'A whopper even by Trumpian standards': Legal expert stunned by new Trump-created chaos
May 25, 2024
A claim by Donald Trump that FBI agents were authorized by the Department of Justice to shoot him when they appeared at Mar-a-Lago to retrieve stolen government documents left a former DOJ official stunned at the extent the former president will go to incite his followers.
During an appearance on MSNBC with host Alex Witt, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman called Trump's claim a "whopper" that deserved normally placid Attorney General Merrick Garland's harsh criticism in a press conference this past week.
Responding to Trump's conflation of a standard use-of-force policy that prohibits deadly force except when an agent is conducting the search unless there is a reasonable belief that the “subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the officer or to another person," as a death threat, Litman called Trump's accusation a danger to law enforcement officials.
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Asked about special counsel Jack Smith pressing Judge Aileen Cannon to intercede and clamp down on Trump, Litman said the DOJ official had every reason to jump into the fray.
"It's very well taken, Alex," he told the host. "This is a whopper even by Trumpian-standards because it's precisely wrong."
"The standard circular here is actually meant to keep things safer and inhibit the use of force except when there's really a deadly danger to agents and it is pernicious," he added. "It's dangerous because it makes people who are going to be the subject of searches in the future think 'Oh, they're coming at me with deadly force.' That's exactly the kind of circumstance that can prompt standoffs with the FBI and endangers the lives of agents."
"So [Jack] Smith is rightly saying that 'Look, he can't do this anymore,'" he added before elaborating, "We know that once he [Trump] made a statement and one of his lone wolf supporters was shooting up an FBI office in Cincinnati thereafter. It's a true danger for current agents when he makes comments like this."
"One last thing: Cannon is now forced to confront the lie of it, there is no two ways about it, and the danger of it. Unless she somehow finds a way not to rule," he added.
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