Donald Trump drew disbelief -- and some support -- Wednesday after suggesting that standard language from an FBI search warrant executed in 2022 on his Florida mansion showed that President Joe Biden wanted armed agents to shoot him.
Trump's latest incendiary claim was in response to a court filing outlining plans for the FBI search at the Mar-a-Lago club, where he kept classified national security documents after leaving the White House.
The filing included standard FBI wording stating that agents are allowed to use deadly force if someone is in imminent danger.
But Trump, who is running to unseat Biden in November's election, distorted the statement to say that it showed the Justice Department was ready to shoot him and harm his family.
"It's just been revealed that Biden's DOJ was authorized to use DEADLY FORCE for their DESPICABLE raid in Mar-a-Lago. You know they're just itching to do the unthinkable," Trump said Tuesday in a fundraising email shared by US media.
"Joe Biden was locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger. He thinks he can frighten me, intimidate me, and KNOCK ME DOWN!"
The wild remarks add to the pile of false claims made by Trump against Biden, whom he has repeatedly accused without evidence of weaponizing the justice system to target him.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called for all lawmakers to condemn Trump's "outlandish and dangerous" remarks in a speech in the upper chamber of Congress.
"We cannot let this man, Donald Trump, or anybody else, throw these kinds of matches to light flames that could burn our democracy," he said.
David Axelrod, a White House aide under Barack Obama, called Trump's comments "patently nuts...and dangerously provocative" in a post on X.
But several of Trump's staunchest allies joined Trump in misrepresenting the court filing.
Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene posted on X that the Justice Department and the FBI "gave the green light" to assassinate Trump.
On the day of the raid, Trump was not on Florida but at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey.
The FBI issued a rare statement, saying "there was no departure from the norm in this matter."
The bureau -- which recovered more than 100 classified documents, including some marked top secret -- got the go-ahead for the raid from a federal judge after the government tried for months to get the records back.
The billionaire is accused of willfully retaining national defense information and obstructing government efforts to recover it.
He denies 40 felony charges, but the trial has been indefinitely postponed.
In a statement to AFP, the Trump campaign said reporting of the fundraising email was "a sickening attempt to run cover for Joe Biden who is the most corrupt president in history and a threat to our democracy."
