PROVO, Utah, Aug. 10, 2023 (Gephardt Daily/ UPI) — Authorities have identified the Utah man killed Wednesday in an FBI raid just hours before President Joe Biden was scheduled to arrive in Salt Lake City.
Court records filed in federal court reveal Provo resident, Craig Deleeuw Robertson, became known to authorities months ago after allegedly posting messages on social media threatening Biden and other perceived enemies of defeated ex-president Donald Trump.
In an early statement released to news outlets Wednesday, a spokesperson for the FBI’s Salt Lake City Office said Richardson (whose identity had yet to be released) was shot at about 6:15 a.m. outside his home in Provo as agents tried to serve an arrest and search warrants.
According to court documents, Robertson had threatened to “inflict bodily harm” on the president during his visit to Utah in a social media message sent Monday.
“I hear Biden is coming to Utah. Digging out my old Ghillie suit and cleaning the dust off the M24 sniper rifle,” Robertson allegedly wrote.
The man had additionally said he was going to travel to New York to assassinate Alvin Bragg, the district attorney in Manhattan who is overseeing one of the three criminal cases faced by Trump.
“I’ll be waiting in the courthouse parking garage with my suppressed Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm to smoke a radical fool prosecutor that should never have been elected,” he posted. “BYE, BYE.”
Robertson was visited by FBI agents in March, resulting in him telling them not to return without a warrant.
“The FBI tried to interfere with my free speech right in my driveway. My 45ACP was ready to smoke ’em!!!” a man named Craig Robertson posted on Facebook after the FBI visit.
In another post, he had said the agents came close to “violent eradication.”
On Monday, President Joe Biden boarded Air Force One en route to visiting western states this week. On Wednesday as the president was visiting Utah, police killed a man who had threatened to ‘inflict bodily harm’ on the president during his visit. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI
