Attorney General Merrick Garland said former President Trump’s false claim about the FBI being ready to kill him in their Mar-a-Lago search is “extremely dangerous” in recent comments.
Trump falsely claimed in a fundraising email Wednesday that President Biden was “locked & loaded and ready to take me out,” another attack about the classified records found at his estate. His email claimed Biden or the Justice Department was “authorized to shoot” Trump.
Garland disputed the accusation in a press briefing Thursday.
“That allegation is false, and it is extremely dangerous,” Garland said. “The document that has been referred to in the allegation is the Justice Department standard policy, limiting the use of force.”
“As the FBI advises, it is part of the standard operations plan for searches and in fact, it was even used in the consensual search of President Biden’s home,” he continued.
The statement on law enforcement protocol 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 injury” to an officer or another person.
Trump was not home when the FBI conducted its Aug. 8, 2022, search of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, 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 diversions from normal protocol was that officers were dressed in polo shirts and khakis while they conducted the search, so they didn’t draw attention while at the resort.
“No one ordered additional steps to be taken and there was no departure from the norm in this mater,” the FBI previously told The Hill.
The FBI confirmed that the standard deadly force policy statement included in Trump’s residence search was “also included in the operations order for the search of the sitting president’s residence in Delaware, as is standard practice for all FBI operations orders.”
The former president’s argument comes as he tries to strike the charges against him in the classified documents case.
The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.
Updated at 3:43 pm EST.