goals of tying her up, the conspirators planned to kidnap Whitmer from her vacation home, and either strand her on a boat in Lake Michigan, or have her stand trial in Wisconsin. Donald Trump was president at that time, and when the plot was uncovered, many believed Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric had stirred discontent, with Trump referring to Whitmer as “that woman from Michigan” and writing “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” The Michigan state capitol had also been breached in April that year by militia groups pushing back on Whitmer’s COVID policies. Thankfully, Whitmer was never harmed.

The Whitmer plot and the FBI

via Philippe Duhart/X

It was revealed over time that the FBI had informants among the conspirators, some of whom played a crucial role in planning the attack. Therefore, the supposed Whitmer abduction plot was seen by many as a government conspiracy, a set-up to crack down on far-right militias. Once out of office, Trump seemed to promulgate this theory, calling the Whitmer plot a “fake deal.”

But New York Times investigative journalist Ken Bensinger, who helped reveal just how involved the FBI was in orchestrating the Whitmer plot, cautioned against drawing any wingnut conclusions, telling Slate in 2024, “I think it’s possible to believe that the FBI was deeply involved and got out over its skis on this case without believing that there’s a deep-state conspiracy behind everything.” He added, “[T]here are institutional reasons for why the FBI does things like this that are separate from conspiracy involving Hillary Clinton and George Soros.”

via No Human Being is Illegal/X

Of the 14 men from inside and outside Michigan facing state and federal charges stemming from the Whitmer plot, some pleaded guilty, while others accepted plea deals in exchange for testimony against other conspirators. Some were acquitted, while others had the charges dropped. Of the nine men convicted, some accepted plea deals, while others went to state or federal trial. Four men’s sentences ranged from between 2.5 to 16 years in prison.

Since 2020, right-wing media pundits and politicians have persisted in calling the Whitmer plot “non-existent” and a “false-flag” conspiracy, according to The Daily Beast. Referring to the subsequent revisionist history that seeks to make folk heroes of the men involved, the former executive director of the Michigan GOP said, “It’s this normalizing, inch by inch, of political violence, making what would’ve previously been intolerable tolerable in the sense that we just have become numb to it.”

In Oct. 2023, a man dressed in black was stopped and questioned about climbing and taking photographs from a bluff overlooking Whitmer’s summer home, the same Mackinac Island home that conspirators planned to kidnap her from in 2020. The man stated he’d been hired to conduct “research” against Democratic politicians, and no arrests were made. Referring to the plots against her, Whitmer said, “The former president made me a target and threw a lot of gas on the fire and it has continued to burn. And I think about it everywhere I go.”

Could Whitmer run for president?

via Kamala HQ/X

Since 2020, Gretchen Whitmer’s profile has risen significantly in the Democratic party, and Whitmer was a featured speaker on the final night of the 2024 Democratic National Convention in support of Vice President Kamala Harris. Whitmer’s name is often among politicians floated as possible future Democrat nominees for president, and arose especially amid calls for Biden to step out of the race. Whitmer denied plans to step in for Biden when his status as a candidate was still uncertain, The Times reported. Whether Whitmer might run in a future election is unclear.