Tag: gretchen whitmer

Michigan Lawmakers Embrace Marijuana Tax Hike Plan Proposed By Governor

Michigan Senate Democrats are reportedly moving toward implementing a major tax hike on marijuana that was previously proposed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D).

While no legislation to effectuate the policy change has been filed yet, the plan is to impose a 32 percent wholesale excise tax on cannabis—which would be in addition to the existing 16 percent in taxes that are placed on marijuana at the retail level.

The governor said in February that the proposal would “close a loophole that exempted the marijuana industry from wholesale tax, which is applied to similar smoking products, like cigarettes, and other tobacco items.” Aligning those tax policies, her office said, could help the state fund plans to “fix the damn roads for generations to come.”

“After voters legalized marijuana, the industry has grown exponentially thanks in part to Michigan’s industry-friendly taxes, the fourth lowest in the nation,” the governor said at the time. “The industry, which recorded billions in sales in 2024, uses Michigan roads to transport marijuana multiple times throughout the process, including to grow operations, testing labs, distribution hubs, and finally retail stores. This will add an additional $470 million to help fix roads across the state.”

It would also effectively double the total tax rate on cannabis in Michigan, which advocates say would unfairly burden businesses and consumers.

“Michigan’s cannabis consumers already pay more than their fair share of taxes. They should not be singled out to bear the costs of ‘fixing the damn roads,’” Karen O’Keefe, director of state policies for the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), told Marijuana Moment.

“Michigan’s excise taxes are about 10 times as high on cannabis as they are on alcohol,” she said. “Gov. Whitmer’s proposal would roughly double the tax burden on consumers, many of whom are medical patients who are struggling to make ends meet.”

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Update on the Whitmer FBI Scam…

In October 2020, just weeks before the U.S. presidential election, headlines exploded with the claim that a group of Trump supporting conservative men had been arrested for plotting to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The timing was a little too perfect.

Revolver has covered the Whitmer fednapping plot in great detail.

In an exclusive interview with Revolver, documentary filmmaker Christina Urso recaps out how the case unfolded, how the FBI ran the operation from start to finish, and how the justice system turned a blind eye to serious constitutional violations.

The First Red Flag

“I first heard about the case in October 2020,” Christina recalls. “Whitmer came out smirking — not the reaction of someone just informed of a violent plot against her. It felt off, especially with Michigan being a swing state right before the election.”

It reminded her of PATCON, a past FBI operation targeting right-wing groups. “It felt like the same playbook — FBI-engineered entrapment dressed up as domestic terror prevention.”

Entrapment or Full Fabrication?

The FBI deployed at least 12 informants, 2 undercover agents, and multiple online covert employees to create fake militia groups on platforms like Facebook.

“They paid informants, created training events, and even gave these working-class men drugs and alcohol — then used their intoxicated words as evidence,” Christina explains.

None of the 14 men had committed violence. Most had no criminal history and were represented by underpaid or negligent public defenders. Only two out of the 14 could afford private counsel.

Legal Railroading and Sabotaged Appeals

The first federal trial resulted in two acquittals and two mistrials. But the retrial was plagued by procedural irregularities:

  • Time limits were imposed on the defense — but not the prosecution
  • A juror accused of misconduct was made foreman
  • Both Adam Fox and Barry Croft were convicted and sent to Florence ADX Supermax Prison, despite having no prior records

Fox’s court-appointed attorney, Stephen Nolder, submitted a weak 75-page appeal brief lacking exhibits, omitted one of the charges, and failed to consult his client. As a result, Fox missed his Supreme Court filing deadline and now has no legal representation.

In contrast, Croft’s lawyer, Tim Sweeney, submitted a 300-page brief with 150 pages of exhibits and worked closely with Croft.

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Gov. Whitmer Endlessly Ridiculed After Embarrassing White House Stunt: ‘This Is So Much Worse’

Particularly loud critics of President Donald Trump, such as Gretchen Whitmer, might want to keep a low profile when visiting the White House.

But the way the Democratic Michigan governor recently attempted to shield her face from the media’s cameras was a masterclass is backfiring strategies.

The Daily Wire reported on the incident and the backlash it fueled:

Whitmer was at the White House to meet with President Donald Trump about relief funding for Michigan residents who had been devastated by recent ice storms and funding for a Detroit-area Air National Guard base — but instead of a private meeting with the president, she was ushered into an Oval Office full of reporters and cameras while the president was signing executive orders.

NYT photographer Eric Lee captured one shot of Whitmer as she literally hid her face from the cameras — and that photo top-lined a piece detailing the risks she runs as a Democratic governor who is seen daring to cooperate with President Trump.

The article’s headline read, “Whitmer Shows How Democrats Are Playing With Fire in Cozying Up to Trump” — and the sub-headline doubled down: “The Michigan governor’s awkward Oval Office appearance reflected how several Democratic state leaders are cultivating cordial but politically risky relationships with the president.”

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Biden Cites the Farcical FBI-Assisted Plot To Kidnap Gretchen Whitmer as an Example of Political Violence

President Joe Biden’s condemnation of political violence Sunday night following the attempted assassination of his Republican rival, Donald Trump, listed a number of recent such incidents, but it also included the curious case of the alleged plot to kidnap Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

“We cannot—we must not go down this road in America,” Biden said. “We’ve traveled it before throughout our history. Violence has never been the answer, whether it’s with members of Congress in both parties being targeted in the shot, or a violent mob attacking the Capitol on January 6th, or a brutal attack on the spouse of former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, or information and intimidation on election officials, or the kidnapping plot against a sitting governor, or an attempted assassination on Donald Trump.”

The inclusion of the would-be Whitmer kidnappers is a bit of continued gaslighting by the Biden administration, because the plot was in large part concocted and encouraged by paid FBI informants and their Bureau handlers.

The arrest of six Michigan militia members who plotted to kidnap Whitmer before the 2020 presidential election grabbed national headlines and stoked fears of rising right-wing extremism. However, the federal case against the plotters unraveled as court documents and news investigations revealed that the FBI used no less than a dozen of confidential informants and two undercover agents to gather intel on the group. 

As Reason‘s Jacob Sullum noted, “During a June 2020 meeting highlighted by the FBI, for example, it was an informant who argued that kidnapping was necessary.”

“We have a saying in my office,” one FBI special agent told a confidential informant in the case. “Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.”

That’s why two of the defendants charged in the Whitmer conspiracy were acquitted, and two others were only convicted after a mistrial that stunned and embarrassed the FBI.

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Appeals Court Hammers Prosecution About FBI Conduct In Whitmer Kidnap Plot

The much-anticipated appeal hearing was held Thursday for Barry Croft and Adam Fox, the alleged “ringleaders” of the 2020 militia conspiracy to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Croft and Fox were convicted of plotting to kidnap Whitmer after their second trial in late 2022. At their first trial earlier that year, a jury acquitted two other men while failing to reach a verdict for Croft and Fox.

The two men appealed their convictions on multiple grounds. Thursday’s hearing focused largely on the conduct of FBI informants and their handling agents.

Croft’s attorney, Timothy Sweeney, argued that his client should get a retrial because he wasn’t allowed to introduce numerous text messages that showed improper conduct by the FBI.

Those text messages showed how FBI informants were pressuring Fox and Croft to formulate a plan against Whitmer. A list of the texts can be found in this document.

Representing the government, Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler argued that the FBI text messages were irrelevant because Fox and Croft were already predisposed to committing an act of terrorism.

“All the [FBI] statements identified by defense go to inducement. If jury found they were predisposed [to kidnapping Whitmer], none of that matters,” Kessler said. “This court has held that entrapment can only happen if the government plants an idea in an innocent persons’ head.”

The appeals justices expressed skepticism about Kessler’s argument. One justice disagreed with the prosecutor’s reading of the law.

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Inside The FBI-Tainted Whitmer ‘Kidnap Plot’ You’ve Heard Almost Nothing About

In a fiery exchange last month, CNN anchorwoman Abby Phillip told GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy that there was “no evidence” to support his claim that federal agents abetted protesters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Ramaswamy shot back that the FBI conspicuously has never denied that law enforcement agents were on duty in the crowd. He argued that federal officials have repeatedly “lied” to the American people about not only that investigation but one that has gotten much less attention: the alleged failed plot to kidnap and kill Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan in 2020.

“It was entrapment,” Ramaswamy said. “FBI agents putting them up to a kidnapping plot that we were told was true but wasn’t.”

His zeroing in on the Michigan case highlighted an uncharacteristic development in contemporary politics, where progressives vigorously defend law enforcement power while conservatives view it with deep suspicion. Further, Ramaswamy’s linking of Jan. 6 and the Whitmer plot resonated with many on the right who want similarities between the two episodes exposed to the general public, especially the FBI’s reliance on informants and other paid operatives.

On Oct. 8, 2020, Whitmer announced the shocking arrests of several men accused of planning to kidnap and possibly assassinate her. The case produced alarming headlines just weeks before Election Day; Democrats, including Whitmer, used news of the plot to blame Trump for inciting violence.

Joe Biden commended the FBI for thwarting the abduction plan and, in a written statement issued the same day, claimed that “there is a through line from President Trump’s dog whistles and tolerance of hate, vengeance, and lawlessness to plots such as this one.” Biden continued that line of attack during campaign speeches in Michigan, a swing state that voted for Trump in 2016, and one Biden needed to capture to win the presidency.

In the years since the election, the national press has given little attention to the case since the initial arrests, even though court documents have recast the episode as something more sinister. Instead of a heroic effort by the FBI to safeguard the country from domestic terrorists, it now appears to have been a broad conspiracy by law enforcement to entrap American citizens who held unpopular political views.

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Three men accused of Gretchen Whitmer kidnap plot ACQUITTED

The last three men who were charged in a plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer have all been found not guilty. William Null, twin brother Michael Null and Eric Molitor were among the 14 charged in the alleged plot, and all three have been acquitted.

Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. were convicted of kidnapping conspiracy in 2022. The two were also found guilty of conspiring to obtain a weapon of mass destruction such as a bomb to destroy a bridge near the governor’s vacation home.

William and Michael Null as well as Eric Molitor were found not guilty of providing support for a terrorist act and a weapons charge, according to WLNS 6.

The three were accused of supporting the plan’s leaders by participating in military-style drills, as well as traveling to see Whitmer’s northern Michigan vacation home.

According to MSNBC, two of the three testified that they took part in these drills but did not know of the plan until the end.

Adam Fox, the co-leader of the plot, was sentenced to 16 years in prison in December of 2022. Government prosecutors had pushed for a life sentence, but the judge said this was “not necessary” to achieve the purposes of providing punishment and deterrence to commit further acts.

Fox and Croft Jr. were convicted in a second trial after a Grand Rapids jury could not reach a unanimous verdict during the first.

William Null testified that he and his brother walked away when talks turned to obtaining explosives. Molitor said Fox was “incredibly dumb” and wouldn’t pull off a kidnapping.

Two others were previously acquitted of charges.

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Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer received email in Greek from consultant to shield it from the public: lawsuit

Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer received a coded email related to her administration’s response to a local water crisis in an apparent attempt to hide the sensitive communication from the public, a lawsuit alleges. 

The email was disguised in Greek alphabet font and sent by Andrew Leavitt, a consultant to Michigan’s energy department, to Whitmer’s senior energy adviser Kara Cook in September of 2021, according to a class action lawsuit filed.

“Hot off the presses. As I warned there are some major red flags. It seems like we are back at square one having not learned from Flint,” reads Leavitt’s decoded email, which was first reported by the Washington Free Beacon on Wednesday after a June court filing in the case. 

Leavitt served as a consultant for the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy.

The use of the Greek language and alphabet “appears to be calculated to conceal the statements,” the court filing states, noting that Leavitt “prefaced his grave concerns about the water crises with a reference back to his prior warnings and the State and City Defendants’ failure to learn from the Flint tragedy.“

Since the email was written in Greek, it would not have been included in public records requests for government communications containing words such as “Flint” or “red flags.”

Michigan’s public records department cannot electronically search for material written using the Greek alphabet, the Washington Free Beacon reported. 

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Whitmer Concedes Her COVID Rules Didn’t Make Sense

Nowhere did the COVID hysteria blight the land as remorselessly as it did in Gretchen Whitmer’s Michigan, and now that the Left’s lockdown narrative has thoroughly unraveled, the embattled governor will need a new fake FBI kidnapping plot to divert attention from how she drove her once-thriving state into a ditch and revealed a disturbing taste for authoritarianism. Now, Whitmer is backpedaling furiously, even admitting on CNN Sunday night that many of her COVID measures “in retrospect, don’t make a lot of sense.” Uh, yeah. We could have told you that several years ago, Governor, but you would have dismissed us as purveyors of “disinformation.”

Even in the midst of making this concession, however, Whitmer tried to cover her tracks and justify her COVID measures. Michigan Capitol Confidential ( “Michigan’s Watchdog,” a publication of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy) noted Tuesday that during her conversation with Chris Wallace, Whitmer “misrepresented her COVID-19 record and used a false talking point to question Florida’s COVID data.” Wallace asked her what she would do differently if the COVID insanity began today. He pressed the governor — who forced people to remain in their homes, forcibly closed businesses and schools, and even prohibited people from buying seeds for their gardens and toys for their children — for specifics on how she might handle the same situation now.

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Just Doing Her Job… Female FBI Agent Slept with Target Barry Croft in Hotel, in Same Bed, During Training Weekend Paid for by FBI and Smoked Pot with Him in FBI-Hatched Whitmer Kidnapping Hoax

In an October 2020 press conference, the FBI announced it had thwarted a plot by a so-called “right-wing militia” to kidnap and kill Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

The Whitmer kidnapping plot was in the media 24/7 and used to bludgeon Trump with just a few weeks to go until Election Day.

The FBI used at least 12 informants in the Michigan Whitmer kidnapping case.

There were 6 defendants and 12 FBI informants identified as the case progressed.

The FBI planned the Whitmer attack, organized the attack, paid for the attack, and recruited local men to join in their planned attack.

It was another complete setup by Chris Wray’s FBI to frame and ruin innocent men.

The case, which we now know was comprised of virtually all FBI agents and informants, took another devastating hit in August.

Michael Hills, an attorney for Brandon Caserta, one of the six defendants, produced text messages showing an FBI field agent telling an informant to lie, frame an innocent man and delete text messages.

This is why federal prosecutors are refusing to hand over text messages and laptops from FBI informants in the Whitmer kidnapping case. The FBI actually hatched the plot. paid for the plot, ran the plot, and set up the innocent men in their immoral scheme.

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