Trump's implying Joe Biden and Merrick Garland authorized the FBI to assisinate Trump during the Mar-a-Logo stolen-classified-documents raid is a misleading misrepresentation (expressing delusions of grandure).

 Well - perhaps hard for some to accept, but Trump misstates truth (a/k/a lies).

USAToday, a month ago, published truth:

'Deadly force' rules for Mar-a-Lago search were boilerplate, not assassination OK | Fact check

The claim: 'Biden's DOJ gave the FBI authority to assassinate' Trump in Mar-A-Lago search

A May 21 Facebook post (direct link, archive link ) makes a heavy allegation about what the FBI was authorized to do when serving a warrant in August 2022 on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.

“Newly released files show the FBI was given clearance, by Merrick Garland, to use lethal force against Trump, his family, and the Secret Service during the Mar-A-Lago raid,” the post reads. “Do you understand the implications here? Biden's DOJ gave the FBI authority to assassinate a former President and top political opponent on American soil.”

This echoes a claim made by Trump that the FBI documents "authorized the FBI to use deadly lethal force" in the raid.

[...] Document explains limits on use of deadly force

The FBI searched Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8, 2022, to recover documents Trump had taken from the White House after his presidency. The investigation spawned federal charges over the handling of classified materials.

Documents released in the case referenced “deadly force,” prompting a flurry of claims across conservative social media, as well as claims by Trump himself and U.S. Reps. Paul Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Greene that the authorization was tantamount to greenlighting Trump’s assassination.

But all of those claims mischaracterized the nature of the DOJ's search document.

The Law enforcement operations order detailing the Mar-A-Lago search, dated Aug. 3, 2022, mentions deadly force only in one section: A copy of the DOJ's standard policy on use of deadly force that focuses primarily on ways to avoid using it and situations where it is not allowed.

When Trump's team criticized this inclusion in a Feb. 22 legal brief (cited by Gosar and many others), it also misquoted the document. The filing quotes the search order as saying the DOJ "may use deadly force when necessary," but the use of force policy actually says "may use deadly force only when necessary."

Those guidelines limiting when deadly force can be used are included in documents ordering any FBI operations, according to the bureau and past and present officials with the Justice Department.

Attorney General Merrick Garland noted at a May 23 news conference that the exact same guidelines were in place in the authorization of a voluntary search of President Joe Biden’s Delaware home for classified materials. Garland lambasted the suggestion that it was unusual to include a reminder of the department’s deadly force policy or that Trump’s assassination was authorized.

[...] The Justice Department's Justice Manual lays out specific, limited circumstances under which deadly force can be used.

“Law enforcement officers and correctional officers of the Department of Justice may use deadly force only when necessary, that is, when the officer has a reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the officer or to another person,” the policy reads in part.

Yes, same boilerplate language applied when Biden's home was voluntarily searched; and neither Garland nor FBI agents acted wrongly; for both Trump and Biden the FBI sent out search teams, not snuff teams. 

Trump needs to grow up. To stop fibbing. To act responsibly.

________________UPDATE_______________

Hat tip to Marcy Wheeler for her EmptyWheel post noting why Crabgrass is posting of something from a month ago. Wheeler notes a pending motion in the Florida Trump documents case to limit inflammatory rhetoric by Trump in the future (prior restraint of political speech being disfavored being the counter argument).

Wheeler links to an Amicus brief offered by America First Legal Foundation, a DC area 501(c)(3) operation, filed two days ago opposing the motion, for a statement of the counter argument.

Wheeler's item, by linking to arguments pro and con, with the amicus item dated this week, shows the matter is timely. Crabgrass posted first about a news item noted in EmptyWheel commentary - in effect getting to the meal before setting the table. 

This update properly notes Crabgrass reliance upon the Wheeler initiative, (where the opening x-out of the Trump Social item above was, itself, first posted by Wheeler). And it sets the table. 

Links to court papers provide a full background, while the opening focus on news reporting tightly shows how Trump twisted truth to fit his fibbing nature.

...................................................

A caveat - Readers should distinguish this "America First Legal Foundation" from the similarly named America First Foundation, (an apparently going concern as a 501(c)(4) operation), and the America First Foundation, Inc.,  a largely inactive Tennessee 501(c)(3), where name overlap, or other factors, (rhetoric included), might cause confusion. 

Crabgrass is unaware of whether there is any degree whatsoever of actual relationship between the organizations. 

Trump's use of the "America First" slogan in his own rhetoric adds further confusion.

EDUCATION

 LINK. Read. Think who your real friends are.

(this is important)

People whose understandings are grounded upon return on investment are putting money into something the rest of the nation should view with skepticism.

Big old-generations money is reported to be put by Timothy Mellon into an investment. If you are white and feeling pinched by current circumstance - Timothy Mellon is feeling no pinch. Perhaps things he'd want to do or see happen are not as he and his allied co-investors would want. Unhappy. Okay. Pissed. Okay. Pinched. No way. Mellon wants no less than to buy the White House, to install one who will return well on the invested cash. You shout, "USA, USA, USA,''  that's fine. Trump and Mellon will hear you.

They will be amused. They will laugh at the gulled many.  They gull. They are satisfied. And happy that many are dissatisfied.

BOTTOM LINE - The white proletariat is walking not only in a wrong, dangerous direction. They are headed over a cliff. They are gulled, and at the bottom of the drop of the cliff, the landing rocks are hard.

THIS LINK. A MYTHOLOGY. WITH VIDEO. AN EGO TRIP FINANCED FOR A PURPOSE. GO FIGURE. THE BENEFIT, SHOULD TRUMP WIN, IS NOT YOURS ABSENT YOUR HAVING INVESTED SEVERAL MILLION. OTHERWISE, WAIT. SEE. REGRET. MY PROBLEM? YOU ARE PULLING ME INTO A PURGATORY OF YOUR MAKING, WHICH I WILL HAVE TO LIVE WITHIN. STOP, PLEASE. 

 

One of the things telling me to promote four more Biden years while seeing he has flaws.

His people, his appointments, have been sound. In general. As government people.

Am I supposed, instead, to respect Kash Patel?

Sorry. Cannot do it. Not in the DNA.

Donald Jr.? Jarad?

Because it is out there. Because it caught my interest. Because I can repost it and nobody will sue me or force me to scrub it. I post this.

 https://www.youtube.com/embed/p1TCr-fnlMA

Clearly, if I get called out for reposting it, people can find it elsewhere or not.

It is not something existential to Crabgrass being. But it's nice.

A promise is a promise. As good as the man giving it.

 CNN on Trump sequentially offering to be all things to all demographics, just, "Trust Me." The item speaks for itself. Trump speaks for himself. The item speaks truthfully.

Briefly, after providing transcripts and allowing Congressional testimony by a Special Prosecutor, enough is enough - or not?

Tapes are at issue, where trancripts have already been provided to the Republicans.

Here, online is the DoJ letter declining to see any crime in DoJ relying on the Executive Branch's citing executive privilege. Citing precedent.

Mike Johnson says the Republican House majority in Congress will attempt to judicially undermine the Executive Branch, in this political matter. Would it surprise you if they went judge shopping? To find a favored Trump appointee.

Lawfare has published an analysis. 

It's shabby politics out of the House Republicans. Per usual.

Those links are believed to be sufficient to set an understanding of things. For those caring about whatever is being cooked up in the House Republican cauldron. Rather than saying business as usual and moving on. Crabgrass did not study beyond reading the DoJ letter.

An unimpressive House Repub originating letter was noted in an earlier post.

Wasting time is a DC hobby. This time the Repubs started it.

Why in the world, having transcripts, would the Repubs suggest they need tapes? 

Go figure.

G-7 meeting soon. The world economy always faces a precarious balance. Politico reports and it is clear the thing most feared.

Link. It speaks for itself. Few still alive lived through the Great Depression. There can be another. 

Related, a world economy at risk. 

Related.

 

While matters unwind over money and Hunter Biden, Kushner and Ivanka are grotesquely dwarfing any sums discussed about Hunter.

 Salon - mid-item -

It all adds up to “an appearance that Affinity’s investors are motivated not by commercial interests of seeking a return on investment,” Wyden wrote, “but rather by strategic considerations of foreign nationals seeking to funnel money to U.S. individuals with personal connections to former President Trump.”

Since being awarded billions by governments he worked with — Kushner arranged it so Trump’s first state visit was to Saudi Arabia — the former president’s son-in-law has used at least some of the money to pursue projects that Trump himself was interested in. Earlier this year, Kushner scored a major real estate deal in Belgrade, Serbia, under which Affinity Partners will have the exclusive rights to build a luxury compound on the site of a former army headquarters that was bombed by NATO in 1999. Trump had wanted to build a hotel on the same site, where Kushner has agreed to finance a memorial on behalf of the pro-Russia Serbian government that will mark the NATO campaign, which came as Belgrade’s forces were committing war crimes in neighboring Kosovo.

Virginia Canter, former chief ethics counsel for the Treasury Department and now an attorney with the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said an investigation of Kushner is not just “long overdue” but “vital for our national security.”

“It’s pretty apparent that he made and was involved in decisions that were unusually favorable to the Saudis and then he turned around, within weeks of leaving the White House, and was engaging in negotiations with them to obtain a $2 billion investment,” Canter told Salon. “It just raises all kinds of national security concerns for a former government official at that level – a former White House official — who never qualified, legitimately, for a security clearance.”

Not exactly new news, but with at least one eight-figure eye opener -

As The New York Times reported in April, Kushner’s investment fund, valued at $3 billion, “is financed almost entirely from overseas investors with whom he worked when he served as a senior adviser in the Trump White House.”

Some two-thirds of that money has come from Saudi Arabia’s state-run Public Investment Fund, whose own advisers deemed Kushner’s fund “unsatisfactory in all aspects” only to be overruled by a board that includes Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the man who ordered the killing of U.S.-Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi when Trump was in office and who Kushner today describes as a “visionary leader.” The other third? Much of it reportedly comes from other sovereign wealth funds run by the likes of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

That arrangement — Kusner receiving billions of dollars from friends he made as a government employee — has attracted scrutiny from Democrats and watchdog groups, who suspect that Charles Kushner’s son (turned Ivanka Trump’s husband) might be doing so well for reasons that are not entirely above board.

In a letter sent Wednesday, Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., demanded that Kushner and company answer questions about their relations with foreign powers and suggested that what he knows so far points to their investments being part of an influence operation.

“Mr. Kushner’s limited track record as an investor, including his nonexistent experience in private equity or hedge funds, raise questions regarding the investment strategy behind the seeding investments and lucrative compensation that Affinity received from the Saudi PIF and other sovereign wealth funds,” Wyden wrote in the letter, addressed to Affinity Partners’ chief financial officer, Lauren Key. In addition to the investments themselves, Kushner’s firm charges a 2% fee to manage the states’ assets, generating at least $80 million from the Saudis alone.

There are NFL quarterbacks who are not gaining that eighty million buck amount of money! And they're competent.

That's real money. Hunter could have bought enough crack to fill a trailer with that kind of money. (An unkind remark, since Hunter has had over half a decade of sober non-use of cocaine. Running to this very day. Kushner's drug of choice, money, is a wholly different story with Kushner indulging daily, doing so even as this is being written.)

Back to the item's mention of national security. You and I have no idea what the classified documents Trump stole from and hid from the government in exiting the White House concerned, but we can imagine things which might relate in a fashion to Middle East money going to Kushner. Officials know. We can only guess. But the DoJ takes the question very, very seriously; and all the foot-dragging by a Florida judge does not derail that observation. Ms. Cannon can delay things beyond the November election, but the hook has been set, Trump on it, unable to spit the hook.

The Salon item is more structured and blessed with more content than this post, so if you want to read all about it, the link is - 

https://www.salon.com/2024/06/12/it-appears-to-be-a-payoff-expert-says-kushners-saudi-cash-an-egregious-national-security-worry/

You can take it all the way down to the READ MORE.

For those not rotoring over to it, a closing item here - the article's opening sentence:

Based on his prior experience and demonstrated abilities, Jared Kushner never should have landed a job in the White House.

From there, the story unfolds. Much quoted here. Much remaining.

AP online, headline, "Unanimous Supreme Court preserves access to widely used abortion medication."

The item noted: 

The nine justices ruled that abortion opponents lacked the legal right to sue over the federal Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the medication, mifepristone, and the FDA’s subsequent actions to ease access to it. The case had threatened to restrict access to mifepristone across the country, including in states where abortion remains legal.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was part of the majority to overturn Roe, wrote for the court on Thursday that “federal courts are the wrong forum for addressing the plaintiffs’ concerns about FDA’s actions.”

In closing, the item noted that -

[T]he high court is separately considering another abortion case, about whether a federal law on emergency treatment at hospitals overrides state abortion bans in rare emergency cases in which a pregnant patient’s health is at serious risk.

In other actions AP separately noted, SCOTUS ruled:

Today’s other opinions: The Court made it harder for the federal government to win court orders when it suspects a company of interfering in unionization campaigns in a case that stemmed from a labor dispute with Starbucks. In a seperate case, the Court ruled against a man who wants to trademark the suggestive phrase “Trump too small.”

At a bet. "Trump too small minded," might not have fared better. AP, here:

It is one of several cases at the court relating to former President Donald Trump. Last week, the court laid out standards for when public officials can be sued for blocking critics from their social media accounts. These cases were also related to Trump.

The Justice Department supported President Joe Biden’s predecessor and presumptive opponent in the 2024 election. Government officials said the phrase “Trump too small” could still be used, just not trademarked because Trump had not consented to its use. Indeed, “Trump too small” T-shirts can already be purchased online.

Elster’s lawyers had argued that the decision violated his free speech rights, and a federal appeals court agreed.

At arguments, Chief Justice John Roberts said that if Elster were to win, people would race to trademark “Trump too this, Trump too that.”

A massive plethora of this-and-that possibilities exists, Trump being Trump.

How about: "Trump too much in Roy Cohn's Image"? A two-for.

Or, "Trump too _______________ (fill in the blank)."

For some reason, the word "Fascist" just sprang to mind.

House Republicans' pissing contest is getting out of hand and should be firmly squelched.

The sooner the squelch, the better.

Remember - We pay them for their wretched excesses.

............................................................

Detail - 

Citing original (originating) sources:

— https://oversight.house.gov/release/comer-attorney-general-merrick-garland-must-be-held-in-contempt-of-congress-for-defying-lawful-subpoenas/
— https://oversight.house.gov/release/comer-applauds-passage-of-resolution-to-hold-attorney-general-merrick-garland-in-contempt-of-congress/
— https://oversight.house.gov/release/comer-jordan-and-smith-refer-hunter-and-james-biden-for-criminal-prosecution-as-part-of-impeachment-inquiry-of-president-biden%EF%BF%BC/

Worse – The last item links to the letter – https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Criminal-Referral-6.5.24.pdf

That letter was sent jointly to AG Garland AND (limited) Special Counsel Weiss. 

While there is zero likelihood of it happening, in my ideal world Garland's response would be:

This chickenshit is insufferable. Rope's been paid out and you've hung yourselves.

I run my department and find no merit in your accusations, hence I shall waste no resources upon your referrals. That is within my discretion.

Furthermore, I shall recommend to the President that he issue an immediate pardon to both of these gentlemen you besmirch, in order to disarm your mischief.

Your Constitutional remedy is to impeach me if you choose, and if the President follows my recommendation you can impeach him too.

Go for it. You don't have the votes in the Senate and you damned well know that.

Also, you can bleat and keen to the press. You're good at that. Experienced.

Again, DC is NOT my ideal world, and there will likely instead be dancing displays as with competing male birds with one receptive hen present. It sucks, but it is DC.

(image source)

 ...................................................

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hunter-biden-james-biden-criminal-referrals-house-republicans/

If you link over to read that, pay particular attention to the Raskin quote.