Donald Trump’s presidency sometimes threatened to tear America apart, and the country’s democracy, institutions and equilibrium staggered away from his four-year term. FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.
Trump reapplied his grip on the national psyche by orchestrating a fierce backlash against the bureau, the Justice Department and the Biden White House, which has said it had no warning of the FBI activity.
But a strong sense of the unknown hangs over the entire case, fueling the conservative counter-attack and leading to a torrent of speculation about the motives for the search and the material taken away by FBI teams. And because government prosecutors don’t typically talk about ongoing investigations unless they decide to charge someone — to ensure the integrity of the probe and the privacy of those under investigation — it is unlikely there will be clarity on the situation anytime soon.
FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home earlier this week were reportedly looking for classified nuclear documents, among other items.
After the former president, 76, announced that the FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, Florida, resort on Monday, a source told The Washington Post that the investigation was regarding sensitive materials, including nuclear weapons. It was not clear if FBI recovered such documents.
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland moved on Thursday to make public the legal authorization for the FBI’s search of former President Donald J. Trump’s home in Florida
Mr Garland said he had personally approved the search after the failure of “less intrusive” attempts to retrieve material taken from the White House by Mr Trump.
Mr Garland provided no details. But the person briefed on the matter said investigators had been concerned about material from what the government calls “special access programs,”.
a designation even more classified than “top secret” typically reserved for susceptible operations carried out by the United States abroad or for closely held technologies and capabilities.
Donald Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social, that he was “encouraging” their release. “Release the documents now!” he said.
The search on Monday of Mr Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago, his private club, was the most explosive development yet in the various inquiries. The investigation centres on whether he improperly took sensitive materials with him from the White House when his term ended and then failed to return all of them — including classified documents — when the National Archives and the Justice Department demanded that he do so.
Months before the FBI arrived at Mar-a-Lago, Mr Trump had received a subpoena this spring in search of documents that federal investigators believed he had failed to turn over earlier in the year. When Trump returned 15 boxes of material to the archives, three people familiar with the matter said.
Trump called this investigation “the weaponization of the Justice system,” arguing that a criminal case against him threatened to unravel American democracy.
It was a curious claim for a man who launched his 2016 presidential campaign on the chant “Lock her up!”– calling for the imprisonment of his then-political rival Hillary Clinton. The White House says Biden had no idea about the unannounced FBI search, which is as it should be. The Justice Department is meant to be independent of politics. Trump’s son Eric said he knows the White House and doesn’t buy it. In the White House, he knows (Trump), the president, would be involved in such a decision.
Mishandling government materials is a crime.
A former top official in Bill Clinton’s presidency was prosecuted in 2005 for destroying three copies of one document. At the time, that was a misdemeanour. But, in 2018, Trump signed a law making it a felony. He notably did this in the wake of his attacks on Hillary Clinton and her “careless” handling of government emails.
From echoes of Watergate to the more immediate House probe of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, Washington, a city used to sleepy Augusts, reeled from one speculative or accusatory headline to the next.
About two dozen Trump supporters stood in protest midmorning Tuesday in the Florida summer heat and sporadic light rain on a bridge near the former president’s residence.
One held a sign reading “Democrats are Fascists”, while others carried flags saying “2020 Was Rigged,” “Trump 2024”, and Biden’s name with an obscenity. Some cars honked in support as they passed. Former President Donald Trump’s supporters are rallying to his defence and deepening their suspicions after FBI agents searched Trump’s Palm Beach home, Mar-a-Lago, on Monday.
“It’s an invasion of a president’s property and his life, and it cannot stand,” Trump supporter Joseph Korff said. Some Trump loyalists told CBS News that they see a system out of balance, with multiple investigations of Trump and less emphasis on investigating suspected wrongdoing by Democrats.
Following various threats from Trump’s supporters, Daniel J. Jones, a former US Senate investigator, said, “It can be difficult to distinguish between empty and serious threats of violence online. we cannot ignore it. we are seeing conspiratorial rhetoric from elected officials, political leaders, and political entertainers fueling calls for real-world violence”.
“The conspiratorial and divisive rhetoric from elected officials and others who should know better — is continuing to undermine our institutions and democracy at an alarming rate” said Jones.
Based on what we know, there are three major legal takeaways from the FBI’s search of Donald Trump’s Florida home on Monday.
- First, this is a big deal, historically and constitutionally speaking. I can tell that a criminal search warrant has never been executed against a former president.
- Second, from the perspective of criminal investigation, the surprise raid was a highly unusual, aggressive step. In almost all criminal investigations of nonviolent conduct, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice would have requested cooperation from the defendant’s lawyers, not surprising the defendant and breaking into his safe
- And third, despite the drama, executing the search warrant is far from a guarantee that Trump will take any criminal action. There is some reason to think that the public raid will take some of the heat off Attorney General Merrick Garland, whom President Joe Biden has been urging to act against Trump, without forcing him into a prosecution decision, he has strong reason to avoid.
Trump’s Vice President Mike Pence, a potential 2024 rival, tweeted Tuesday, “Yesterday’s action undermines public confidence in our justice system.
He added,” Attorney General Garland must give a full accounting to the American people as to why FBI took this action, and he must do so immediately.” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell echoed Pence, saying, “Attorney General Garland and the Department of Justice should already have provided answers to the American people and must do so immediately.”
During the search, Lindsey Halligan, a Florida-based attorney for the former president, was among two of Trump’s lawyers at Mar-a-Lago. She told CBS News that the FBI targeted three rooms: Trump’s bedroom, his office and a storage room.