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.