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CNN
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Followers of former President Donald Trump should have been surprised when they received an email on Tuesday, addressed by “President Trump,” with this catchy subject line:
“They were allowed to shoot me!”
The preview line in the email did not retreat.
“I almost escaped death. Biden’s DOJ locked down and charged with deadly force at Mar-a-Lago…”
Literal readers of Trump’s message may wonder: is this a cry for help against physical harm?
But everyone should know that this is just Trump asking, once again, for money.
These days, writing fundraising emails to politicians often seems like an exercise in clickbait, but claiming that a life is in danger is something new. It also seems like a twist on the scandalous “absolute immunity” argument that Trump’s lawyer made before the US Supreme Court last month, that presidents should, at least in theory, be able to attack a political rival and not face prosecution. .
The real facts of the “authorized to shoot me” allegation, as reported by CNN, are these:
A recently released document outlining the FBI’s procedure for searching Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in 2022 for classified documents included standard language about the “use of force” in searches.
From the CNN report by Tierney Sneed, Katelyn Polantz, Holmes Lybrand and Hannah Rabinowitz:
The document, called a law enforcement operations order, explains what agents were authorized to bring with them when they searched Trump’s assets and how they were authorized to operate as part of the search. It also includes standardized language of Department of Justice Handbook on the use of force, including the limited circumstances in which officers are authorized to use deadly force.
The FBI coordinated the search with the Secret Service and strove to be as discreet as possible, according to testimony on Capitol Hill last year from Stephen D’Antuono, a former FBI assistant director in charge of the Washington office.
“We made sure to interact with the Secret Service to make sure we could get into Mar-a-Lago without any problems,” D’Antuono said. “We are not going to knock down any doors. We weren’t bringing in FBI vehicles, everything that was reported about helicopters and a hundred people falling, like a Die Hard movie, was completely false, right.
Trump was not at Mar-a-Lago when the search took place, and he actually announced that the search was taking place with a social media post. Read CNN’s original report on the Mar-a-Lago search in August 2022.
These details don’t fit into the subject line of an email, and they certainly don’t fit into Trump’s narrative that he is being persecuted.
The most important headline from the unsealed documents, according to Tuesday’s CNN report, was that a federal judge in Washington, D.C., found “strong evidence” of crimes before Trump was accused of misusing classified data. The judge, Beryl Howell, cited the discovery of additional confidentially marked documents found in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago room months after the FBI search.
Trump is a master sensationalist, so put the email subject line where he says he suffered physical harm in his work of exaggerated and false claims.
The email address where I receive fundraising pitches from politicians received seven such messages from Trump on Tuesday.
On any given day, there will probably be at least one that is misleading. Like this one from Tuesday:
“I made a final decision. What do you think of my choice of vice president? (In fact, Trump has not announced who his running mate will be).
Other subject lines are promoting products:
“YOU, have you seen my photo? I put it in a mug for you. (In related news, Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani is now selling his own brand of coffee.)
There are sweepstakes to win trips to Las Vegas and London. (You can enter to win with a contribution of $20.24).
Trump’s claims about the FBI document were not just contained in the fundraising email.
In a social media post, he combined the “deadly force” allegation with other ongoing complaints: The temperature in his Manhattan criminal trial courtroom was too cold. Trump thinks President Joe Biden is unfit for office and thinks Biden’s cabinet should remove him from the presidency.
The social media post looked like this:
“WOW! I just came out of Biden’s witch hunt trial in Manhattan, the ‘ice box,’ and received reports that the DOJ of corrupt Joe Biden, in his illegal and unconstitutional invasion of Mar-a-Lago, AUTHORIZED THE FBI USING DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE. WE NOW KNOW FOR CERTAINTY THAT JOE BIDEN IS A SERIOUS THREAT TO DEMOCRACY HE IS MENTALLY UNFIT TO OCCUPY – 25TH AMENDMENT!”
The truth is that voters will be able to assess Biden’s fitness for office. New York criminal judge Juan Merchan explained to Trump at trial that turning up the thermostat would turn the ice box into an oven. And there is absolutely no indication that anyone in Biden’s Cabinet is now considering or has ever considered invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.
On this last point, the same cannot be said of Trump – some of whose Cabinet members discussed but did not act on the use of the 25th Amendment after the 2021 Capitol riot.
