Hours before President Joe Biden traveled to Utah on Wednesday, FBI agents shot and killed a man in his home in Provo as they were serving an arrest warrant. According to FBI documents, the man had threatened to kill the president and other government officials, most of whom he apparently believed to be mistreating former President Donald Trump.
According to FBI documents, the man had threatened to kill the president and other government officials he apparently believed to be mistreating former President Donald Trump.
The FBI affidavit in support of the search warrant request describes the alleged conduct and threats it attributes to Craig Deleeuw Robertson, a retired steel and welding inspector. Those threats reportedly include Robertson’s social media posts indicating his desire to also harm the FBI agents investigating him and kill Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who leads the New York “hush money” case against Trump.
No one should be surprised by this development. In fact, I’d be surprised if we don’t see more violent threats against government officials, given the incendiary rhetoric from Trump and his supporters. Robertson’s threats against those officials appear to be an end result of stochastic terrorism, generally defined as the public vilification of a particular group of people that randomly and unpredictably leads to violence against members of that group.
According to a July report from the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats, "From April 6, 2023 to June 26, 2023, Americans agreeing that 'the use of force is justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency' increased from 4.5% to 7%, or the equivalent of an estimated shift from 12 million to 18 million American adults."
That research institute found that the increase "likely reflects the response of more intense commitment to Trump following the announcement of the federal indictment against him for mishandling 3 classified documents on June 9, 2023 — about two and a half weeks before our June 26, 2023, survey."
According to the FBI's affidavit, Robertson was a self-described “MAGA Trumper,” who was spotted during FBI surveillance wearing a hat emblazoned with the word “Trump” and attired in the quintessential Trump costume of blue suit, white shirt and red tie. While emulating a former president’s attire isn’t criminal, threatening to kill his enemies certainly is. Apparently, that’s what got the FBI’s attention. Robertson was likely to be charged with three distinct federal violations related to making various and repeated ominous threats on two different social media platforms: The first count, making interstate threats, related to what authorities say were his threats to kill Bragg.
According to that document, he made a detailed description of how he’d like to kill Bragg, including where he’d hide out and what weapon he’d used to kill him.
Agents were also investigating him for threats against the FBI. According to the agency, he wrote, “Hey FBI agents, you still monitoring my social media? Checking to make sure I have a loaded gun handy in case you drop by again.”
As for his reported threats on Biden, the Utah man allegedly posted, “I HEAR BIDEN IS COMING TO UTAH,” before saying he was preparing his sniper rifle.
Reportedly, Robertson made threatening posts that mentioned U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, New York Attorney General Letitia James (who is overseeing a civil case against the Trump Organization), Vice President Kamala Harris and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The Utah man allegedly posted, “I HEAR BIDEN IS COMING TO UTAH,” before saying he was preparing his sniper rifle.
You need not be clairvoyant to have predicted those reported threats. While Trump and his GOP have a long record of publicly denouncing the FBI and the Department of Justice, those verbal assaults are now even more heated. Since Trump has been indicted in a state court in Manhattan, and by federal grand juries in Florida and Washington, D.C., he has responded with vile and dangerously inciteful rhetoric. In posts on Truth Social, he’s called special counsel Jack Smith “deranged,” referred to former Vice President Mike Pence — a potential witness against Trump in the latest federal indictment — as “delusional” and claimed he could never get a fair trial from U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who was randomly assigned to that case.
If it seems to you that you’ve seen this kind of thing before, you’re right. Trump used similar provocative and accusatory language after he lost the 2020 election. Then, on Jan. 6, 2021, many of his supporters violently attacked police officers, breached security and tried to stop certification of the Electoral College vote.
About 1,000 people have been arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 attack. Many of those defendants who've been charged have claimed as a defense that they did what they did because Trump wanted them to. The founder of the Oath Keepers, now convicted of seditious conspiracy, asserted that his militia was waiting that day for Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act. Ashli Babbitt, who was consumed by Trump conspiracy theories, was one of many who breached the U.S. Capitol, and she was wrapped in a Trump flag when a U.S. Capitol Police officer shot and killed her.
You saw it, too, in Cincinnati. A man upset about the FBI executing a search warrant at Trump’s Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, reportedly posted a call to action on social media that encouraged likeminded people to “get whatever you need to be ready for combat.” He later walked into the FBI field office in Cincinnati, tried to breach security, and, after a standoff that lasted hours, was shot dead.
More than 1,000 people have been charged with Jan. 6 crimes. Many claimed they did what they did because Trump wanted them to.
Expecting to soon be indicted on state charges in Fulton County, Georgia, for his attempts to overturn Biden’s 2020 victory in that state, Trump this week called District Attorney Fani Willis a “young racist in Atlanta” and made a scurrilous and unfounded allegation about her sex life.
Even if Trump is eventually issued a gag order from a judge in one of his cases for continuing his violence-inducing rhetoric, that doesn’t mean his proxies in Congress and on far-right media will stop.
But the poll indicating that millions of Americans think it’s OK to commit violence on behalf of Trump is why his inflammatory language, and that of his proxies, is so dangerous. And why law enforcement can’t afford to be less than vigilant.
