A man who pleaded guilty in a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer testified Thursday that he joined the conspiracy hoping he would be killed in a shootout with police.
“I no longer wanted to live,” Kaleb Franks told jurors, minutes after settling into the witness chair in federal court in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “A large portion of my family had died. I was struggling financially. Just wasn't happy.”
Franks, 27, figured kidnapping someone as prominent as Whitmer was very risky: “In my opinion, you would be bound to die.”
Franks and another man, Ty Garbin, pleaded guilty to the scheme and are testifying against four former allies who are on trial for conspiracy: Adam Fox, Barry Croft Jr., Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta.
Garbin, 26, told jurors Wednesday that Whitmer’s kidnapping could have been the “ignition” for a U.S. civil war involving antigovernment groups, possibly before the 2020 election.
“We wanted to cause as much a disruption as possible to prevent Joe Biden from getting into office. It didn’t have to be,” Garbin said of a pre-election blitz. “It was just preferred.”
Defense attorneys are trying to show the jury that there was no credible plot, just a lot of profane, violent talk aimed at Whitmer and other politicians about the men’s perceived loss of rights during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The group was arrested in October 2020, a stunning bust near the end of a national campaign that polarized the country. Investigators said the men were extremists who were trying to come up with $4,000 for an explosive to blow up a bridge in northern Michigan during the kidnapping.
The trial has linked, at times indirectly, the kidnapping plot to a series of events, especially right-wing protests at the Michigan Capitol and elsewhere in response to pandemic...
