Republican Party rallies around Trump after FBI search of estate
For much of the year, small cracks in Donald Trump’s political support have been growing.
Dissatisfied Republican primary voters began to consider new presidential prospects. GOP donors grappled with damaging revelations uncovered by the January 6 committee. Several party leaders pondered challenging Trump for the party’s 2024 nomination.
But after the FBI executed a search warrant at his Florida estate, the Republican Party unified swiftly behind the former president.
Florida Governor Ron Desantis, who likely represents Trump’s strongest potential primary challenger, described the Biden Administration as a “regime” and called Tuesday’s Mara-lago search for improperly taken classified documents “another escalation in the weaponisation of federal agencies against the regime’s political opponents”.
The Republican Party’s push to portray Trump as the victim of a politicised Justice Department ignored the potential criminal misconduct that justified the search in the eyes of a federal judge. It overlooked Trump’s role in hiring now-vilified FBI Director Chris Wray, who also served as a high-ranking official in a Republican-led Justice Department. The Biden White House, meanwhile, said it had no prior knowledge of the search.
But the vociferous defence of Trump serves as a fresh reminder of the former president’s enduring grip on the Republican Party, driven by an ability to use grievance and mistrust of government as a means to activate voters. Trump tapped into that animosity to overcome two impeachments and the fallout from an insurrection. His allies said yesterday that the FBI search would only strengthen his position again.
“Trump just won the 2024 primary,” pro-trump commentator Jack Posobiec declared.
The FBI search also seemed to trigger a shift among Trump’s advisers, who had been privately urging him to wait until after the Midterm elections to announce his intention to seek the presidency again. Suddenly, some of those same advisers were urging him to launch his campaign before the November elections.
Trump stoked such speculation in the hours after the search by posting a campaign-style video on social media. “The best is yet to come,” he said.
He followed up with a fundraising appeal, making it personal by declaring “it’s important that you know that it wasn’t just my home that was violated — it was the home of every patriotic American who I have been fighting for”.
In Columbia, South Carolina, Senator Lindsey Graham said he spoke to Trump and felt sure another campaign was coming.
“One thing I can tell you,” Graham said. “I believed he was going to run before. I’m stronger in my belief now.”
The search intensified the monthslong probe into how classified documents ended up in boxes of White House records located at Mar-a-lago earlier this year. A separate grand jury is investigating efforts by Trump and allies to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
In late June, long before the latest development, 48 per cent of US adults said Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol, according to a poll from AP-NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research.
Former Trump adviser Sam Nunberg said Tuesday’s FBI search would almost certainly strengthen Trump’s standing among Republican primary voters, especially those Republicans who had begun to lean toward Desantis or another fresh face.
But if Trump is ultimately indicted for a federal crime related to the search, as Nunberg said he expects, the former president’s ability to win over a broader group of voters in the 2024 general election could take a major hit.
“Despite the fantasies of everyone from Sean Hannity to Steve Bannon, I can promise you that someone under indictment isn’t going to get elected president of the United States,” Nunberg said.