Julie Kelly Explains the Stunning Whitmer Trial Verdict

CLAY: Julie Kelly just called in. She’s been great at helping to defend some of these people on January 6 and tell their story. Julie, we’re trying to contextualize exactly what happened. We appreciate you being flexible because we saw you tweeting all about it. What happened in this Whitmer trial in the last 30 minutes or so? What has the jury officially determined?

KELLY: The jury in Grand Rapids did not hand down a simple conviction in the alleged Whitmer kidnapping plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer in 2020. It was four men who faced numerous charges, including a charge that would have landed them in prison for the rest of their lives. Conspiracy to kidnap. They also were charged with conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction.

Not a single conviction. Two men were completely acquitted. The other two men — including the alleged ringleader, Adam Fox — the jury was deadlocked on their guilt, so the judge declared a mistrial on their two cases. This is… It’s hard to overstate what a stunning blow this is for the U.S. Department of Justice, a well-deserved blow.

I’m telling you, Clay and Buck, some people need to answer for what they did, not just to these men, but to the American people by arresting these men, blaming this concocted plot on Donald Trump, and producing all these damaging headlines for him as millions of Americans were voting in the 2020 presidential election. This is, as I tweeted earlier, a bigger scandal than Russiagate. This is yet another example — a more flagrant and possibly far more damaging example — of the FBI, once again, interfering in a presidential election to sabotage Donald Trump.

BUCK: Julie, can you just tell us…? Thanks for being with us. This is Buck. Can you tell us some of the…? I read just an excerpt from I think it was last summer where even the Democrat lib media started to say, “Yeah, this Whitmer case is actually a little shakier than perhaps we had anticipated” or whatever, right? Doesn’t matter. They’re obviously trying to, you know, come up with a certain narrative. What sort of things were these informants saying? Why did this case fall apart, essentially?

KELLY: Well, I really have to credit this judge and this jury. They took almost five days to very carefully deliberate all of the evidence before them, and I’ll tell you. The judge who I really like, especially — if you’re listening (chuckles) — D.C. district court judges, he — I don’t want to say “concealed,” but he ruled with on behalf of the government in a number of cases that withheld really egregious examples of how the FBI agents and their informants were putting this whole plot together and entrapping these men, inducing them to try to commit crimes.

But there were at least a dozen FBI agents, undercover agents and informants involved in this. You basically had one (chuckles) FBI asset per defendant. There are also men who face state charges. These men didn’t even know each other before the FBI got involved! They are going on excursions and trips that were planned by the FBI, that were paid for by the FBI.

The lead informant, a man named Dan Shepherd, was compensated at least $60,000 from the FBI. (audio drop) The other informant is a convicted felon with a rap sheet in nine states who committed at least two other crimes, but he was paid about $20,000 from this FBI. You guys, if you had the best fiction writer in the world, you could not write up the corruption, the scandal, and really just the depravity of this FBI operation that spanned several cases, by the way. It wasn’t just in Michigan. This is run out of FBI field offices in numerous states.

CLAY: Julie, I appreciate again, you coming on with us on quick notice story has just broken. The other thing to keep in mind is Gretchen Whitmer is up for reelection in 2022, and there’s some talk that she could possibly be a contender in 2024 if Joe Biden is not running.

This is going to be a significant campaign issue, I would think, in the state of Michigan, because she gained a lot of sympathy over this coverage, the idea that someone was trying to kidnap her — and now all this evidence has come out, and a jury in Michigan has determined that there wasn’t a crime committed at all by any of these four men so far.

KELLY: That’s exactly right, and Gretchen Whitmer, if you rewind back to 2020 — think about two years ago — she and Donald Trump were in a very public feud about her continuation of these very Draconian lockdown policies in her state.

CLAY: Yep.

KELLY: So they were very vocal opponents of each other. So the question is, “What did Gretchen Whitmer know? What was her complicity in this FBI sting operation?” What came out in the trial was that the FBI had pull cameras and other laser devices around her cottage, which is where this I may not was supposed to occur. They already had her cottage under surveillance.

She was not under any danger at any time, yet she did days or a few weeks of interviews in October of 2020 blaming Donald Trump for this, inciting right-wing militia who wanted to kidnap and possibly kill her. These were the sort of things were she was saying as people were voting. We need to find out what she knew, how much a part of this sting operation she was actually a part of.

CLAY: Julie Kelly fantastic.

BUCK: One quick thing, Julie. I just wanted to know if you’d weigh in for a minute on Matthew Martin of January 6th, that prosecution. He was acquitted earlier this week. I just wanted you to tell us about that.

KELLY: Can we just take a quick moment and bask in some good news (chuckles) as far as the American justice system this week? Because we haven’t had any in years. So Matthew Martin charged with (garbled) misdemeanors related to January 6th. He opted for a bench trial before Trevor McFadden, who’s a Trump appointee, and basically the judge — after Matthew Martin’s testimony — concluded that, yes, he had been waved into the building.

But more than that, you had for the first time a U.S. Capitol Police official testifying under oath that they indeed stood by and allowed people into the building. They claimed they were overwhelmed. They couldn’t prevent them from coming in. So they just stood by to make sure no one was hurt. This has huge consequences. In fact, a defendant today retracted his plea deal on these same charges based on what happened in court this week. So it’s sort of a game-changer for a lot of these cases.

BUCK: Yeah, quite an insurrection when Capitol are saying, “Right this way! Go into this room, please.” Julie, thanks so much for being with us and all your work on this. We appreciate it. We’ll talk to you again about it soon.