{"id":1425936,"date":"2022-04-08T14:44:37","date_gmt":"2022-04-08T18:44:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1425936"},"modified":"2022-04-08T14:44:41","modified_gmt":"2022-04-08T18:44:41","slug":"breaking-whitmer-plot-jury-doesnt-convict-on-conspiracy-charges-two-men-walk-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/breaking-whitmer-plot-jury-doesnt-convict-on-conspiracy-charges-two-men-walk-free\/","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING: Whitmer Plot Jury Doesn\u2019t Convict On Conspiracy Charges; Two Men Walk Free"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fbreaking-whitmer-plot-jury-doesnt-convict-on-conspiracy-charges-two-men-walk-free%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1425936&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2022\/04\/Gretchen-Whitmer-2.jpg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.3.0\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Prosecutors failed to prove that four men conspired to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) ahead of the 2020 election.<\/p>\n<p>A West Michigan jury reached a split verdict on Friday in the cases of Brandon Caserta, Barry Croft, Adam Fox, and Daniel Harris, all of whom were charged with allegedly conspiring to kidnap Whitmer and faced a potential life sentence in prison if convicted. The jury found Caserta and Harris not guilty of the conspiracy charge, and it could not reach a verdict on Croft\u2019s or Fox\u2019s conspiracy charge.<\/p>\n<p><em>This is a developing story; refresh the page for updates.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The decision is a major blow to prosecutors who arrested and charged six men in the alleged plot. Two men, Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, pleaded guilty to the charge and testified against the defendants during trial.<\/p>\n<p>Jury deliberations began on Monday. Closing arguments in the case wrapped up last week on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn America, there\u2019s a lot of things you can do. You can criticize the government publicly, absolutely,\u201d Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.freep.com\/story\/news\/local\/michigan\/2022\/04\/02\/alleged-whitmer-kidnap-plot-now-hands-jury\/7251563001\/\">told<\/a>\u00a0jurors at the time. \u201cIf you don\u2019t like the government\u2019s policies, you can protest them. If you don\u2019t like elected leaders, you can vote them out at the ballot box. What you can\u2019t do is kidnap them, kill them, or blow them up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBarry Croft drove across the country four times to plan this. Adam Fox came up [to Whitmer\u2019s cottage] twice. It wasn\u2019t just protected speech,\u201d Kessler told the jury, adding the group took efforts to conceal their plan. \u201cThey weren\u2019t going to protests. They were specifically keeping a low profile so that nobody would know what they were up to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A team of defense lawyers argued that their clients were innocent of committing conspiracy and, to the extent that a conspiracy may have existed, the FBI had illegally manipulated their clients into it. Defense attorneys claimed that FBI agents and informants sought to prolong the investigation into the conspiracy for personal or professional reasons instead of following FBI policy regarding when to drop an investigation.<\/p>\n<p>Attorneys went after FBI informant Dan Chappel, the cornerstone of the case who recorded hundreds of hours-worth of audio of the conspirators from March to October 2020. The defense emphasized the roughly $54,000 Chappel received from the FBI in reimbursements and compensation for aiding the investigation for seven months. As <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/conspiracy-to-kidnap-a-governor-fbi-told-informant-to-brand-innocent-man-as-federal-agent-to-avoid-suspicion\">The Daily Wire<\/a> reported after Chappel testified last month:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><em>[Croft attorney Joshua Blanchard] brought out a receipt showing that Chappel had requested and received reimbursements from the FBI for a roughly $3,400 Microsoft Surface Book laptop, $190 laptop docking station, $20 mouse, and an $85 Surface Pen. Chappel also spent, and was reimbursed, about $205 for an extended warranty on the laptop. Blanchard introduced another receipt, which was not presented to the jury over uncensored personal information, showing Chappel was also reimbursed for a Samsung Galaxy Smartwatch.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The defense team was also unable to secure testimony from another FBI informant and three FBI agents involved in the investigation. All were accused of personal or professional misconduct not having to do with the case, with the exception of the informant, who prosecutors said acted as a \u201cdouble-agent\u201d against the government\u2019s interests.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest growing conservative media companies for breaking news, investigative reporting, sports, podcasts, in-depth analysis, books, and entertainment for a reason: because we believe in what we do. We believe in our country, in the value of truth and the freedom to speak it, and in the right to challenge tyranny wherever we see it. Believe the same? <u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\">Become a member now and join our mission.<\/a><\/u><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prosecutors failed to prove that four men conspired to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) ahead of the 2020 election.A West Michigan jury reached a split verdict on Friday in the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1425936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1425936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1425936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1425936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1425936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1425936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1425936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}