“FBI is now killing all online critics of Biden,” Ali Alexander, organizer of “Stop the Steal” protests that fueled the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, announced on his Telegram account on Wednesday. “This is all by design.”
This alarming claim was prompted by the death of Craig Deleeuw Robertson, 75, in an FBI raid on his Provo, Utah residence early that morning. According to a criminal complaint from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Robertson was to be charged with interstate threats, impeding federal law enforcement officers by threat, and making threats against the president — all on the social media platforms Truth Social and Facebook. But Robertson was reportedly armed when agents showed up on his doorstep with arrest and search warrants, according to law enforcement sources who spoke to the Associated Press, and was killed by gunfire.
“The FBI is reviewing an agent-involved shooting which occurred around 6:15 a.m. on Wednesday,” the agency said in a statement shared with Rolling Stone, noting that the subject of their warrants was deceased. “In accordance with FBI policy, the shooting incident is under review by the FBI’s Inspection Division.”
In the aftermath of the raid, plenty of media attention focused on the nature of Robertson’s alleged threats, which broadly targeted Democrats and perceived enemies of Donald Trump. According to the charging documents, agents had tried to speak to him in person in March about a Truth Social post in which he related a violent fantasy about murdering New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg — who indicted Trump in April on many counts of falsifying business records. (Truth Social itself reportedly tipped the FBI off about the post.) After rebuffing agents in that encounter, according to charging documents, Robertson allegedly posted on Facebook that they had come close to “violent eradication.” This month, upon learning that Biden was to visit Utah, Robertson allegedly stated on Facebook that he was “cleaning the dust off” of an M24 sniper rifle. Based on other social media content, including photos of his many guns, investigators believed he owned such a weapon.
However, given Robertson’s age and apparent mobility issues (neighbors say he walked with a cane and would even drive the 200-yard distance to his church), the FBI now faces serious questions about its tactical response to his online activity.
Whether he was a real threat or not, Trump supporters and other right-wingers have seized on his death to imply or claim that Robertson was executed for his political views — turning him into a martyr for free speech. “Hating Biden is enough to get you dead,” as one widely followed conservative put it on Twitter.
Far-right conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec said on his podcast that the raid “looks like a message being sent” from the government: “Threaten us, and we’ll show up at your home at 6:15 in the morning and take you out.” On Friday, he posted to Truth Social, “The Left wants what happened to Craig Robertson and Ashli Babbitt to happen to every Trump supporter,” referring to the MAGA rioter killed by a police officer during the Jan. 6 Capitol attack as she attempted to breach the barricaded Speaker’s Lobby. Fellow conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich tweeted Thursday, “This hit was executed on [Robertson] to make Americans afraid.”
Conservative radio host Glenn Beck, meanwhile, tweeted that he had “never seen the FBI gun anybody down” over threats against the president in “40+ years of broadcasting.” And Laura Loomer, an extremist banned from various platforms over the years for hate speech and misinformation, referred to the agency as a “Gestapo” in one tweet about Robertson’s death, later alleging that they murdered him “in cold blood because he criticized Joe Biden online.”
On Telegram, a channel for the QAnon-linked group “The Patriot Voice,” which has more than 50,000 subscribers, shared a link to an article about Robertson’s death. The message added scare quotes around the word “threats” when describing his social media posts. “What do you think,” the author wrote, “does the FBI have a right to KILL someone during a search warrant just because of some statement made online?” One commenter chimed in to say, “It sounds like Biden used the FBI to do his dirty work.”
It was inevitable. Cults thrive on martyrs.
I understand the FBI is investigating what happened, as they should. The authorities may have overstepped their bounds. They often do. This man was a fanatic who threatened all kinds of people. He fantasized on his Facebook page about killing Merrick Garland in a parking garage and standing over his dead body admiring the hole he put in his head. He had posted that he was “Digging out my old ghillie suit and cleaning the dust off the M24 sniper rifle” when he heard that Biden was coming to Utah. From what we understand, he was armed and I assume he failed to comply with the police which is usually a big no-no among the pro-police crowd.
I also can’t help but be reminded of this:
President Donald Trump on Thursday gloated over the September killing of Portland, Oregon, murder suspect Michael Reinoehl by law enforcement officers who had been deputized as US Marshals.
A task force involving federal, state and local law enforcement officers had been trying to arrest Reinoehl in connection with the August 29 fatal shooting of a supporter of a right-wing group in Portland, a killing that happened during clashes between pro-Trump groups and left-wing protesters.
“We sent in the US Marshals,” Trump said during a campaign rally in North Carolina, adding that it “took 15 minutes (and) it was over.”
The President immediately followed that statement by appearing to indicate that authorities had no intention of ever taking Reinoehl alive.
“They knew who he was; they didn’t want to arrest him, and in 15 minutes that ended,” Trump said. It was unclear what information he was basing his assertion on.
That action was cheered by the right wingers. It turned out that Reinoehl wasn’t armed when they shot him down but whatevs. He was supposedly “antifa” so that’s all that matters.
It’s fair to be suspicious of this shooting because he was an old man who used a cane. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have sat himself down somewhere with his sniper rifle and tried to kill the president. When you issue threats like that after already having been visited by the Secret Service it’s not surprising that the FBI would issue a search warrant. What happened next is up for grabs but let’s just say it wouldn’t be surprising if that man had a gun and pointed it at the cops. We all know what happens next, especially the right wing which cheers whenever the police gun down a Black person because they failed to comply.