Trump’s lawyers wrote that an “operations warrant” for the FBI’s search “included a ‘statement of policy’ regarding ‘use of deadly force,'” stating, for example, “Department of Justice law enforcement officers may use deadly force if necessary.” ” (archived here).
But the policy statement in the operations decision itself, from August 2022, is different (archived here).
It states: “Department of Justice law enforcement officers may use deadly force only when necessary, that is, when the officer has a reasonable belief that the person confronted with such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm to the officer or to any other person.”
It then lists cases in which lethal force is prohibited and calls for verbal warnings where possible.
“The lawsuit filed by Trump’s lawyers actually misquotes the language of the policy,” said Sklansky, the Stanford law professor. “Trump’s lawyers have omitted the word ‘mere’ and deleted the end of the sentence – both of which make it clear that this is not an authorization to use deadly force, but a restriction on the use of deadly force.”
The use of force policy is also outlined on the websites of the Department of Justice and the FBI (archived here and here).
“Every operations order contains a reminder of the FBI’s lethal force policy,” Frank Figliuzzi, former FBI deputy director of counterintelligence, said on X (archived here).
Steven D’Antuono, former FBI assistant director in charge of the Washington field office, testified before Congress in 2023 and said the FBI’s search for Mar-a-Lago “wasn’t even a show of force” (archived here) .
“We didn’t make a show of force, did we,” he said. “I was adamant about that, and that was something that we agreed on, yes, that the FBI agreed on, right. No raid jackets, no fierce FBI. We communicate. We made sure we communicated with the Secret Service to make sure we get into Mar-a-Lago without any problems.”
“Everything that was reported about helicopters and a hundred people coming down, like in a ‘Die Hard’ movie, was completely untrue.”
Trump is accused of deliberately withholding national defense information and obstructing government efforts to retrieve it.
In April, during arguments before the Supreme Court over Trump’s claims that presidents should have absolute immunity from prosecution, Trump’s lawyers argued that hypothetical orders by a president to kill a rival would “might be an official act.” that needs to be protected from criminal liability.
AFP fact-checked other misinformation about US politics here.
