FBI’s raid on Trump home sparks Republican outrage
The FBI search on Monday of the Florida home of Donald Trump for classified documents has sparked a torrent of outrage among Republicans, with some vowing to investigate the law-enforcement agency and the Justice Department and others saying the unprecedented raid could help the former US president politically.
“It’s been a rallying cry for Republicans like I haven’t seen in decades,” Brian Ballard, a GOP lobbyist and fundraiser, said of the unannounced search by agents of Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club and residence in Palm Beach.
In reference to speculation that Trump may soon announce a run for the presidency in 2024, Jason Miller, a longtime adviser and former spokesman, told The Washington Post: “It furthers his inclination to run and galvanizes the Republican base on his behalf.”
As for Trump, the Post reported on Tuesday that one unnamed adviser who spoke to the ex-president after the search said he sounded buoyed by it, bragging about how many Republicans were supporting him publicly, and said he thought the search would help him in the end.
Early on Tuesday morning, Trump posted a new campaign-style video on his Truth Social site, declaring “the best is yet to come”. Late on Monday evening, his political team began sending out fundraising solicitations in relation to the search.
The search on Monday is part of an extensive federal investigation into whether Trump took classified records from the White House to his Florida residence.
In January, the National Archives said it had retrieved 15 boxes of White House records that included classified information from Mar-aLago that Trump should have turned over after he left the White House. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents reportedly took a further 12 boxes of material on Monday.
Christina Bobb, a lawyer for Trump, said in an interview on Real America’s Voice on Tuesday that investigators said they were “looking for classified information that they think should not have been removed from the White House, as well as presidential records’’.
The FBI and the Justice Department declined to comment on the search. The White House said President Joe Biden was unaware of the search until after it was on the news.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the West Wing first learned of the search from public media reports and the White House had not been briefed in the run-up or the aftermath. “We are not involved,” she said. Trump was in the New York area at the time of the search. Eric Trump, one of his sons, told Fox News that he was the one who told his father that the search was taking place and that the warrant was related to presidential documents.
In a lengthy statement on Monday, Trump disclosed the search. He said that his “beautiful home” was “under siege, raided and occupied” while complaining that he was a victim of the “weaponization of the Justice system” by Democrats who wanted to stop him from becoming president again.
The search was conducted on the basis of a legally authorized warrant. A federal judge had to sign off on the warrant after establishing that the FBI had shown probable cause before they could carry out the search. The search, however, doesn’t mean prosecutors have determined that Trump committed a crime.