Trump claims FBI was authorized to use ‘deadly force’ during Mar-a-Lago search

Video above from June 13, 2023: Former President Trump pleads not guilty in classified documents case

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Former President Donald Trump claimed in a Truth Social post on Tuesday that the FBI was “authorized” to use deadly force during a search for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

It is standard procedure for all FBI search warrants to include a statement regarding the use of deadly force.

“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,” an FBI spokesperson confirmed to WFLA.com in a statement. “No one ordered additional steps to be taken and there was no departure from the norm in this matter.”

The legal filing from Trump’s lawyers quotes the policy as saying “Law enforcement officers of the Department of Justice may use deadly force when necessary….”

However, the actual use of force policy included on the search warrant states, “Law enforcement officers of the Department of Justice may use deadly force only when necessary….” (Editor’s note: Bold and italics added for emphasis).

The policy goes on to state “…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 also goes on to list several other requirements.

The filing also included directions to a nearby hospital, and stated that medics would be available on site.

The defense lawyers asserted in the motion that the August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida was unconstitutional and “illegal” and the FBI affidavit filed in justification of it was tainted by misrepresentations.

The defense motion was filed in February but was made public on Tuesday, along with hundreds of pages of documents from the investigation that were filed to the case docket in Florida.

In the newly unsealed motion, Trump’s defense team asked the Florida judge overseeing the case, Aileen Cannon, to suppress audio recordings that the lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, made of conversations with Trump. Prosecutors responded that there’s no basis for excluding that evidence from the case.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers are due back in court Wednesday for the first time since Cannon indefinitely postponed the former president’s trial earlier this month. The case had been set for trial on May 20, but Cannon cited numerous issues she has yet to resolve as a basis for canceling the trial date.

On Wednesday, Cannon was scheduled to hear arguments on a Trump request to dismiss the indictment on grounds that it fails to clearly articulate a crime and instead amounts to “a personal and political attack against President Trump” with a “litany of uncharged grievances both for public and media consumption.”

The motion is one of several that Trump’s lawyers have filed to dismiss the case, some of which have already been denied.

Trump has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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