Six men motivated by anti-government views were charged with plotting with a militia group to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, hoping to carry out the kidnapping before the presidential election, the F.B.I. said today.
The six men had talked about taking Whitmer, a Democrat, hostage since at least the summer, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court and unsealed today.
They met over the summer for firearms training and combat drills and tried to make explosives; they also gathered several times to discuss the mission, including in the basement of a shop in Michigan that was accessible only through a “trap door” under a rug, the F.B.I. said.
The men had surveilled Whitmer’s vacation home in August and September, and they indicated that they wanted to take her hostage before the election in November, Richard J. Trask II, an F.B.I. special agent, said in the criminal complaint.
In July, one of the men said the group should take Whitmer hostage and move her to a “secure location” in Wisconsin for a “trial,” Mr. Trask said.
He said the F.B.I. believed the men were planning to buy explosives this week for their plot.
Court records indicated that at least five of the men had been arrested on Wednesday in Ypsilanti, Mich.; it was not immediately clear if the sixth man had been taken into the custody.
The F.B.I. said it had learned about the group by intercepting encrypted messages and because it had undercover agents and confidential informants working with the group.
The six men were charged with conspiracy to commit kidnapping, which can carry a life sentence.
Their names were listed in court documents as Adam Fox, Kaleb Franks, Brandon Caserta, Ty Garbin, Daniel Harris and Barry Croft.
Croft lives in Delaware and the other five live in Michigan, the authorities said.
The authorities said that Fox and Croft had decided to “unite others” to “take violent action” against state governments that they thought were violating the Constitution and that Fox was the one to initiate contact with a Michigan-based militia group.
The F.B.I. said he had talked of storming the Michigan statehouse with 200 men and trying Whitmer for treason.
Brian Titus, the owner of a vacuum store in Grand Rapids, Mich., said that he had hired Fox, whom he had known since childhood, and even given him a place to stay in the store’s basement after he was kicked out of his girlfriend’s home.
Titus said the store was raided on Wednesday.
“I felt sorry for him but I didn’t know he was capable of doing this; this is almost insane,” Titus said in an interview. “I knew he was in a militia, but there’s a lot of people in a militia that don’t plan to kidnap the governor. I mean, give me a break.”
Whitmer has been the subject of attack from right-wing protesters for measures she imposed to control the spread of the coronavirus.
In April, thousands of people gathered at the State Capitol to protest the executive orders she issued shutting down most of the state to help stop the spread of the virus that has now infected more than 145,000 Michiganders and killed more than 7,000.
The protests featured some signs with swastikas, Confederate flags and language that advocated violence against Whitmer, including one man who carried a doll with brown hair hanging from a noose.
Many in the crowd carried semiautomatic weapons, leading some Democrats in the Legislature to call for a ban on guns in the Capitol.
Republicans in the Legislature sued Whitmer in May over the executive orders and opponents of her lockdown orders filed petitions with more than 500,000 signatures with the secretary of state last week to repeal the law that gives governors authority to declare emergencies during times of a public health crisis.
The Michigan Supreme Court ruled last week that her use of the 1945 law was unconstitutional.
Michigan has a long history of anti-government activity.
A group known as the Michigan Militia dates back to the early 1990s, when Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, later convicted of carrying out the Oklahoma City bombing attack in 1995 that killed 168 people, attended a few of its early meetings.
It resurfaced again around 2008 and 2009, with the election of Barack Obama as president.
More recently, armed groups of men began appearing at some demonstrations, most notably the 2017 march by white nationalists in Charlottesville, Va.
The upheavals in 2020 provided new impetus for militia groups to move from the online world onto the streets.
During protests against the virus lockdowns, they accused the government of “overreach,” suggesting that business closings and mask mandates were forms of tyranny.
That initial scattered presence mushroomed with the nationwide protests over social justice after George Floyd died at the hands of police in May.
When some protests degenerated into arson and looting, militiamen appeared on the streets, saying that they were there to protect homes and businesses that law enforcement could not.
But some groups fervently opposed to the government in general and especially law enforcement claimed that they mobilized to protect protesters from officers.
Experts in the field have been worried about greater violence fomented by militias in the weeks before and after the Nov. 3 elections, especially since Trump has repeatedly suggested that his opponents might be trying to steal the election.
All 50 states have some manner of ban on private paramilitary activity, leading some groups to avoid calling themselves “militias.”
In response to the charges on Thursday, Mike Shirkey, the Republican majority leader in the State Senate, wrote on Twitter that a “threat against our Governor is a threat against us all” and called the men accused of the conspiracy “traitors.”
“We condemn those who plotted against her and our government,” he wrote. “They are not patriots. There is no honor in their actions.”