President Donald Trump said he will look into potentially pardoning the men convicted in the failed 2020 plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
“I will take a look at it. It’s been brought to my attention,” Trump told reporters at the White House Wednesday. “I did watch the trial. It looked to me like somewhat of a railroad job.”
Trump, questioning the fairness of the trial and minimizing the men’s actions, said he thought those convicted “were drinking” and “said stupid things.”
Trump has previously dismissed the kidnapping scheme as “fake,” and claimed the Democratic governor was never in any danger.
“The sting that they did involving Gretchen Whitmer was fake, just like those who instigated January 6,” he said in 2022, referring to those who participated in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol a year before. “It was a fake deal, fake. It was a fake deal.”
Trump’s vow this week follows the U.S. Justice Department’s newly appointed pardon attorney, a defender of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists, calling the convictions of at least two of the anti-government extremists involved in the Whitmer case “very suspect.”
“On the pardon front, we can’t leave these guys behind. In my opinion, these are victims just like January 6. So we are processing that,” Ed Martin Jr. said in an interview Thursday with “The Breanna Morello Show” on Spotify.
Martin was responding to a question about the convictions of Barry Croft Jr. and Adam Fox, who were accused of leading the violent kidnapping plot and trying to blow up a bridge to ease their escape.
The men’s defense team had accused the FBI of entrapping the pair, saying they were nothing more than “big talkers” who wouldn’t have actually pulled off a kidnapping. They recently lost an appeal of their convictions.
“The FBI was so unworthy of our trust, they were so dishonorable during those years, the Biden years, and it was so bad,” Martin said while justifying their potential pardons. “There’s very little I will take at face value from the FBI and I’m sorry for the good men and women who may be there, I don’t know. I just know that I can’t trust them.”
Martin likened the mens’ criminal case to the “weaponization of government,” and said “the president will want to know the facts about it.”
Martin is also reportedly examining a potential pardon for the leader of the far-right Oath Keepers group, Stewart Rhodes, over his involvement in the 2021 riot.
Whitmer, who was never physically harmed, had partially blamed Trump for inciting the plot, saying he stoked public mistrust and anger in response to her handling of the coronavirus pandemic.