WASHINGTON, DC — The
FBI raid on US former
president Donald Trump’s palatial Florida residence has supercharged the
polarizing political debate around the slew of judicial investigations facing
Trump as he considers another White House run.
اضافة اعلان
Monday’s action marked a stunning escalation of
legal probes into the 45th US president, drawing cheers from his political foes
and condemnation from his allies.
“Nothing like this has ever happened to a president
of the US before,” the 76-year-old Trump said of the day-long FBI search of his
Mar-a-Lago resort.
He denounced the FBI raid as “weaponization of the
justice system” by “radical left
Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run
for president in 2024”.
The FBI declined to provide a reason for the
unprecedented move against a former chief executive.
But multiple US media outlets said agents were
conducting a court-authorized search related to the potential mishandling of
classified documents that had been sent to Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the
White House in January 2021.
Trump has also been facing intense legal scrutiny
for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and the January 6
attack on the US Capitol by his supporters.
Since leaving office, Trump has remained the
country’s most divisive figure, continuing to sow falsehoods that he actually
won the 2020 vote.
‘Deep concern’
Leading
Republicans rallied
around the former president, who was not present at Mar-a-Lago when the raid
took place.
Trump’s former vice president Mike Pence, a
potential 2024 rival, expressed “deep concern” over the search of Trump’s home
and said it smacks of “partisanship” by the US Justice Department.
Kevin McCarthy, who is seeking to become speaker of
the House of Representatives if Republicans win November’s midterm elections,
accused the Justice Department of “weaponized politicization.”
Republican Party chairwoman Ronna McDaniel called
the raid “outrageous”.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a close Trump
ally, said “launching an investigation of a former president this close to an
election is beyond problematic.”
Dan Scavino, Trump’s former social media manager,
urged him to accelerate an announcement that he would run again.
“DO IT — 45! #TRUMP2024,” Scavino tweeted.
‘No one is above the law’
Democrats reacted cautiously
or withheld comment.
“No person is
above the law,”
Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House, told NBC.
“Not even a former president of the US.”
Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut,
said “once we decide that the rich and powerful are above the law, we stop
being America.”
In his statement, Trump did not give any indication
about why the FBI raided his home but said: “They even broke into my safe!”
Andrew McCabe, a former FBI deputy director, said he
believed agents may have been looking for “something specific” related to its
probe into the handling of classified information.
The National Archives said in February that it had
recovered 15 boxes of documents from Mar-a-Lago and asked the Justice
Department to look into Trump’s handling of classified material.
The recovery of the boxes raised questions about
Trump’s adherence to presidential records laws enacted after the 1970s
Watergate scandal that require Oval Office occupants to preserve records.
Speaking on CNN, McCabe said “there had to be a
suspicion, a concern, and indeed specific information that led (the FBI) to
believe that there were additional materials that were not turned over.”
‘Some
sort of massive overreach’
Trump’s former
communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin told CNN the raid could fire up
his supporters, a small number of whom rallied outside Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday.
“If it’s seen as some sort of massive overreach and
not something incredibly serious, this is a very good day for Donald Trump,”
Farah Griffin said.
For weeks, Washington has been riveted by hearings
in Congress about the January 6 storming of the Capitol and
Trump’s attempts to
overturn the election won by Democrat Joe Biden.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has been careful
not to tip his hand when asked whether the Justice Department is building a
legal case against Trump over the Capitol riot.
“No one is above the law,” Garland has said, while
adding that he intends to “hold accountable every person who is criminally
responsible for trying to overturn a legitimate election.”
An administration official said the White House “did
not have notice of the reported action” and referred further questions to the
Justice Department.
Trump is also being investigated for his efforts to
alter the 2020 voting results in the state of Georgia, while his business
practices are being probed in New York in separate cases, one civil and the
other criminal.
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