After the search of Donald Trump’s property, Republicans support the former president and speak of politically motivated maneuvers. This could mobilize Trump supporters.
The search for former President Donald Trump’s Florida property has made waves among US Republicans. The charge of political maneuvering grew stronger. Senator Lindsey Graham, an influential Trump supporter, said: “Starting an investigation into a former president so close to an election goes beyond being problematic.”
Republican member of the US House of Representatives Elise Stefanik spoke of a “dark day in American history”. “If the FBI can search a US president, imagine what they can do to you,” Stefanik wrote to her Twitter followers. Democratic Representative Ted Lieu responded, “Why can’t the FBI investigate a US president? We are not Russia, where the law does not apply to the head of state and his cronies.”
Former US Vice President Mike Pence said he was “deeply concerned” about the search. This smacks of Justice Department “partisanship,” he tweeted on Tuesday. No previous president has been the target of a home invasion in US history.
The background to the incident is still unclear.
According to Trump, the FBI and several officials searched his Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach on Monday night (local time). The Federal Police declined to give a reason for the search. The FBI is headed by Chrisopher Wray, whom Trump appointed during his term as president.
According to media reports, the search may be related to documents Trump took from the White House to Mar-a-Lago after his presidency ended in January 2021, although by law he was supposed to have turned over all documents to the National Archives. The files confirmed last February that they had seized 15 boxes of documents at Mar-a-Lago that Trump had taken with him when he left Washington.
Instrumentation of the attack
Trump presented the sting operation that is now taking place as politically motivated. It’s a “weapon of the judicial system and an attack by radical left-wing Democrats, who desperately don’t want me to run for president in 2024,” the Republican said. Kevin McCarthy, who is running for the House of Representatives after a Republican victory in the midterm elections, reiterated the accusation against the US Department of Justice that the search was “politicization used as a weapon”.
The White House said Trump’s successor Joe Biden of the US Democrats was not informed in advance about the search of Trump’s home. President Biden respects the independence of the Department of Justice, said his spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre. When asked about the risk of unrest in response to Trump’s anger at the judiciary, she said “there is no place for political violence in this country.”
Trump’s former communications chief, Alyssa Farah Griffin, said the search in Mar-a-Lago could mobilize his supporters. “If this is seen as some sort of massive transgression and not something incredibly serious, then it’s a good day for Donald Trump,” she told CNN. On Tuesday, only a small number of Trump supporters gathered outside his home in Palm Beach.
Trump ally’s cell phone confiscated
Meanwhile, Republican Representative Scott Perry said three FBI agents confiscated his cell phone. This happened while he was traveling with his family, Perry told Fox News without commenting on why. He condemned “such tactics of the banana republic”. Perry is said to have played a major role in the Trump team’s attempt to reverse the outcome of the lost 2020 presidential election.
(APA/AFP/Chris Lefkow/Camille Camdessus)