Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday rejected former President Donald Trump’s claim that the Biden administration authorized the FBI to use deadly force against him during a search of his Mar-a-Lago property in search of classified documents.
“This accusation is false and extremely dangerous,” Garland said at a news conference.
Garland responded to Trump writing this week on Truth Social that he had been shown reports showing that “Crooked Joe BidenThe Department of Justice DOJ authorized the FBI to use lethal (deadly) force during their illegal and unconstitutional raid on Mar-a-Lago.”
The Trump campaign made a similar claim in a fundraising email claiming that “Joe Biden was locked and loaded, ready to take me out.”
Trump was in New Jersey when the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, his home in Palm Beach, Florida.
In making the accusations, Trump appeared to refer to new, unsealed court records related to the 2022 search.
Garland said Thursday that the document in question stated standard policy.
“The document referenced in the indictment is standard Department of Justice policy limiting the use of force. As the FBI advises, it is part of the standard search operations plan. And in fact, it was even used in the consensual search of President Biden’s home,” Garland said.
A Trump campaign spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Garland’s comments were not the first time the Justice Department has pushed back against a characterization of Trump.
In a rare statement, the FBI said Tuesday evening that it had “followed standard protocol in this search, as we do for all search warrants” and that no additional steps had been ordered for Mar-a-Lago.
Under Justice Department policy, law enforcement may only use force when there are no other safe alternatives. Deadly force is permitted only “when necessary, that is, when the officer reasonably believes that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm to the officer or another person,” according to policy.
Trump has denied guilt on charges that he deliberately withheld national defense information related to classified documents discovered at Mar-a-Lago after he left office and that he was a Mar-a-Lago employee had ordered the security video removed from the building. . The trial has been postponed indefinitely.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
