Marjorie Taylor Greene says FBI planned to ‘assassinate’ Donald Trump

House Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene has claimed the Department of Justice and FBI “were planning to assassinate Pres [President] Trump” during the August 2022 raid on Mar-a-Lago that recovered boxes full of classified documents that were being held by the former president.

It followed Trump’s claim on his Truth Social website that the DOJ “AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE” during the operation. However in a statement the FBI insisted it followed “standard protocol” during the operation which “includes a standard policy statement” on the use of force.

A court filling was unsealed on Tuesday showing briefing notes for the August 2022 Mar-a-Lago raid, which said: “Law enforcement officers of the Department of Justice may use deadly force when necessary.”

Trump is facing 40 felony charges related to claims he deliberately held onto classified documents after leaving the White House in January 2021 and obstructed efforts to get them returned to the proper authorities. He has pleaded not guilty to all counts and denies any wrongdoing.

In his Truth Social post on Tuesday Trump said he had been “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.”

He said this means Biden is “A SERIOUS THREAT TO DEMOCRACY” and suggested he should be removed from office via the Constitution’s 25th Amendment.

Greene shared a screenshot of this post on her X, formerly Twitter, account adding: “The Biden DOJ and FBI were planning to assassinate Pres Trump and gave the green light.

“Does everyone get it yet???!!!! What are Republicans going to do about it? I tried to oust our Speaker who funded Biden’s DOJ AND FBI, but Democrats stopped it.”

However, in a statement provided to The Washington Post, the FBI insisted the reference to “use of deadly force” is standard practice in all their search operations.

They said the Mar-a-Lago raid briefing “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.”

Newsweek contacted the FBI, Washington D.C. office of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Donald Trump representatives for comment on Wednesday outside of usual office hours.

The FBI’s statement was supported by Frank Figliuzzi, formerly the agency’s assistant director for counterintelligence, in an X post. He wrote: “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.”

A similar point was made by former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance who wrote: “This ‘controversy’ about Garland ‘authorizing’ deadly force when the judicially authorized search warrant at Mar-a-Lago was executed is a lot of sounding off over something that’s a standard practice, controlled by long-standing policy. A little dose of facts goes a long way here.”

On May 16 Greene was involved in a bitter clash with Democrats Jasmine Crockett and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez during a House committee hearing.

The Georgia Republican claimed Crockett’s “fake eyelashes are messing up your reading” leading the Democrat to hit back with a barely coded reference to “somebody’s bleach blonde, bad-built butch body.”

In an interview with Newsweek Thomas Gift, who runs the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London, said: “By any reasonable standard, Marjorie Taylor Greene’s recent behavior confirms what most Americans already know: Capitol Hill is a clown show. Making a spectacle, rather than governing, seems to be the main objective for many House members.”