'Extremely dangerous': Merrick Garland responds to allegations of Trump assassination plot

Attorney General Merrick Garland is vehemently denying claims that the Department of Justice somehow planned to assassinate former President Donald Trump during the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago in 2022.

Earlier this week, several far-right Trump supporters in Congress alleged that the FBI — which conducted its Mar-a-Lago raid under the standard operating procedure of being prepared to use deadly force if necessary — plotted to murder Trump. Agents were armed when raiding his Palm Beach, Florida residence as part of the DOJ's probe into Trump's handling of classified documents from his time in the White House.

According to NBC News, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Arizona) said that President Joe Biden "ordered the hit on Trump at Mar-a-Lago," and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) said the Biden DOJ "gave the green light" to "assassinate" the former president. During a Thursday press conference, Garland said that the allegations of a supposed assassination plot were not only "false," but "extremely dangerous."

READ MORE: Greene hammered over claiming 'Biden DOJ and FBI' planned to 'assassinate' Trump and she 'knew'

"The document that is being referred to in the investigation is a Justice Department standard policy limiting the use of force," Garland said. "As the FBI advises, it is part of the standard operations plan for searches, and in fact it was even used in the consensual search of President Biden."

As Garland said, the FBI's "use of deadly force" policy is standard for all searches. The Associated Press (AP) reported earlier this week that the language used in the operations order for the Mar-a-Lago raid is "standard to include in such documents."

"[E]very FBI operations order contains a reminder of FBI deadly force policy,” Frank Figliuzzi, a former assistant counterintelligence director for counterintelligence at the FBI, told the AP. “Even for a search warrant. Deadly force is always authorized if the required threat presents itself.”

The language used in the Mar-a-Lago operations order is similar to the language used on the FBI's website when summarizing the use of deadly force policy. The website reads: "FBI special agents may use deadly force only when necessary—when the agent has a reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the agent or another person. If feasible, a verbal warning to submit to the authority of the special agent is given prior to the use of deadly force."

READ MORE: Merrick Garland's 'rigid adherence to norms' aids 'Republican bad faith attacks': analysis

Trump himself has amplified the claims about the nonexistent assassination plot. In a post to his Truth Social account after his criminal trial proceedings concluded on Tuesday, the former president called Biden a "SERIOUS THREAT TO DEMOCRACY" after telling his followers that the DOJ "AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE."

"HE IS MENTALLY UNFIT TO HOLD OFFICE — 25TH AMENDMENT!" Trump added.

Watch Garland's comments below or by clicking this link.

READ MORE: 'The villain here is Merrick Garland': White House upset with AG's handling of Biden probe