Last week, right-wing lawmakers and commentators concluded that the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8, 2022, had all the elements of an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
They appear to have done so, at least initially, based on a RealClearInvestigations contributor citing court filings in the federal classified documents lawsuit against Trump that suggested FBI agents had been unusually authorized to use lethal force against the former president.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)
Tweeted“The Biden Department of Justice and the FBI planned and gave the green light to assassinate President Trump. Does anyone get it yet????!!!”
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ)
Claimed“Biden ordered attack on Trump at Mar-a-Lago.”
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon
Said Trump said on his show “War Room” that it was “an assassination attempt on Donald John Trump or people associated with him. They were looking to have a shootout.”
The Trump campaign circulated a fundraising email claiming, “The Biden Department of Justice was authorized to shoot me!”
The problem with these arguments is that they are based primarily on a misinterpretation of important facts and a disregard for decades of precedent.
“Under normal circumstances, I would probably say, ‘Leave it alone.’ In fact, under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t even have mentioned this issue,” said Steve Baker, an investigative reporter for The Blaze News who has faced off against various federal agencies and been the target of politicized legal battles himself.
But Baker pointed out that not addressing misleading framing and out-of-context excerpts in the FBI’s autofill forms could lead to rash decisions and violence, as pointed out by the Blaze Media co-founder. Glenn Beck See “Baba effect”
“A lot of times it infuriates them unnecessarily, and then people take action.”
“When you force artificial or manufactured anger on an audience, some people are going to respond with violence, whether they’re on the left or the right,” Baker said. “The worst people to commit this kind of behavior are the people who are most upset by what their group is saying or doing. … A lot of times you needlessly upset them, and then people act out and do crazy things. That’s what happens when trans people shoot up schools, or when right-wing militias lose their temper.”
Baker said the false suggestion that the FBI was “ordered by the president to assassinate Trump” was not only irresponsible but dangerous.
Baker recently
I got it. In multiple interviews and in X’s response, he said that a review of the FBI’s relevant documents on the case, particularly “Law Enforcement Action Order” forms FD-888 and FD302, paints a picture that is “less ‘shocking’ than the storm of man-made rage that was unleashed last week.”
Not only was Trump not present at the time of the raid, the document states, “FBI officials provided intelligence and coordination with local United States Secret Service (USSS) officials, who facilitated access to the compound, provided security and access to various locations within, and deployed USSS personnel at locations where FBI teams conducted searches.”
The attack appeared to be a federal aid training exercise rather than a “gunfight.”
Baker
Highlighting Page 8 of the FD-888 form states that from the beginning, the Department of Justice and the FBI “contacted the President’s Counsel, [redacted] We will notify you of the search warrant on August 8, 2022 and request your cooperation and assistance.”
“After a reasonable period of time has elapsed, FBI WF/MM will execute the search warrant with the case team, MM filter team, and MAL/USSS representatives as necessary,” the form states. “This execution will require coordination with USSS and may also require coordination with MAL Guest Services to fully account for the occupancy space specified in the search warrant.”
Baker told The Blaze News that the document’s original construction lacked clarity on the FD-888 form, particularly in its use of force section.
“Now we can debate all day whether that should happen or not, but once the protocols are in place, this form will be filled out.”
“The FD-888 is a blank form. Almost every page of the form is a fill-in section. There are instructions, for example, a section on handling injured personnel, a section on handling prisoners, and by the way, the prisoner handling sections were all marked ‘not applicable’, ‘not applicable,'” Baker said. “But if there are injuries, there is a section on the form to fill in trauma center, hospital, other emergency medical information, and actually 100% of the time they were asked to provide a map, which they did according to protocol.”
“They do this thousands of times every time, whether it’s white collar crime, blue collar, gang related, drug related, documents, President Biden, President Trump,” Baker continued. “We can debate all day whether this should be done, but once the procedures are in place, this form is filled out.”
“There is one section on the form that is pre-printed. It’s the only section of the entire form that is pre-printed,” Baker said.
While the bill was described last week as an authorization for the deliberate and targeted use of force against a former president of the United States, Baker stressed that “this is not the case. The only pre-printed section in all of FD-888 legislation is the policy statement on the use of lethal force, and has been that way for decades.”
“To say they’re going to send these guys into combat with each other in a surprise attack is complete bullshit.”
Besides the customary auto-fill of that section, Baker suggested there was another part of the assassination story that didn’t make sense to him.
“The likelihood of using force is low [on Aug. 8, 2022] “This was far more intense than any raid the FBI has ever conducted,” Baker said. “The last thing the FBI wants to do is train the Secret Service, right? And vice versa.”
“The logic is laughable. There are every reason to hate the Biden Administration, Merrick Garland, the Department of Justice and the FBI, but to say they’re going to pit these guys against each other in a surprise attack is complete bullshit. And it is complete bullshit,” Baker added.
Baker noted there have been cases where the FBI has exceeded its authority and used unnecessary force, but stressed that “this is not one of them.”
The Blaze News previously reported that the FBI responded to the assassination allegations by saying the policy in question was Standard Procedure.
“The FBI followed standard procedures in this search, as with all search warrants, which include standard policy statements limiting the use of lethal force,” the FBI said in a statement.
Obtained “No one has ordered any additional measures to be taken, and nothing has deviated from normal practice in this matter,” the New York Post reported.
Frank Figliuzzi, former Deputy Director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division,
I got it. “All FBI operational orders contain a disclaimer regarding the FBI’s lethal force policy, including search warrants. If a necessary threat is presented, lethal force is always authorized.”
“We all want to win,” Baker said, “but the most important weapon in our quiver is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. People laugh when we get it wrong, which is why it’s essential that we go through layers of protection, including editorial and legal review.”
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