Shortly after a dangerous group of white supremacist terrorists were charged in a plot to kidnap Michigan’s Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and put her on trial for “treason,” President Trump came out with his own attack on her.
The apparent motive behind the kidnapping scheme was the dislike the kidnappers had of the governor’s quick and early moves to protect the people of Michigan from the coronavirus. They considered the early lock-down and protective measures the governor ordered to be an encroachment on their freedoms.
Many of them, armed to the teeth, massed on the state capitol to protest those measures when they were first instituted earlier this year. They broke into the building waving their weapons and intimidating legislators.
At the time they did this, Trump tweeted his support of the armed terrorists, urging them, in all caps, to “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!”
The scheme to take Whitmer prisoner was envisioned by the terrorists as the opening salvo of a campaign to take over the state government and hopefully launch a race-based civil war in the United States. The group had already conducted surveillance on Whitmer and her family to track their movements, stockpiled weapons, and detonated a test explosive.
Immediately after the would-be kidnappers were arrested, Trump again tried to make Whitmer a target, attacking the governor again for her coronavirus policies. The president, who has turned his own White House into a coronavirus hotspot, said Whitmer has done “a terrible job” with her response to the pandemic.
“All of us in Michigan can disagree about politics, but those disagreements should never, ever amount to violence. Violence has been prevented today,” Detroit U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider told reporters after the white supremacist terrorists were arrested.
Trump and the white supremacists:
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Trump’s message to white supremacists: It’s OK to gun down protesters
Trump turns to neo-Nazi symbols to attract racist votes
Trump hails Confederate names, monuments, and military bases
Trump tried to take credit for the arrest of the terrorists who were encouraged in part by his own rhetoric by saying it was “my Justice Department” that foiled the kidnapping. The reality was that the leadership role was played by the Michigan Justice Department, the FBI which is under attack by Trump, and local police who were not operating under orders from the president.
“Rather than say thank you,” Trump wrote on Twitter, “she (Gov. Whitmer) calls me a white supremacist while Biden and Democrats refuse to condemn Antifa, Anarchists, Looters and Mobs that burn down Democrat run cities.”
“Hatred, bigotry and violence have no place in the great state of Michigan,” Whitmer said in a press conference shortly after the arrests were announced. She also was direct in placing blame on Trump for emboldening the actions of extremist groups.
She noted that rather than condemn white supremacists in his debate with Biden, Trump instead told the far-right Proud Boys group to “stand back and stand by.” Whitmer said, “Hate groups heard the president’s words not as a rebuke but as a rallying cry, as a call to action.”
In an interview with CNN later on Thursday, she responded directly to Trump’s Twitter attacks on her. “You know, the fact that after a plot to kidnap and to kill me, this is what they come out with. They start attacking me, as opposed to what good, decent people would do, [which] is to check in and say, ‘Are you OK?’”
She said Democratic candidate Joe Biden telephoned her immediately after the announcement of the plot being foiled. “I think that tells you everything that’s at stake in this election,” Whitmer said. “It tells you everything you need to know about the character of the two people on this ballot that we have to choose from in a few weeks.”
Whitmer has been praised by medical and health professionals and other governors and lawmakers for the decisive action she took in trying to control the pandemic in her state. Since the initial strict lockdown she imposed, many of the initial restrictions on economic movement have been lifted.
Evet step of the way, however, she has had to do battle with the Republican-controlled legislature in her state which generally does the bidding of Donald Trump, who has constantly demanded that Whitmer “open up Michigan,” regardless of the consequences for the health and safety of its people.
AP contributed to this story.
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