Dhe White House is silent. The Justice Department is silent. The FBI is silent. Even two days after the search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach (Florida), the federal police are keeping a low profile when it comes to justifying the action. The law enforcement authorities have so far kept any findings from Monday’s raid, unprecedented in American history, secret from the public. Not even the wording of the search warrant is known.
The pressure on the FBI and Attorney General Merrick Garland is increasing significantly. Many Americans want to know: What was the reason for the search? What material from his tenure as President did Trump still store in his private domicile? What documents did the FBI find and is there criminal relevance?
Almost three months before the congressional elections, Monday’s search polarized the already politically divided country. Republicans speak of a “persecution” of Trump, of a political action, of a measure that President Joe Biden ordered against Trump as his potential challenger in the 2024 election.
Biden’s party colleagues consider the search to be justified. Some might be secretly relieved that the judiciary under Secretary Garland, which the Democrats believe has so far been inactive against Trump, is finally taking action.
“People are really angry about this whole thing,” Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw told Fox News on Wednesday: “They saw a pattern at the Justice Department, and it didn’t start with Biden, it started with Obama.” He recalled the previous – unproven – allegations that Trump had deliberately cooperated with Russia on his own behalf. Crenshaw complained that the only thing that was known about the raid was “that it was about documents”.
Police in front of Trump’s property, which was searched on Monday
Source: AP Photo/Terry Renna
The raid is apparently linked to an investigation into whether Trump illegally took documents from the White House. A law requires that all letters, memos, emails, faxes, and other written correspondence from a president be archived. Violators face a prison sentence of up to three years and a ban from holding public office.
Republican Rep. Crenshaw said Wednesday it was about “secret documents that were improperly handled.” That was “maybe true”, but could easily be clarified by a subpoena from Trump. A lawyer for Trump said Tuesday that FBI officials took away 12 boxes after the search.
“Weaponized Politicization”
Back in January, a year after the end of his term, Trump turned over 15 boxes he had taken from the White House to Mar-a-Lago to the National Archives. Since then, there have apparently been internal discussions in the FBI as to whether Trump really handed over everything.
Republican Crenshaw says the raid is attracting attention that it doesn’t deserve and “feels extremely politicized.” Trump himself argues the same way. He called the search a “use of the judicial system as a weapon and an attack by the radical left-wing Democrats who desperately do not want me to run for president in 2024”.
Kevin McCarthy, who could become speaker of the House after a Republican win in the midterm election, echoed Trump’s narrative, calling the crackdown a “weaponized politicization.” He threatened retaliation and announced an investigation into the work of the Justice Department if his party were back in power.
Former Vice President Mike Pence accused the Justice Department of bias. The White House said Biden was not given advance notice of the search. The President respects the independence of the Justice Department. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she learned about the search from the media.
Democratic MP Ted Lieu declared that the US is “not Russia, where the law does not apply to the head of state and his cronies”. Justice Department and FBI have given Trump and his people all the time to return official documents, including potentially classified documents, said David Laufman, former director of counterintelligence at the Justice Department.
“The President is in significant legal jeopardy if he kept classified information in Mar-a-Lago and especially if he hasn’t turned it over to the Department and the FBI all these months afterwards,” Laufman told CNN on Wednesday.
Trump himself complained that during the raid, the FBI agents asked those present, including his lawyers, to leave the building so that they could conduct their search unobserved – a not unusual procedure when looking for evidence.
Make money with the raid
The ex-president, meanwhile, has another immediate problem: he was scheduled to testify under oath in a civil dispute over his company’s business practices in New York on Wednesday. Trump followed a subpoena from New York Attorney General Letitia James. After a little over an hour, however, he announced that he had declined to answer questions, citing the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution.
“I declined to answer the questions, citing the rights and privileges accorded every citizen under the United States Constitution,” Trump said. Meanwhile, the ex-president is trying to make financial gain from the search. In an email he asked for donations, referring to the raid.
In one respect, Trump behaves like the FBI and the Justice Department: he keeps the wording of the search warrant issued to him secret. Trump also left unanswered what materials were in the confiscated twelve boxes.