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Having attended the Trump trial in Manhattan over the past few days, I am not surprised by former President Trump’s absurd claim that President Biden authorized the use of lethal force in connection with the FBI’s execution of a court-authorized search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
The claim is politically appealing to conspiracy theorists.
A search warrant is not a day in the circus (the same can’t be said for days spent in court). Most are executed without incident, but many are not. They all involve a finding of probable cause that incriminating evidence will be recovered on the premises. The premises are usually associated with a suspected criminal. Many (though by no means all) of those crimes are violent. Nearly all of them involve circumstances that lead law enforcement officials to conclude that evidence may be destroyed or tampered with if not seized. (In the case of nonviolent crimes, which generally involve law-abiding people who are cooperative with police and prosecutors, the government usually secures evidence through less intrusive means than a raid.)
Trump stresses Biden administration authorized ‘lethal force’ in Mar-a-Lago attack
All search warrants involve the possibility of forcible entry. All search warrants involve the seizure of property by police, exposing those involved to potential legal and safety risks. Although police officers and federal agents typically conduct thorough identification checks during the search or forcible entry process, there have been harrowing cases where people inside buildings have mistakenly believed that criminals were attempting to enter rather than police officers, leading to physical confrontations, sometimes including shootouts.
It would have been surprising if the search of Mar-a-Lago had not been conducted according to an operational plan that included a use of force policy. It was important that the search be conducted according to regulations.
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As a result, and as common sense, the FBI always has an operational plan for conducting a court-authorized search. That plan customarily includes reminding search teams of the FBI’s use-of-force policy, which, of course, includes a refresher on the conditions under which lethal force can be used, both to prepare law enforcement officials for those all-too-familiar contingencies and to protect the agency and its agents in the event of a later legal claim.
To continue reading Andrew McCarthy’s columns, click here National Review.