Man killed during FBI raid in connection with threats against Biden, other officials
Man killed during FBI raid in connection with threats against Biden, other officials
The raid was in connection with an investigation into alleged threats against President Joe Biden and others, according to two officials briefed on the case.
A Utah man was shot and killed during an FBI raid early Wednesday morning, the FBI confirmed to ABC News. The raid was in connection with an investigation into alleged threats against President Joe Biden and others, according to two officials briefed on the case.
One of the officials told ABC News that the investigation began in April and the U.S. Secret Service was notified by the FBI in June. In addition to threatening posts, the official said, the man under investigation suggested online he was making plans to take physical action. The threats had been deemed "credible," the official said.
The FBI in Salt Lake City said the shooting occurred around 6:15 am. local time while special agents attempted to serve arrest and search warrants at a residence in Provo.
"The FBI takes all shooting incidents involving our agents or task force members seriously," the FBI said in a statement. "In accordance with FBI policy, the shooting incident is under review by the FBI's Inspection Division. As this is an ongoing matter, we have no further details to provide."
The deceased suspect was Craig Robertson, according to multiple sources and a federal complaint obtained by ABC News.
Robertson was facing three counts, according to the complaint -- interstate threats, threats against the president, and influencing, impeding and retaliating against federal law enforcement officers by threat.
The complaint includes numerous social media posts believed to have been made by Robertson threatening to kill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as several officials involved in prosecuting former President Donald Trump.
The president is scheduled to visit Utah on Wednesday.
Among the posts allegedly made by Robertson was one published on Aug. 6, three days before Biden's scheduled visit, according to the complaint. "I hear Biden is coming to Utah. Digging out my old ghillie suit and cleaning the dust off the M24 sniper rifle," the post said, according to the complaint, which referred to the post as a "willful true threat to kill or cause injury to kill President Biden."
Senior staff briefed Biden on the incident Wednesday morning, a White House official told ABC News.
Fox News: Brave patriot shot down by Biden's secret police
130I can't even find that they are covering it at all, there is nothing on their front page about it.
34“But why did the FBI shoot down this antifa Soros plant?”
24They just want to take 'er guns!
3
You forgot to call them 'jackbooted thugs'
2wait are you saying they're causing idiots like this to die needlessly? just because of their bullshit?
1Dude gets summary execution for shit posting...
Think about where we are heading
-86They were serving an arrest warrant in addition to a search warrant, which means they had probable cause for an arrest and a judge signed off on this. It wasn't just shit posting, he was making plans which for reasons we don't yet know the feds and a judge considered credible and serious. We also don't know why he was shot, but "summary execution" seems unlikely, especially given how the feds always walk on eggshells around right wing extremists so as not to ruby ridge their way to another oaklahoma city (see e.g. basically every standoff with the Bundys). My money is the guy was a nutcase who started shooting when the feds showed up leading to a fairly predictable result for him.
31It's ALWAYS been like that. Back in the early 90s a kid emailed the white house a threat as a joke...the FBI showed up at the school the next day.
It's always been a crime to threaten the president. Half of Congress gets away with it because they're rich...but us poor bastards that are still subject to laws should expect repercussions for illegal acts.
Threatening the government officials of the United States is a felony under federal law. Threatening the president of the United States is a felony under 18 U.S.C. § 871, punishable by up to 5 years of imprisonment, that is investigated by the United States Secret Service.
21Maybe he should've complied with police orders. Or whatever conservatives say when a black man is killed by police for their pinky twitching.
18Better keep an eye on this one, too.
9
Just beat me to it. I'm so happy this community is getting good at posting! That's the community goal!
82I try to do a couple each day!
39Thank You!
7
Next community goal, at least 50% server uptime
1
We often hear reports about right-wing terrorism in the USA. But how many other incidents like this happen, where the person is caught beforehand? This wouldn’t be a top headline if he hadn’t died, it would be just another story relegated to the bottom of a news site.
69I would bet given how many crazy MAGA assholes are out there, and with Trump instigating shit, this is probably happening very regularly right now.
47The plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan.
21the guy that showed up at obama's place with weapons, too. and there's a lot of right-wing hate causing disturbances not directly at leaders that are written off as just more violent crime rather than hate crimes or politically motivated crimes.
5That time a Republican mailed bombs to a bunch of Democrats and Jews.
5The MAGA bomber.
1Was mostly FedBois, the 4 goons who got arrested had a supporting cast of 20+ members of Federal Law Enforcement. They paid for travel, put together meetings with other people and groups, and helped them plan it.
-15
News is constantly reporting on people being arrested for threatening officials. I disagree that this is being treated any differently than those reports.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2021/01/12/illinois-man-arrested-for-allegedly-threatening-to-shoot-up-bidens-inauguration/
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/11/us/david-reeves-biden-white-house-threats.html
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-threats-arrests/
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/man-charged-threatening-biden-said-was-coming-white-house-secret-servi-rcna14066
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/11/1162858371/michigan-man-threatens-biden-whitmer...etc
16Now check the coverage on daytime crazy righty talk radio. Check their outrage influencers.
4
I don't want to jinx it because it may still happen, but it's an outright miracle a straight up war didn't break out at any of these events like Charlottesville
6This is why I don't think anything happens at that organized a level without a huge financial backing behind it. The common person wants a war. The rich don't but they want to utilize the anger the common man has. Everything that happens at a high level of organization is due to a handful of people investing time and lots of money into it. Regular folk can't organize themselves enough to get things to a sustainable level. It takes tons of social media manipulation and rubbing elbows with influencers to do podcast circuits and link up with media outlets and blogs to create the stories that keep the flames hot enough to spread.
8
Arrests do make the news. It is the people who get a visit and a stern talking to that you don't hear about. I'm sure there were more than a few left-wingers who got visits during the trump admin.
2
✅ Found out
60Here's the document from the arrest warrant with what he was writing. Dude was a fucking moron.
Also - Truth.social actually tipped off the FBI. Very interesting. I love that it's a honeypot.
44This guy actually posted "Merrick Garland u demented weasel send your FBI swat, you won't because I'm a MAGA trumper and I'll fight back" ??? Phew boy, major case of finding out.
41Oh wow, that's amazing that it came from truth.social.
12LOL, just finished reading the whole document. Its wild, and there's really nothing we can do about stupid. Guy is a perfect caricature of crazy.
10
Guess they pried it from his cold dead hands.
37he was still fairly warm
20
Anyone who hasn't learned about Stochastic Terrorism should expect to hear it more and more going forward.
31This is republicans and Trump's fault. They lie to people and get them angry about democrats eating babies or letting men rape children in restrooms. They know that there are mentally unstable people out there and that they will believe them. Trump KNOWS this. And now these brainwashed and programmed people are going out and attacking Trump's enemies. Remember when Trump got Ashli Babbitt killed?
OR maybe this guy was a fascist. Guess we'll find out.
3075 year old nutjob got gunned down on his doorstep.. went out in a HAIL OF BULLETS YEEEHAAAWWW
this is what our corpse actually posted:
“I hear Biden is coming to Utah. Digging out my old ghillie suit and cleaning the dust off the M24 sniper rifle,”
23And nothing of value was lost.
23No. Something of value was lost, because this guy didn't need to die. He was brainwashed and fed fear throughout his life which compounded with a lack of clear thinking or education, into a need to project a mask of what he thought was bravery.
Our anger should be directed at the remorseless pieces of shit that build this machine that injects fear into the gullible, and engineers the deaths of people who didn't need to die.
If you find it difficult to empathise with this man, try to imagine that one of your family members went off the deep end and made the stupid ass decisions this guy did. Will you still feel that his death was justified? Will you feel like this was the preferable end to this guy's life?
3
What a fucking stupid way to die.
Idiot found out, I guess.
21FBI:
21This is why I have to laugh when my firearms enthusiast friends tell me they need assault weapons in case they need to overthrow the government. This guy had a lot of assault weapons. Like tons of them. This is how it turned out. This is how it will always turn out.
14Good riddance to bad rubbish.
12Womp womp
9I guess his death threats didn’t go to plan
9They overreacted! No one has ever killed a president with a rifle.
/s
7I was trying to decide why I thought he was funny looking. I think it's partly the nostrils. What a cretin. I suppose I'd be mad, too.
5utah just doesnt spring to mind when I think of extremism, but I guess there's idiots everywhere.
2As someone who lives 10 minutes or so from this guy… this place is insane. I’ve gotta get outta here.
11
Yeah so freedom of speech in America doesn't pay to threating the president. Like they don't fuck around. They will go after musicians who allude to it in music for example. I believe Eminem has had Secret Service turn up at his house multiple times.
I'm pretty sure they'll even track down people who make threats on pseudo anonymous websites like reddit.
1It's very common to have limitations to freedom of speech. The most common ones I can think of right now are
- Threats of violence
- Other serious threats
- Inciting rebellion
- Inciting terrorism
- "Hate speech" (usually via one of the above)
- Sharing classified information
3