Former President Trump falsely claimed in a fundraising email that President Biden was “locked, loaded and ready to eliminate me” – distorting standard language from documents prepared as authorities prepared to search Mar-a-Lago searching for confidential records.
Trump’s comment draws from court documents a policy statement prepared by law enforcement that lays out the protocol for the search.
In reality, the statement allows deadly force “only when necessary,” such as when someone “poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical harm to the officer or another person.”
However, the email states at several points that Biden or the Department of Justice “were authorized to shoot me.”
Several links encourage readers to donate anywhere from $20.24 to more than $3,000 to his campaign.
Despite Trump’s claims, he was not home when the FBI conducted the search of his Florida property on August 8, 2022, a decision made to help avoid any potential conflict with the former president.
One of the only deviations from standard FBI protocol was that the officers wore polo shirts and khaki pants while conducting the search in order to draw less attention while on the club grounds.
The FBI did not respond to a request for comment, but told The Washington Post that it “followed standard protocol in this search, as we do for all search warrants, which includes a standard policy statement limiting the use of deadly force.”
“No one ordered additional measures to be taken and there was no deviation from the norm in this matter,” the agency said.
Trump’s comments – prompted by a social media post claiming that the FBI authorized “legal force” – were further amplified by his supporters in Congress.
“The Biden DOJ and FBI were planning to assassinate Pres Trump and gave the green light,” wrote Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on X.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY.) condemned Trump for making the statement, calling it “the thing that leads to political violence.”
“What is Donald Trump doing [is] using conspiracy theories to whip the far right into a frenzy, and it is despicable for members of Congress to spread Donald Trump’s lies. This is how people are killed, how the seeds of political violence are sown, and how people lose faith in democracy,” he said.
The political statement about force was raised by Trump as he seeks to attack his Mar-a-Lago case, alleging that Biden coordinated with the Justice Department to bring charges that harm his electoral prospects.
There is no evidence of any improper coordination with prosecutors, and most of the unsealed documents in Wednesday’s proceedings indicate that a previous judge who reviewed the case found Trump legally guilty of concealing confidential records.
New details uncovered in the records indicate that Trump still had confidential documents in his bedroom after the initial search of his home and that he ordered the boxes to be returned by his two co-defendants without them being seen on camera.
Trump’s complaints about the case come as his own lawyers argued in his other federal case that a president who ordered the assassination of a rival would be covered by presidential immunity, preventing prosecutors from bringing charges in the matter when a president left office.
Trump’s legal team made the argument as he tried to dismiss charges related to his efforts to stay in power after losing the election, most recently asking the Supreme Court to block the case.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
