WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Wednesday he would "take a look at" pardoning two men convicted of conspiring to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020.

Barry Croft Jr. and Adam Fox were portrayed by federal prosecutors as the leaders of anti-government extremists who wanted to grab Whitmer, a Democrat, at her vacation home and start a civil war — a revelation made in October 2020 during the stretch run of the election between Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

Croft, 49, and Fox, 42, were convicted of conspiracy in federal court in Grand Rapids in 2022. Croft, a trucker from Delaware, was also found guilty of a weapons charge.

"I will take a look at it. It's been brought to my attention," Trump told a Detroit News reporter in the Oval Office. The Republican president added that "a lot of people from both sides" are asking him about potential pardons for the men.

The president's comments came six days after the U.S. Justice Department's new pardon attorney, Ed Martin Jr., said on "The Breana Morello Show" podcast he would take a "hard look" at pardoning the men he called "victims just like January 6," when Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol while Congress met to certify the November 2020 election results.

"On the pardon front, we can't leave these guys behind," Martin said, adding that the cases were "very, very suspect."

The pardon attorney said he doesn't trust anything done by the FBI during the administration of President Joe Biden, especially the "Michigan situation." He said he would bring his findings to the president.

Whitmer's office did not immediately respond Wednesday to a request for a comment.

"I did watch the trial. It looked to me like somewhat of a railroad job, I'll be honest with you. Some people said some stupid things, you know, and were drinking," Trump said Wednesday.

The federal trials for Croft and Fox were never broadcast on television or livestreamed, but there was a remote audio feed.

Croft was sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison, while Fox, a Grand Rapids man, got 16 years behind bars. They are being held at a prison in Colorado — the most secure in the federal system.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, said Wednesday that she is deeply concerned by the idea of pardons that have been floated and pursued by Trump's administration. They undermine the work of prosecutors, contended Nessel, who pursue charges against eight suspects in state court.

"When you take somebody who is clearly guilty of an offense, who shows no remorse of any kind, who does not demonstrate that they have been rehabilitated and, for political reasons, to either commute their sentence or to pardon them is the type of thing that really impacts of the morale of any prosecutor's office," Nessel told The Detroit News.

A panel of three judges from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in April affirmed the convictions of Croft and Fox, calling the crime a "textbook conspiracy." The opinion rejected defense arguments that the kidnap plot ringleaders were entrapped by a team of undercover FBI agents and informants. The judges noted how Fox proposed kidnapping Whitmer and “proposed, planned, and participated in both reconnaissance trips to Governor Whitmer’s home.”

Whitmer was never physically harmed or kidnapped. Martin called it a “fed-napping” plot, not a kidnapping plot, referring to the undercover FBI agents and informants who had infiltrated the group and built the case.

A group of jurors originally deadlocked on charges against Fox and Croft four months earlier in 2022 while they acquitted two others who were accused of being part of a broader group of people angered by pandemic restrictions and hoping to spark a second Civil War.

In the state and federal prosecutions related to the Whitmer kidnapping conspiracy, nine suspects were convicted by a jury or took plea deals. They included Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, who pleaded guilty to the kidnapping conspiracy and testified during the federal trial in Grand Rapids that the plot originated with the group and that FBI agents and informants did not entrap them.

Five other suspects were acquitted, including William Null, twin brother Michael Null and Eric Molitor, who were found not guilty by an Antrim County jury in September 2023 of providing support for a terrorist act and a weapon charge.

Trump did not respond Wednesday to a follow-up question on whether he has discussed the matter with Whitmer, whom he has praised and spoken with in person at least three times since his second term began.

Across his two terms, Trump has made several Michigan-related pardons. In January, 45 Michiganians benefited from Trump's reversal of Jan. 6, 2021 punishments. Four days later, he pardoned eight people convicted in federal court for their roles in separate illegal blockades at abortion clinics in Sterling Heights and Saginaw.

In January 2021, on the final day of his first term, Trump pardoned former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick for running a racketeering enterprise out of City Hall. Kilpatrick was seven years into a prison sentence and was not set for release for another 16 years.

The corrupt former mayor, once a rising star in Democratic Party politics, emerged last year as a major booster for Trump and Republicans.

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