On Thursday, the Detroit Free Press reported that the militia ringleader behind the alleged plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) also planned to execute her on live TV — and burn down the state capitol in Lansing with everyone still inside it.
"No one would get out of the Michigan State Capitol alive under the initial plan devised by the accused ringleader in a Michigan terrorist plot, according to the Michigan Attorney General's Office," said the report.
Whitmer has been a target of far-right anger over Michigan's COVID-19 public health restrictions, and a number of paramilitary groups staged an armed demonstration outside the capitol in September — although polling shows that Whitmer enjoys higher support in the state than President Donald Trump, who lost Michigan in 2020 after narrowly carrying it four years previously.
The president, for his part, did little to cool tensions after the kidnap plotters were arrested by the FBI, saying at a Michigan campaign rally in October that the threat to her life was "maybe a problem, maybe it wasn't."
