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.
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.