Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a possible Democratic candidate for president should Joe Biden leave the race, wants to meet members of a far-right militia who plotted to kidnap and kill her, The Guardian reports. “I asked whether I could meet with one of the handful of plotters who’d pleaded guilty and taken responsibility for their actions, just to talk,” Whitmer writes in a new book about of the plot motivated by resistance to COVID-19 public health measures that resulted in 13 arrests in 2020. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said it might be possible to talk to the plotters, though it has not happened, due to “all the various trials and appeals, Whitmer says.
“But I do look forward to being able to sit and talk, face-to-face. To ask the questions and really hear the answers. And hopefully to take some small step toward understanding," she writes. As described by Nessel’s office, the affair of the “Wolverine Watchmen” resulted in “20 state felonies against eight individuals alleged to have engaged in the planning and training for an operation to attack the state Capitol and kidnap government officials.” Five men were convicted. Federal charges were filed against six more men, four of whom were convicted. Two pled guilty to conspiracy charges and co-operated with prosecutors. Whitmer describes the plot, and how she coped with it and other threats from the armed pro-Trump far right, in "True Gretch: What I’ve Learned About Life, Leadership, and Everything in Between." Whitmer does not shy from describing the violent plot against her. Describing threats such as “Grab the fuckin’ governor, just grab the bitch” and “Just cap her”, she considers the toll taken on her husband and daughters as well as on herself.