BUCK: Julie Kelly with us now. She’s a senior writer at American Greatness and has been following the situation here of the trial of men accused of a plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer. Julie, appreciate you coming back to join us.

KELLY: Hey, guys, thanks for having me on.

BUCK: Okay, so the breaking, or not breaking, the recent news I should say from just yesterday is that federal prosecutors finally got two convictions in the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot against Barry Croft and Adam Fox. They now face up to life in prison. There’s a lot to break down here for everybody. First off, the first time around there were no convictions. Why do you think it was different this time? And what do you need to — what does everyone need to know about how this all went down?

KELLY: Well, how it went down is it was an FBI sting operation from start to finish. It required the involvement of at least a dozen FBI undercover agents and informants working with their FBI handlers out of a few different FBI field offices. This was a massive operation, entrapment scheme to stitch together this group of kind of random outliers, you know, some kind of outcasts and misfits who were preaching on social media their rage about lockdowns. And of course, Michigan had one of the harshest and longest lockdowns.

So, the FBI got involved, stitched this group together, organized all these events and excursions, including a surveillance trip to Gretchen Whitmer’s cottage, which was supposed to be the scene of the crime organized by FBI informants and undercover agents. They arrested these men in October of 2020. This made — you probably recall, wall-to-wall headlines blaming Donald Trump for these right-wing militias trying to take out one of his most public political foes. But it turns out it was totally orchestrated, engineered by the FBI.

That’s why in April when these four men went on trial, the government didn’t get a single conviction. It was just stunning to see. I mean, this sort of thing never happens. Two men were outright acquitted. Hung jury on Adam Fox and Barry Croft, as you just saw. They retried the case, eight days of testimony, less than about seven hours of jury deliberations, and shocking news, the jury returned convictions on every single count. The difference, to your question, was the judge. The judge fully threw his weight on the side of the government and we can talk about some of those details. But that (loss of audio) this trial.

Coming up on ⁦@clayandbuck⁩ https://t.co/uWHu3VRyqw

— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) August 24, 2022

CLAY: Julie, I appreciate you keeping us updated on the Michigan case. I want to go to Mar-a-Lago for a moment. As more details are coming out and this appears to be less and less of a significant issue, are you still confident the government is going to try and charge Donald Trump based on the Mar-a-Lago raid, or do you think some of the pushback on Merrick Garland has got the Department of Justice a little bit shaken?

KELLY: Oh, I wish there was anything to get this DOJ shaken. There’s absolutely no stopping them. They have no barriers. They have no guardrails. They’re getting away with whatever they want in court, not only related to this raid, but in their January 6th prosecution. So, they’re completely untethered. There’s no reason why they should not and will not indict Donald Trump. I know we’ve talked about it before. The Mar-a-Lago raid was to create optics, to make it look like this was going — this is legit, like, a legit criminal investigation, which it’s not.

So, this was to create optics. And, quite frankly, as I’ve written at American Greatness, the Democrats have ratcheted this up so high, they’ve really put themselves in a corner. If they don’t indict Donald Trump before the election, they will pay a political price from their base who wants blood. They finally want to see Donald Trump in handcuffs. If the Democrats don’t deliver, they will pay a price. So, I don’t think there’s any looking back for them now.

BUCK: So, Julie, just to be clear, you are still as confident, ’cause you, even before the Mar-a-Lago raid, came on this show, and a lot of people now remember this, said, “Wow.” Before the raid in Mar-a-Lago you believed that there was going to be a high likelihood of a prosecution of Donald Trump. You still believe that?

KELLY: I absolutely do. I think I was like 99%. Now I’m, like, 105% sure.

BUCK: You said 99%, which is pretty — like, I’m not even 99% sure that I’m gonna wake up tomorrow. So I’m pretty — that’s a pretty high likelihood. You’re 99% sure they’re gonna prosecute Donald Trump or they’re gonna bring some kind of criminal charges —

CLAY: Now she’s 105%, Buck. She’s going even higher.

BUCK: I’m sorry. Going on to the next level. I mean, I will say, it has been remarkable, Julie, to see how when they initially did it, ’cause I do think there was a bit — for normal people, not for libs who watch too much CNN, there was the shock of, “Wow, you’re sending dozens of FBI agents into a president and possible future president’s residence.” And they said, “Oh, just wait. It could be about a lot more.” And now it’s, “Oh, no, the dispute with the National Archives is super serious. This was totally, totally fine,” is what they’re trying to sell it. And criminal. Which just seems nuts.

KELLY: Yes. The librarian is upset that —

CLAY: Yeah. This is such a good point. We talked about this some yesterday, Julie and Buck. I just want to jump in. This is a dispute with the National freaking Archives.

BUCK: Clay, how many years you live in D.C.? I don’t even know where the National Archives is. I lived in D.C. for like seven years.

CLAY: This is gonna be either the most embarrassing or the biggest nerd move ever. I’ve been to the National Archives to do research there. But the idea that anybody inside of the National Archives could get an FBI raid on anyone, much less a former president — if the National Archives had raided my dorm room when I was at George Washington University, I would have been like, the Archives? What are you talking about? And the idea that they could get a raid from the Department of Justice, Julie, I mean, this is crazy. Nobody’s even talking about this. The freaking National Archives?

KELLY: I know. But if you — of course if you watched the (unintelligible), “Well, the National Archivist said, and she’s very upset, you know, she gave them four weeks to turn over their documents.” Who are you?

CLAY: I mean, if somebody took the Constitution and tried to smuggle it out from the Archives or something like that, I’d be like, okay. But, I mean, this is just so laughably absurd to me, Julie, that we’re really having an unprecedented act — the Department of Justice has never done this before — and they’re doing it over basically a librarian being mad?

KELLY: Well, I mean, it sort of went from, “He has the nuke codes” to, you know, “You’ve got an overdue library book, and how dare you not put the little card back inside of it. You’re gonna get your library card revoked.” Like, this is crazy. But that’s why I said, it was part of all the optics, right? Because most people aren’t paying attention like we are, and they don’t see this as a dispute with this nameless, faceless bureaucrat.

So, they think, “Okay. Well, maybe they really did find something at Mar-a-Lago and this really is a serious investigation, and the FBI wouldn’t do this.” Of course, our side knows this now. It’s total folly. We know the FBI and DOJ completely weaponized on behalf of the Democratic Party. I do think more Americans are waking up to that. But evidence doesn’t matter. I’ve seen what this DOJ’s getting away with in the D.C. district court. They are making up charges. They have lied about evidence. The judges don’t call them out. The grand jury signed off on whatever this DOJ puts in front of them.

BUCK: Yeah. I mean, Julie, to your point, I was talking to some other conservative heavy hitters recently, and a lot of them were surprised about the DC Circuit judge who was holding one of the J6 defendants, you know, in solitary, no bail, because of the risk of another insurrection. And that was officially written down in the judicial opinion. They’re like, really? That can’t be. Yes, it is.

KELLY: It absolutely is. I mean, they’re holding men accused of nonviolent felonies of the stupid obstruction of an official proceeding charge, which has never been used in this way. You have judges denying people, men, bail based on that felony alone. And as you said, tied to January 6th while we can’t — you know, we can’t endorse this insurrection.

You have to pay, and we’re gonna deny you bail. So, I mean, this is what — this is what we’re dealing with in D.C. It is — I call it the circle of hell, that the defendants were trapped in it. They won’t change venues. They won’t dismiss any counts. And this is the same judicial-legal circle of hell that’s gunning for Trump, and I think will be successful.

BUCK: Julie, we’re gonna have you back as this moves along. Really appreciate you following this and other big legal stories. Thanks for — oh, everyone should check out Julie’s book, January 6th: How Democrats Used the Capitol Protest to Launch a War on Terror Against the Political Right. Julie, thanks so much.

KELLY: Thanks, guys. Have a great day.

CLAY: Julie really is fantastic. Gotta keep getting her on.

BUCK: Gotta love fearless, right? Fearless is great. People that are fearless, always respect.

CLAY: Amen. Amen indeed.