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.
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.
I would bet given how many crazy MAGA assholes are out there, and with Trump instigating shit, this is probably happening very regularly right now.
The plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan.
the 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.
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Was 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.
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You should really join the majority of us in reality.
Their name is “sadreality”, so I agree.
From Wikipedia:
An average of 13 years in prison sounds like the prosecutor made a case out of it.
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They were just minding their own business when federal agents tricked them into trying to kidnap the governor! Poor babies, could happen to anyone.
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
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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
This 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.
The common person wants a war? Lol they absolutely do not. The vast majority of people just want to get on with their lives.
Exactly. No one is going to organize anything because it would end in failure and them losing everything without mass popular support. It is only when the average person gets their back pushed to the wall by economic collapse (Germany post ww1) or famine (revolutionary France) along with political weakness and instability at the top that you see mass revolt.
No one is going to join “a war” just because they are annoyed.
Sorry I would have been more specific. I wasn’t really referring to a full on civil war, but a large scale shootout at any one of those events that went violent.
People at the top do not support any kind of social turmoil because stability is what makes them wealthy and keeps them there. The last thing they would want is to lose control. People don’t even want to invest in unstable countries.
You don’t need modern social media and podcasts to have turmoil. They didn’t exist in revolutionary Russia or France.
People at the top are not any more homogeneous than people at the bottom. All people and groups want more power. They’re all jockeying for better positions. If you’re the political consultant for a party whose values are dying with an ageing population then you need a zeitgeist to reignite the youth to see your party in a new light. To accomplish that you need turmoil. Turmoil is where opinions change. So powerful people leverage the average persons gripes and anger to create just enough turmoil to upend the stays quo so they can be the ones to narrate what new generation will see them as. Things don’t change when people are content.
Go back to those events in history and you’ll see the same power brokers organizing events.
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.