“I hear Biden is coming to Utah,” Craig Robertson wrote on Facebook in all caps earlier this week, according to a felony complaint filed Tuesday. “Digging out my old ghillie suit and cleaning the dust off the M24 sniper rifle. Welcome, buffoon-in-chief!”
Early Wednesday, just hours before President Joe Biden was set to touch down in the state, Robertson was shot and killed by an FBI agent during a raid on his Provo, Utah home, authorities said. Online public records list his age as 75.
Federal agents were attempting to serve an arrest and search warrants at Robertson’s home, the bureau said in a statement. Two sources familiar with the matter told the Associated Press that the septuagenarian had been armed at the time of the 6:15 a.m. shooting.
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Neighbors told the AP Robertson had been frail, and that though he often walked around with guns, he hadn’t seemed a threat. “There’s no way that he was driving from here to Salt Lake City, setting up a rifle and taking a shot at the president—100 percent no way,” one said.
“In accordance with FBI policy, the shooting incident is under review by the FBI’s Inspection Division,” the bureau’s statement read. “As this is an ongoing matter, we have no further details to provide.”
Robertson was charged Tuesday with three felony counts in relation to threats against the president, other elected officials, and the FBI agents investigating him.
The 30-page felony complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City, outlines months of threats made by Robertson against Biden and a host of other figures, including U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
In an avalanche of all-caps Facebook posts, Robertson referred to himself as a “MAGA TRUMPER,” repeatedly taunted Garland as a “demented weasel” and shared photos of his firearms, one of which he called his “Democrat eradicator.”
On Sept. 19, he wrote, “The time is right for a presidential assassination or two. First Joe then Kamala!!!” In another post the next month, he repeatedly typed “Death to Biden.”
Two days later, he addressed the New York attorney general, who is bringing a civil fraud lawsuit against Donald Trump: “Letitia James. A sniper’s bullet does not recognize your qualified immunity b/tch!!!”
Days after that, he challenged Garland to “send your FBI Swat Team to my house... You won’t because I fight back against cowards!!!”
“Why are your FBI cowards not kicking in my door?” he demanded in October. “Know this ‘they will die.’”
He occasionally shared vivid “patriotic dreams” he’d had on Facebook, including ones in which he was standing over Newsom or Bragg after having shot them in the head. “I want to... watch him twitch as a drop of blood oozez from the hole as his life ebbs away to hell!!” Robertson wrote of Bragg, who filed a 34-count criminal indictment against Trump in April.
An FBI agent surveilled his home and made contact with Robertson in March, according to the complaint. After the agent told the 75-year-old they wished to speak with him about his social media activity, he seemed to panic.
“I said it was a dream!” he said, according to the complaint. “We’re done here! Don’t return without a warrant!”
In a post from the previous month, Robertson had written of another “WONDERFUL DREAM!!!” he’d had. The dream followed the shape of his previous fantasies about Newsom and Bragg, but he embellished the new post with a few extra details.
“I dreamed I was in a dark corner of a Washington D.C. parking garage,” he wrote in all caps. “I was standing over the body of the U.S. Attorney General, Merrick Garland, with a bullet hole dead center in his forehead.”
“In my hand was my suppressed Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm, smoke wafting from the muzzle,” he continued. “The Star Spangled Banner playing quietly in the distance.”
“I thought to myself; ‘What an amazing, patriotic moment’ as shivers of liberty and freedom swelled my heart for our amazingly great country.”
Read it at The Washington Post
