No, Biden Did Not Order the FBI to Assassinate Trump at Mar-a-Lago

Nikki McCann Ramirez
·5 min read
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Donald Trump’s attorneys recently argued in court that the former president should be shielded from all criminal prosecution — even if they order the assassination of a political opponent. While no president has yet to test that bold legal theory, Trump and his MAGA allies are now baselessly attempting to accuse Joe Biden of authorizing the assassination of Trump during the FBI’s 2022 raid of Mar-a-Lago.

Documents unsealed Tuesday revealed that more classified material was found at the former president’s Palm Beach estate after the FBI’s August 2022 raid. Republicans, however, have zeroed in on standard language in FBI search warrants authorizing the use of deadly force in appropriate circumstances, claiming Biden and the DOJ wanted Trump dead — even though he wasn’t even present on the property that day.

“WOW! I just came out of the Biden Witch Hunt Trial in Manhattan, the ‘Icebox,’ and was shown Reports that Crooked Joe Biden’s DOJ, in their Illegal and UnConstitutional Raid of Mar-a-Lago, AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE,” Trump wrote Tuesday of the FBI’s boilerplate authorization to use deadly force. “NOW WE KNOW, FOR SURE, THAT JOE BIDEN IS A SERIOUS THREAT TO DEMOCRACY. HE IS MENTALLY UNFIT TO HOLD OFFICE — 25TH AMENDMENT!”

In a campaign fundraising email, Trump further claimed that he “nearly escaped death” and that Biden was “locked & loaded ready to take me out.”

Christina Bobb, an attorney for the former president who ahead of the raid signed a statement falsely asserting there was no more classified material at Mar-a-Lago, also reacted with incredulity to the filing. “WTF?!! They were prepared to kill me?! A few dozen FBI agents v. me and they were ready to kill me?!!!  What in the world happened to the United States of America?!” she wrote. Earlier this month, Bobb and 17 others were indicted in relation to a pro-Trump scheme to meddle with the results of Arizona’s 2020 election.

Trump’s allies in Congres further boosted the idea that he was targeted for assassination.

“The Biden DOJ and FBI were planning to assassinate Pres Trump and gave the green light. Does everyone get it yet???!!!!” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “What are Republicans going to do about it? I tried to oust our Speaker who funded Biden’s DOJ AND FBI, but Democrats stopped it.”

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) even claimed that “Biden ordered the hit on Trump at Mar-a-Lago.”

Greene and Gosar’s posts both have community notes attached to them — and for good reason.

Trump’s attorneys wrote in a May filing that the FBI’s operations order for the search included a policy statement stating that “law enforcement officers of the Department of Justice may use deadly force when necessary….” The filing omitted the full policy statement of the bureau and the Justice Department, which can be found on their websites.

“Law enforcement officers and correctional officers of the Department of Justice may use deadly force 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.” 

The policy statement is a standard written reminder of agency policy given to law enforcement executing search warrants. No deadly force was used at Mar-a-Lago, and the raid was executed without incident — other than Trump’s public protestations on social media.

On Tuesday, the FBI pushed back on the claim that the authorization had been specifically granted for 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 agency wrote. “No one ordered additional steps to be taken and there was no departure from the norm in this matter.”

Former FBI Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Frank Figliuzzi added on X that “every FBI operations order contains a reminder of FBI deadly force policy. Even for a search warrant. Deadly force is always authorized if the required threat presents itself.”

Clearly, no such threat presented itself during the raid, and the FBI took pains to ensure that the operation was executed smoothly and without incident. In June of last year, former FBI Assistant Director Steven D’Antuono sat for testimony before the House Judiciary Committee and explained the agency’s strategy.

“We didn’t do a show of force, right? I was adamant about that, and that was something that we agreed on […] No raid jackets, no blazed FBI. We made sure we interacted with the Secret Service to make sure we could get into Mar-a-Lago with no issues. We’re not banging down any doors. We weren’t bringing any FBI vehicles, everything that was reported about helicopters and a hundred people descending on [it], like a Die Hard movie, was completely untrue. That is not how we played it,” he said.

“We didn’t want a spectacle,” D’Antuono added, noting that the agency had specifically sought to execute the warrant on a day when Trump was not present on the property. “Who wants the subject of the search present at any search you do? You don’t normally want that It just makes it easier and less of a spectacle at that point. And honestly, I didn’t want the spectacle for obvious reasons of why we’re sitting here today.”

But creating spectacle is a Republican specialty, and regardless of any steps that the FBI may have taken to stave off accusations of excessive force, the former president’s victim complex will always take center stage.

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