Marjorie Taylor Greene has made the wild claim that the Justice Department had authorised the use of “deadly force” during an FBI search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence as a plan to “assassinate” the former president. The FBI have denied the accusation, saying that “standard protocol” was followed.
That raid on the former president’s Florida residence on 8 August 2022 ended with the FBI seizing hundreds of documents. On Tuesday, newly-unsealed court filings showed that four additional classified documents were discovered in Mr Trump’s bedroom in the months following the bureau’s search at Mar-a-Lago.
Mr Trump faces 40 felony counts for allegedly mishandling top secret documents taken to his estate after he left office. He denies all the charges against him.
In a fiery response, Mr Trump accused the Biden administration of soliciting the use of “deadly force” during the raid – which he called “unconstitutional” on Truth Social. He also sent his Maga followers a fundraising email with the subject line: “They were authorized to shoot me!”
Citing an operating order, the newly-unsealed filing stated: “Law enforcement officers of the Department of Justice may use deadly force when necessary.”
“The agents planned to bring ‘Standard Issue Weapon[s],’ ‘Ammo,’ ‘Handcuffs,’ and ‘medium and large sized bolt cutters’,” it read.
Ms Greene claimed that Mr Trump’s post showed there was a plan to “assassinate” him at his Florida estate.
“The Biden DOJ and FBI were planning to assassinate [president] Trump and gave the green light,” the Georgia representative wrote on X Tuesday evening.
The FBI promptly gave a statement that denied allegations of wrongdoing, and said that its agents had followed “standard protocol” during the Mar-a-Lago raid.
“The FBI 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,” the statement read.
“No one ordered additional steps to be taken and there was no departure from the norm in this matter,” it added.
According to Justice Department policy, law enforcement officers are allowed to use force only when no other safe alternatives appear to exist. The policy further says deadly force is permitted only “when necessary, that is, when the officer has a reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the officer or to another person”.
US District Judge Beryl Howell’s 87-page opinion said: “Notably, no excuse is provided as to how the former president could miss the classified-marked documents found in his own bedroom at Mar-a-Lago.”
Mr Trump’s attorney eventually handed over the four records to the FBI in January 2023, in compliance with another subpoena, according to the court filing.
His classified documents trial in Florida was indefinitely postponed earlier this month, with the judge citing the number of outstanding pre-trial motions.
