Craig Robertson was accused of threatening to kill President Biden — and his own violent death could fuel more anti-government rhetoric
“FBI is now killing all online critics of Biden,” Ali Alexander, organizer of “Stop the Steal” protests that fueled the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, announced on his Telegram account on Wednesday. “This is all by design.”
This alarming claim was prompted by the death of Craig Deleeuw Robertson, 75, in an FBI raid on his Provo, Utah residence early that morning.
In the aftermath of the raid, plenty of media attention focused on the nature of Robertson’s alleged threats, which broadly targeted Democrats and perceived enemies of Donald Trump. According to the charging documents, agents had tried to speak to him in person in March about a Truth Social post in which he related a violent fantasy about murdering New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg — who indicted Trump in April on many counts of falsifying business records. (Truth Social itself reportedly tipped the FBI off about the post.) After rebuffing agents in that encounter, according to charging documents, Robertson allegedly posted on Facebook that they had come close to “violent eradication.” This month, upon learning that Biden was to visit Utah, Robertson allegedly stated on Facebook that he was “cleaning the dust off” of an M24 sniper rifle. Based on other social media content, including photos of his many guns, investigators believed he owned such a weapon.
On Telegram, a channel for the QAnon-linked group “The Patriot Voice,” which has more than 50,000 subscribers, shared a link to an article about Robertson’s death. The message added scare quotes around the word “threats” when describing his social media posts. “What do you think,” the author wrote, “does the FBI have a right to KILL someone during a search warrant just because of some statement made online?” One commenter chimed in to say, “It sounds like Biden used the FBI to do his dirty work.”