Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is truly a 1) blight on the nation; 2) completely incompetent and irresponsible, and 3) an idiot. Her latest outburst of inflammatory and unforgivable rhetoric to mislead the kind of people who would vote for someone like her—you know, morons—is to claim that the FBI was planning on assassinating former President Trump when it raided his Florida residence on August 8, 2022 and seized hundreds of classified documents that Trump had refused to return to the National Archives despite being instructed to do so.
Her basis for this latest freak-out was a newly-unsealed filing including the raid order. It stated, “Law enforcement officers of the Department of Justice may use deadly force when necessary.” Being the reckless and toxic half-wit she is, MJG, without doing the minimal due diligence and research required, exclaimed on “X” this week: “The Biden DOJ and FBI were planning to assassinate Trump and gave the green light.”
Did I mention that she is an irresponsible idiot? She wasn’t the only one in this case, however. Steve Bannon and Mike Davis issued a video in which they discussed the search of Mar-a-Lago, and Bannon says on it, “They authorized deadly force, they had a medic, they had a plan to triage the wounded, they had a trauma center 18 miles away on a map. This was an attempted assassination on Donald John Trump or people associated with him. They wanted a gun fight.”
“They had use of deadly force, authorized by the director of the FBI and [U.S. Attorney General] Merrick Garland,” the professional shit-stirrer blathers on. “They brought a medic, a combat medic, they had a triage plan for the injured and they had a trauma center.” Other MAGA maniacs picked up this nonsense and treated it as Revealed Truth, amen! Twitter/ “X” user @TRHLofficial wrote: “Steve Bannon and Mike Davis detail the assassination attempt of Donald Trump. If we tolerate this, we tolerate the end of this republic.'” Fake journalist Julie Kelly, who emotes on the right wing site American Greatness, also spread the assassination fiction. (In fact, she still is spreading it.)
Trump himself jumped on the ethics train wreck involving the FBI search warrant—of course he did—writing on Truth Social on May 21, “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. NOW WE KNOW, FOR SURE, THAT JOE BIDEN IS A SERIOUS THREAT TO DEMOCRACY. HE IS MENTALLY UNFIT TO HOLD OFFICE—25TH AMENDMENT!”
Then Trump’s campaign organization issued a fundraising appeal based on that “revelation.”
Uh, no. The FBI is always authorized to use deadly force if it becomes necessary, and what Greene, and Bannon, and Lee, and Trump, and the rest were treating as a “smoking gun” was in fact a boilerplate addition to all FBI orders involving agent action. An FBI spokesperson issued a statement that said: “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. No one ordered additional steps to be taken and there was no departure from the norm in this matter.”
Retired FBI Assistant Director Frank Figliuzzi also weighed in on X, tweeting, “Yep, 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.”
At least Trump’s outburst didn’t go as far as Greene’s claim that the FBI was planning to assassinate him, but this is the faintest of praise. In fact, Trump’s version of the manufactured hysteria isn’t even a lie, since all he did was state the fact that the FBI was authorized to use deadly force. He just doesn’t know what he’s talking about, as is often, far too often, the case.
There is no excuse for any of this, and I come to that conclusion being convinced that the FBI is an untrustworthy, corrupt, incompetent law enforcement agency with a public image almost completely at odds with reality, and one that needs to be overhauled, reformed, or replaced.
You can review some of the discussions about the FBI’s ethics rot here, here, and here, as well as in other posts (just search for “FBI.”) The agency is also unaccountable, allowing its misbehaving agents (like Peter Strzok) to escape sufficient consequences more often than not.
But it didn’t try to assassinate Donald Trump.
Ethics Alarms 
Most right leaning radio including Kelly specifically state that there was no plan to assassinate Trump.
I won’t defend Green’s assertion but this was an unannounced raid at six am on a residence of a federal protected. There was no coordination between Secret Service and the FBI. Garland claims that the same info was given to agents on a consensual search of Biden’s homes yet those searches occurred with coordination with DHS.
The Mar a Lago raid was done for political purposes and CNN was given a heads up so they were there. The FBI were in unmarked vehicles and some in plain clothes. That was a recipe for mayhem. There is evidence that FBI operatives promoted violence on January 6 to help create the insurrection narrative. It is not out of the realm of possibilities that creating a situation that might lead to gunfire would also help the DOJ’s desire to malign Trump in this election.
This is the first time a former presidents residence was raided by his political opposition for what Smith treats as espionage. SOP’s are fine and dandy for standard situations but the potential for blue on blue violence was self evident.
Lest we not forget that the FBI also brought the sheets with TopSecret markings, strew the documents on the floor for pictures and then spoiled the chain of evidence. Personally, I believe the SOP was included to demonstrate issues of violence were considered when in fact there was no coordinating to minimize what should have been done through a court order. The documents in question are subject to a disagreement between the archives and Trump. The archives are using the FBI to get what they want instead of suing in civil court.
The FBI under Comey and Wray have lost my confidence when they perpetually obfuscate when questioned by House oversight.
All true. But the fact remains that there was nothing remarkable or sinister about the FBI order for the raid, and Kelly specifically said otherwise, among others. That was false and deceitful.
She’s an awful hack.
What is deceitful in the tweet? Kelly reported facts and did not distort the information. Her opinion regarding “mind blowing” was just that, an opinion. I stand by my statements that wearing polo shirts to conceal identity without informing secret service was ill conceived at best or an attempt to create an unsafe environment in which agents of either side could err. That is what is “mind blowing”. The claim that this was necessary to prevent destruction of evidence is laughable especially when HRC admitted she bleachbitted that private server of hers and smashed cell phones that were under an implicit need for preservation and the FBI looked the other way. Remember Comey said no reasonable prosecutor would file charges. The FBI took on the role of prosecutor then to protect its favored persons.
There is some belief that some of the documents marked classified may contain damning information about the Strozk investigations regarding allegations of Russian collusion and falsified info in the FISA warrants.
You don’t use standard procedures when dealing with a federal protectee. This was not a standard execution of a search warrant because Jack Smith elevated a civil matter into a criminal matter using a statute never used against a president who has the sole right to declassify documents. Agents from the FBI had already been to Mar a Lago and reviewed the storage and gave instructions on increasing security earlier. Why should the FBI believe a 6 am raid on his Florida home when they know damn well he is not there was necessary? More to the point, why do trained FBI agents need to have a memo on the use of deadly force unless they had to be told not to withdraw from the execution of the warrant in the event of violent resistance? I cannot believe that a trained FBI agent would escalate the situation in this particular case given that it was an ex president as the principal in the warrant.
It was moral luck that someone did not get hurt.
What is deceitful in the tweet? It’s deceitful to suggest that a boilerplate provision (which was also in the order when they picked up Biden’s documents!) was aimed at Trump specifically and sinister in any way! That’s textbook deceit: facts stated in such a way as to mislead. The fact that the raid itself was excessive is old news and irrelevant to that manufactured outrage.
I will concede that the FBI says it is boilerplate which would make it non news in most circumstances. Why is it necessary to include a deadly force statement that does not define “when necessary”. The statement alone suggests that there are times when deadly force is not warranted. The included statement is interpreted to mean if a Trump, any of his agents or secret service officers fires upon you during the surprise raid, you are authorized to return fire .
As a lay person I interpret standard policy statements included in directives to be reminders of policy. The use of deadly force is obviously warranted when violent resistance is encountered. However, because it is known that armed DHS secret service agents are present and are charged with protecting the former president and his family and you show up in plain clothes at 6 am the potential for a fatal error is significantly heightened.
It makes no difference if the language was in the warrant for Biden was the same if the circumstances of how the execution of the warrant are materially different tactically. The FBI shares some culpability here.
And now, of course, Jonathan Turley reports that Jack Smith is seeking a gag order on Trump forbidding him to discuss this language in the warrant.
Fortunately this case is not being handled by a NY state judge.
I totally agree, Jack. Much ado about nothing in those operations orders. The fact remains there was no need for a “raid” at all. The FBI either willfully aided Democrat efforts against Trump, or allowed itself to be used to that end, as it has done repeatedly since Trump came on the political scene. There certainly needs to be a top to bottom housecleaning at the FBI, but calls for defunding or abolishing are unrealistic and unhelpful except as hyperbolic emphasis to illuminate the need for serious reform. I am friends with a number of retired field agents, and to a man (and one woman) they are not at all pleased with today’s FBI.
It will likely take both a Republican President and Republican Congress to make meaningful change in federal law enforcement agencies. The FBI is not the only agency that has exceeded its brief. A lot of GS super-grades need to hit the trail. If they can’t be fired, they should be transferred to Dead Horse, Alaska or Toad Suck, Arkansas and put in charge of ballpoint pens and paper clips until they quit or retire. But these claims of assignation plots are beyond the pale.
From everything I read, this raid was obviously political in nature, and the FBI/DOJ knew that almost everyone would have viewed this as entirely political, and that it didn’t need to be done in the manner it was. However, the thought of things getting out of hand (once that first shot is fired, chaos) resulting in injuries or deaths to FBI personnel and or the Secret service, with perhaps a stray bullet striking Trump, his wife, son, or other service staff frightened them to the point of planning this raid at a time when they were certain Trump was out of state, which he was. Another attempt to get Trump? yes. But not by way of assassination. At least, not yet.
We missed by a geographical hair being in MTG’s somewhat gerrymandered district. Thankfully, got Barry Loudermilk as our congresscritter, instead. We’ve had some interesting ones, including Newt Gingrich.
The instructions ARE standard, but the target was certainly not. Someone in desiccated Goblin Garland’s DOJ should have added an instruction that absolutely NO deadly force should be employed in this raid unless completely unavoidable. Even if Trump wasn’t present, it’s possible that SecServ or armed private security could have been. As has been noted, there was really no excuse for a “raid”.
But this is the same FBI that, along with their slightly more evil twin, the ATF, has orchestrated debacles like Waco and Ruby Ridge. Their only regret was likely that they didn’t encounter a dog to shoot.
Trump’s just lucky he wasn’t some poor schlub like Breonna Taylor, or more recently, THIS GUY , where Garland’s Goons didn’t bother to adhere to their own policy requiring body cams while executing a pre-dawn search warrant at the home of the Little Rock Airport director… a warrant that could easily have been served mid-day, or after taking the suspect into custody at his workplace.
But this is the same FBI that, along with their slightly more evil twin, the ATF, has orchestrated debacles like Waco and Ruby Ridge.
Exactly. It is amazing that Waco alone didn’t force a complete tear-down and rebuild of the agency.