Stephen King's Donald Trump FBI Remark Takes Off Online
Left: Donald Trump gives the keynote address at Turning Point Action's "The People's Convention" on June 15, 2024 in Detroit, Michigan. Right: Stephen King signs the copies of his book "Revival" at Barnes & Noble Union Square on November 11, 2014 in New York City. King is a vocal critic of the former president.
Stephen King has hit out at Donald Trump on social media, calling the former president's FBI claims a "big f****** lie."
In May, Trump accused President Joe Biden of authorizing the FBI to "use deadly lethal force" against him in a post on Truth Social, the social network he founded after being banned from X, formerly Twitter, in 2021.
The 78-year-old was referencing the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago home in August 2022. Trump is accused of removing and storing classified documents at the Palm Beach resort following his exit from the White House. The business mogul was charged with retaining national security documents in June 2023.
"Crooked Joe Biden's DoJ, in their Illegal and UnConstitutional Raid of Mar-a-Lago, AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE," Trump wrote. "NOW WE KNOW, FOR SURE, THAT Joe Biden IS A SERIOUS THREAT TO DEMOCRACY. HE IS MENTALLY UNFIT FOR OFFICE — 25TH AMENDMENT!"
On Sunday, King took to X to slam Trump's claims. The horror writer is an outspoken critic of the Republican, and regularly berates the former president in posts to his 7.1 million followers.
"Trump's claim that FBI agents were authorized to shoot him is a big f****** lie," the 76-year-old wrote, with his post receiving over 601,000 views at the time of publishing.
Newsweek has reached out to a spokesperson for Donald Trump for comment via email.
The Shining author's post sparked mixed reactions. Some X users applauded King's take down of Trump, including Star Wars actor Mark Hamill, who commented "like" on the post.
"Of course it was a lie! Everything in the MAGA world is a lie," said X user Denison Barb.
"When lies becomes a sick twisted reality, You get MAGA," wrote Travis Matthew.
However, others blasted the Carrie writer over the remark, with @MagaMama1776 calling King a "liar."
"It's in the search warrant, you imbecilic a*****," commented eddmoo.
"He wasn't there, but they WERE authorized to shoot him, if he were. It's in the order," said @thomas_garrard, while Laci Marie wrote: "Bro stick to writing novels."
According to an Associated Press fact check, the term "use of deadly force" was featured in the operations order for the Mar-a-Lago raid. However, the line is a standard Department of Justice policy that appears in search documents and in the DoJ manual.
The policy is designed to mitigate the use of deadly force as much as possible, and did not suggest that Trump was being targeted.
"The FBI followed standard protocol in this search as we do for all search warrants, which includes a standard policy statement limiting the use of deadly force," the DoJ said in a statement in May. "No one ordered additional steps to be taken and there was no departure from the norm in this matter."
According to the DoJ policy, officers may "use deadly force only when necessary, that is, when the officer has a reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the officer or to another person."
Although Trump originally made the assertion in May, the claim was revived on Friday. Trump's lawyers opposed a request by Special Counsel Jack Smith to ban the politician from making statements that could put law enforcement at risk in the Florida documents case.
In the court filing, Trump's lawyers accuse Smith of seeking to "restrict President Trump's campaign speech" ahead of his debate with Biden on June 27.
Trump and Biden are the presumptive Republican and Democratic nominees in November's general election, after receiving enough delegate votes in the presidential primaries.
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