DHe White House is silent. The judiciary is silent. The FBI is silent. Two days after a search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach (Florida), federal police are keeping a low profile when it comes to justifying the action. In an unprecedented move in U.S. history, law enforcement officials have so far kept any findings from Monday’s raids secret from the public. Even the wording of the search warrant is not known.
Pressure on the FBI and Attorney General Merrick Garland is mounting significantly. Many Americans want to know: What is the reason for the search? What items from Trump’s presidency still stored in his personal home? What documents did the FBI find and was there a criminal connection?
Almost three months before Congress elections, Monday’s search polarized an already politically divided country. Republicans have ordered a “harassment” of Trump, a political move President Joe Biden has ordered as his potential challenger to Trump in the 2024 election.
Biden’s party colleagues say the search is justified. Some may be secretly relieved that the Justice Department, under Secretary Garland, is finally taking action against Trump, which Democrats believe has so far been passive.
“People are really angry about this whole thing,” Republican Congressman Don Crenshaw told Fox News on Wednesday: “They saw a pattern in the judiciary that didn’t start with Biden, it started with Obama.” He remembered the former. – Unproven – Allegations that Trump deliberately colluded with Russia on his own behalf. Crenshaw complained that the only thing known about the raid was “it was about documents.”
Police in front of Trump properties raided Monday
WHAT: AP Photo/Terry Renna
The raid appears to be related to an investigation into whether Trump illegally took documents from the White House. A law requires that all letters, memos, emails, faxes and other written correspondence from the President be archived. Violators face up to three years in prison and disqualification from public office.
Republican Rep. Crenshaw said Wednesday it was about “classified documents that were improperly handled.” That’s “probably true,” but could easily be clarified by Trump’s subpoena. FBI agents took 12 boxes after the search, Trump’s lawyer said Tuesday.
“Weaponized Politics”
In January, a year into his term, Trump moved 15 boxes from the White House to Mar-a-Lago to the National Archives. Since then, there have been internal debates within the FBI about whether Trump actually turned everything over.
Crenshaw, a Republican, said the raid is drawing attention it doesn’t deserve and “feels very politicized.” Trump argues the same way, calling the search “a weaponization of the judicial system and an attack by far-left Democrats who seriously don’t want me running for president in 2024.”
Kevin McCarthy, who could become Speaker of the House after Republicans win the midterm elections, echoed Trump’s story, calling the crackdown “weaponized politicization.” He threatened revenge and announced an inquiry into the work of the judiciary if his party returned to power.
Former Vice President Mike Pence accused the judiciary of bias. The White House said Biden was not notified in advance of the search. The President respects the independence of the judiciary. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi learned about the search through the media.
Democratic MP Ted Lew declared that America is “not Russia, where the law does not apply to the head of state and his cronies.” The Justice Department and the FBI have given Trump and his people all the time to return official documents, including classified documents, said David Laughman, the Justice Department’s former counterintelligence director.
“If Mar-a-Lago has classified information, especially if he hasn’t turned it over to the department and the FBI after all these months, the president is in significant legal jeopardy,” Laughman told CNN on Wednesday.
During the raid, Trump complained that FBI agents told bystanders, including his lawyers, to leave the building so they could conduct the search unobserved — a not uncommon practice when searching for evidence.
Make money with raids
Meanwhile, the former president has another immediate problem: He is scheduled to testify under oath in a civil dispute over his company’s business practices in New York on Wednesday. Trump followed a subpoena from New York Attorney General Letitia James. However, an hour later, he said he refused to answer questions citing the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution.
“I refused to answer questions citing the rights and privileges granted to every citizen under the United States Constitution,” Trump said. Meanwhile, the former president is trying to make financial gains from the search. In an email he asked for donations, referring to the experiment.
In a way, Trump is behaving like the FBI and the Justice Department: He is keeping secret the wording of the search warrant issued to him. Trump also did not say what items were in the twelve confiscated boxes.
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