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Text: When's 'lynching?' Michigan governor plot leader said

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer attends an event with President Joe Biden in the South Court Auditorium on the White House campus, Wednesday, March 9, 2022, in Washington. Prosecutors in the trial of four men charged with planning to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer are showing jurors profanity-filled messages and social media posts on Thursday, March 10, by two of the men, some months before the FBI got involved in the case.
(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
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(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer attends an event with President Joe Biden in the South Court Auditorium on the White House campus, Wednesday, March 9, 2022, in Washington. Prosecutors in the trial of four men charged with planning to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer are showing jurors profanity-filled messages and social media posts on Thursday, March 10, by two of the men, some months before the FBI got involved in the case.

Secretly recorded messages between defendants were real aloud in court Monday.


A man described as the leader of a plot to kidnapMichigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer asked “when’s the lynching?” after the state Supreme Court in 2020 struck down a law that she repeatedly used to impose restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to evidence introduced Monday.

The disclosure came near the end of the first phase of testimony by a key government witness in the trial of four men. Cross examination of Dan Chappel followed.

Chappel, an Army veteran, was an FBI informant who secretly recorded hours of conversations, participated in chat groups and trained to abduct Whitmer, along with Adam Fox, Barry Croft Jr., Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta.

Prosecutors say the four were antigovernment extremists who wanted to grab the Democratic governor at her vacation home in northern Michigan in retaliation for a series of sweeping orders during the pandemic.

With Chappel in the witness chair, Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler introduced messages written after Whitmer lost a Michigan Supreme Court decision about her powers.

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