AG Merrick Garland refutes Trump’s ‘false and extremely dangerous’ assassination attempt lie

US Attorney General Merrick Garland has taken the rare step of directly refuting a claim made by Donald Trump.

The AG appeared at a Thursday press conference in Washington, where he took a question from a reporter on the 2024 presidential candidate’s claim that FBI agents were “authorized” by Joe Biden to use “deadly force” against him when they raided his estate and resort at Mar-a-Lago in August of 2022.

MrTrump made the claim on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday after newly unsealed court filings showed that four additional classified documents were discovered in the former president’s bedroom in the months following the initial search.

“That allegation is false, and it is extremely dangerous,” Mr Garland said on Thursday. Mr Garland personally approved the search of Mr Trump’s home before the appointment of a special counsel to handle the department’s prosecution of the former president in two separate cases.

“The document that is being referred to in the allegation is the Justice Department’s standard policy limiting the use of force,” Mr Garland continued. “As the FBI advises, it is part of a standard operations plan for searches and, in fact, it was even used in the consensual search of President Biden’s home.”

Mr Trump is accused of a total of 88 felony counts, including charges brought by the Justice Department in two cases involving his allegedly illegal retention of classified documents, as well as his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Two district attorneys in New York and Georgia also have cases against him.

In New York, the former presidentis accused of more than 30 felony charges related to a hush money scheme involving adult actress Stormy Daniels dating back all the way to his first