Hours after over a dozen men were charged for allegedly plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic leader took aim at President Donald Trump for refusing to denounce right-wing extremist violence. “Just last week the president of the United States stood before the American people and refused to condemn white supremacists and hate groups like these two Michigan militia groups. Stand back and stand by, he told them. 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. When our leaders speak, their words matter. They carry weight... When they stoke and contribute to hate speech, they are complicit.”
In addition to the six men federally charged with conspiring with a militia group to kidnap Whitmer and overthrow the government, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel on Thursday announced that seven other men—linked to the militia group Wolverine Watchmen—have been charged with terrorism crimes for allegedly planning the Capitol building attack and attempting to “instigate a Civil War.”
