Attorney General Merrick Garland said former President Trump’s false claim that the FBI was ready to kill him in its search at Mar-a-Lago is “extremely dangerous” in recent comments.
Trump falsely claimed in a fundraising email Wednesday that President Biden was “locked, loaded and ready to eliminate me,” another attack on confidential records found on his property. His email stated that Biden or the Department of Justice were “authorized to shoot” Trump.
Garland disputed the accusation at a news conference Thursday.
“This allegation is false and extremely dangerous,” Garland said. “The document to which the complaint refers is the Department of Justice’s standard policy limiting the use of force.”
“As the FBI reports, it is part of the standard operations plan for searches and, in fact, was even used in the consensual search of President Biden’s home,” he continued.
The statement on law enforcement protocol that Trump refers to in his email allows the use of deadly force “only when necessary” when someone “poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical harm” to a police officer or other person .
Trump was not home when the FBI conducted the search of his Mar-a-Lago, Florida property on August 8, 2022, and it was a decision made to avoid any potential conflict.
The FBI said it followed standard protocol in the search, as it does with all other searches. One of the only deviations from normal protocol was that the officers wore polo shirts and khaki pants while conducting the search, so as not to attract attention while at the resort.
“No one ordered additional action to be taken and there was no deviation from the norm in this matter,” the FBI previously told The Hill.
The FBI confirmed that the standard deadly force policy statement included in the search of Trump’s residence “was also included in the order of operations for the search of the sitting president’s Delaware residence, as is standard practice for all orders of operations for the FBI.”
The former president’s argument comes as he tries to contest the accusations against him in the case of confidential documents.
The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.
Updated at 3:43 pm EST.
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