Attorney General Merrick Garland personally approved the "deadly" use of force during the August 2022 raid on Mar-A-Lago to recover classified documents the FBI thought were being kept there, according to discovery documents made public as part of Special Counsel Jack Smith's criminal case against former President Donald Trump.

Trump highlighted the Operations Order on Tuesday after leaving court in New York on his financial documents trial there.

"WOW! I just came out of the Biden Witch Hunt Trial in Manhattan, the ‘Icebox,’ and was shown Reports that Crooked Joe Biden’s DOJ, in their Illegal and UnConstitutional Raid of Mar-a-Lago, AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE," Trump posted on his Truth Social. "NOW WE KNOW, FOR SURE, THAT JOE BIDEN IS A SERIOUS THREAT TO DEMOCRACY."

A court filing noted that the order contained a policy statement about the use of force in the raid that read, "Law Enforcement officers of the Department of Justice may use deadly force when necessary."

FBI on the defensive

The filing also said that DOJ and FBI agents "planned to bring ‘Standard Issue Weapons,' ‘Ammo,’ ‘Handcuffs,’ and ‘medium and large sized bolt cutters,’ but they were instructed to wear ‘unmarked polo or collared shirts’ and to keep ‘law enforcement equipment concealed."

The FBI response to news of the filing said that the policy statement limited the use of deadly force, rather than allowing it.

"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. No one ordered additional steps to be taken and there was no departure from the norm in this matter," the FBI told Fox News in a statement Tuesday.

But how outrageous is it that agents of the federal government were prepared to kill people including a former president to get documents back that they believed were classified and that they believed Trump had there?

It would seemingly be one way to get Trump out of the picture.

Getting rid of Trump

No one was harmed during the raid and the FBI recovered numerous boxes of documents.

Trump was subsequently charged by the federal government with 37 counts related to having the documents and covering up his possession of them.

The case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith and Biden's DOJ may or may not be successful in bringing Trump down in the end, though.

Judge Aileen Cannon put the case on hold indefinitely until the Supreme Court rules on Trump's immunity claims and deals with a backlog of pretrial motions and other actions.

By the time the case gets back underway, it may be too close to the election to avoid election interference, and if Trump is elected, he can pardon himself.

Garland may be wishing his agents had used deadly force after all.