GOP rallies around Trump following 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 Jan. 6 committee. Some 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 Trump.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who likely represents Trump’s strongest potential primary challenger, described the Biden administration as a “regime” and called Monday’s Mar-aLago search for improperly taken classified documents “another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the Regime’s political opponents.”

The GOP push to portray Trump as the victim of a politicized 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 GOP-led Justice Department.

But the robust defense serves as a fresh reminder of Trump’s enduring grip on the GOP, driven by an ability to use a sense of grievance among many GOP voters toward government and other institutions. Trump tapped into that animosity to overcome two impeachments and the fallout from an insurrection. His allies said that the FBI search would only strengthen his position again.

“The sooner he kicks off his campaign, the better,” Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, the chair of the Republican Study Committee, said in an interview.

Banks was among about a dozen GOP lawmakers who spent Tuesday with Trump at his summer home in Bedminster, New Jersey. During a meal, the group talked about the Nov. 8 elections and the 2024 presidential race, Banks said. Trump told the lawmakers “his mind is made up” about a 2024 campaign and “we’ll all be happy with his decision.”

But on Tuesday, at least, the GOP was squarely behind Trump, its undisputed leader.

One of Trump’s most vocal supporters, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, almost seemed to thank the Justice Department for bringing her party together.

“I’ve talked a lot about the civil war in the GOP and I lean into it because America needs fearless & effective Republicans to finally put America First,” she tweeted.