Grand Rapids Reporter

Local law enforcement agencies helped state and federal authorities quash a plot by a militia group to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard told WJR's "The Paul W. Smith Show."

“I applaud the efforts by the FBI, the attorney general’s office, Michigan State Police and all the local authorities in assisting in uncovering this plot against Gov. Whitmer,” Bouchard said in a statement read by Smith on the radio program.

Oakland County, as part of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, worked with the FBI and other agencies on investigating the plot.

“You just shake your head,” the sheriff told Smith. “Every day you think things can’t get more bizarre, and yet they do. I’ve been in this business a long time, Paul W., and I don’t know how it keeps getting more bizarre.”

Members of an anti-government group discussed kidnapping Whitmer from her family's summer cottage in Northern Michigan, according to testimony in a federal court hearing, USA Today reported. The group members conducted surveillance missions of the cottage, held planning sessions and drew a map.

Some of the planning occurred in Oakland County, the sheriff said.

“We have a lot of relationships and work on a lot of these kinds of cases together,” Bouchard told Smith. “Some of the FBI folks were from all around, really dedicated men and women.”

While free speech makes this country great, violence is never a political expression that can be tolerated, the sheriff said in his statement.

“Law enforcement is focused on keeping people safe, first and foremost, and secondly, property and the community,” the sheriff said on the radio program. “All the stuff from the political world, whether it’s these crazy people that were attempting to do this violence or anyone else, we just try to tune out and stay focused on the mission, and that is protecting everybody and protecting the community in which we live.”