Former President Donald Trump is fundraising over a repeatedly debunked conspiracy theory that claims President Joe Biden was planning to assassinate him when the FBI searched his home for classified documents in 2022.
"Joe Biden was locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger," Trump said in a fundraising email reportedly sent out on Tuesday night.
The campaign email headline, in all caps, reads: "Biden's DOJ was authorized to shoot me!"
The Trump National Committee sent this campaign cash-grab as Trump's political allies were leapt to spread a right-wing writer's debunked conspiracy theory on social media.
While Julie Kelly claimed newly revealed court records show the Federal Bureau of Investigation was authorized to use deadly force against Trump when they searched his home for classified documents, the Federal Bureau of Investigation explained otherwise.
“The FBI 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,” the bureau reportedly said in an official statement.
"No one ordered additional steps to be taken and there was no departure from the norm in this matter."
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Or, as Washington Post columnist Philip Bump explained Wednesday morning, "The deadly-force document shared by Kelly constrains how and when firearms might be used."
News that Trump had included the incendiary language to describe a blatantly false claim stunned political analysts who took to social media to share their views.
"This is patently nuts," wrote CNN political commentator David Axelrod. "And dangerously provocative!"
"Another outright lie from the former President of the United States," added former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee Donna Brazile. "Chaos…Mayhem and another simply outrageous lie."
