This photo illustration shows a picture of former President Donald Trump next to a phone screen that’s displaying the Truth Social app, in Washington, DC, on February 21, 2022.
Stefani Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images
The social media company owned by former President Donald Trump in March tipped off the FBI about threats made by a Utah man who was fatally shot Wednesday by FBI agents as they attempted to arrest him for threatening to kill President Joe Biden, NBC News reported.
Truth Social notified the FBI after Craig Deleeuw Robertson posted a threat to kill Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr., in line with a senior law enforcement official who spoke to NBC.
Bragg is prosecuting Trump for allegedly falsifying business records related to a 2016 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Robertson, 75, was armed when FBI agents confronted him at his home in Provo on Wednesday morning and pointed his weapon at agents and didn’t reply to their commands before they fatally shot him, a senior official told NBC.
Agents were there to arrest him on a federal criminal criticism accusing him of constructing death threats against Biden, Bragg, and FBI agents.
Robertson was killed hours before Biden arrived in Utah for a visit.
In a social media post on Sunday, Robertson wrote, “I heard Biden is coming to Utah.” He added that he was dusting off his “M24 Sniper Rifle.”
Robertson was described by the FBI in that criticism as a white man “roughly 70-75 years old” who was surveilled “wearing a dark suit (later observed as having an AR-15 style rifle lapel pin attached), a white shirt, a red tie, and a multi-colored (possibly camouflage) hat bearing the word ‘TRUMP’ on the front.”
His death is under investigation by the FBI’s Inspection Division.
The criticism says that on March 19 an FBI agent received a notification from the FBI National Threat Operations Center regarding a threat to kill Bragg. The tip to the operations center got here from a social media company, in line with the criticism.
The threat was made by user @winston4eagles, in line with the criticism, which didn’t discover the positioning by name.
Two FBI agents, later that day, went to Robertson’s home, where they saw him get right into a automobile and drive to a church, where he spent several hours, the criticism said.
When the agents followed him back to his home and asked him in regards to the comment on Truth Social, Robertson told them, “I said it was a dream … We’re done here! Don’t return with out a warrant,” in line with the criticism.
During a subsequent investigation, the FBI learned that Robertson, who owned quite a few firearms, had made “multiple threats” about government officials, amongst them Vice President Kamala Harris, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Recent York Attorney General Letitia James. The Recent York attorney general is suing Trump and his real estate company for alleged widespread fraud.
Trump Media & Technology Group began Truth Social in late 2021, months after Trump was banned from Twitter on Jan. 8, 2021.
Twitter, now generally known as X, feared he might incite further violence on the heels of the Capitol riot by a mob of his supporters two days earlier.
