Donald Trump presents himself as a victim

Denver, New York Donald Trump reacted as usual to the court-ordered investigation of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida: with an attack.

“These are dark times for our nation as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida is currently under siege, ransacked and occupied by a large group of FBI agents. Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States.” The raid was neither “necessary nor appropriate”. The judiciary is being used as a weapon by left-wing Democrats to prevent “that I run for president in 2024”.

Siege, occupation, the judiciary as a weapon of the left: Trump uses civil war vocabulary. While the Justice Department and the FBI initially did not comment, the first background leaked out. The investigation was cleared by top Justice Department and FBI officials, according to consistent reports. FBI chief Chris Wray was appointed by Trump himself.

Insiders believe Trump took secret government files to Mar-a-Lago instead of handing them over to the US National Archives as requested. At the beginning of the year, a congressional committee had already dealt with a corresponding complaint from the National Archives.

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In order to obtain the search warrant, the FBI had to convince the court that there was a high probability that evidence of illegal activity would be found, former FBI agent Tracy Walder told NBC. That was obviously successful.

An appeals court also ruled on Tuesday that Trump must disclose his tax records to the House Committee. The judges found that the committee’s demands did not violate the principle of the separation of powers or the constitution. “We expect to receive the requested tax returns and audit papers immediately,” the panel tweeted after the judge’s verdict. A lawyer working for Trump initially declined to comment on whether the ex-president will appeal to the US Supreme Court.
The committee sued the Republican in 2019 to force disclosure of tax returns. Trump became the first president in 40 years not to release his tax returns because he did not want to disclose details of his assets and activities of his family business, the Trump Organization. Trump had argued that the Democratic-dominated committee wanted to see his tax records for political reasons.

mobilization of supporters

Trump knows he must use these two unique events in US history to mobilize his supporters. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said he would open an investigation into the Justice Department over the raid once his Republicans retake the chamber in the fall. “I’ve seen enough,” McCarthy tweeted.

Trump’s estate in Florida

The ex-president of the USA is said not to have stayed there.

(Photo: Reuters)

Numerous other Conservative MPs condemned the search on social media, mostly staunch Trump supporters. The party in the House of Representatives remains close to the ex-president – probably also with a view to their chances in the upcoming midterm elections in November.

Trump only laid the groundwork for this at the weekend with his appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Texas. CPAC is an influential right-wing organization that regularly invites prominent conservatives with radical views to its conferences. Trump owes much of his political success to her. In his speech, which lasted a good two hours, he called on his supporters to engage in a directional struggle. The country is being “destroyed more from within than from without,” Trump said. It is “on the edge of an abyss”. It is “our movement that can save the country”.

This militant mood was also reflected by other speakers at the conference. “We have to fight like hell,” said Keri Lake, the Arizona Republican nominee for governor who is supported by Trump.

The conservatives are “at war” with the left, said Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon. And Texas Senator Ted Cruz was drawn to a comparison with the gladiators. “You grab a battle ax and then you fight the barbarians.”

Alleged FBI crackdown on Donald Trump

This caught on with the loyal fans. After the search, supporters gathered in front of his Mar-a-Lago property and called on Trump to run for office in 2024.

2024 firmly in sight

There was a heated debate in the political establishment as to whether the search would benefit Trump or harm him. President Joe Biden has been on the upswing of late with the latest jobs data, the climate package passed and the killing of an al Qaeda leader in Kabul.

Trump, in turn, urgently needs to go on the offensive. His support outside of CPAC supporters is crumbling. Polls have recently shown that his long-running election campaign – the refuted accusation that the 2020 election was stolen from him – is becoming less and less popular with his own supporters. In July, a Siena College poll showed that nearly half of Republicans registered for the primary want a different candidate in 2024. And according to political scientists, only a third of the deputies are reliably behind him.

Former allies have turned their backs. “Trump’s influence is steadily dwindling,” his former security adviser John Bolton told Handelsblatt on Friday. “It’s not zero, but it’s getting weaker all the time.” In the Senate, the first Republican senators have distanced themselves from Trump in recent months.

However, writing off the former president would be premature. Many partisans fear Trump’s media machine, which keeps them in line. On Tuesday, for example, some high-ranking Republicans commented anonymously on the FBI search and questioned the official party line that this was a trick by the Democrats.

Against this background, the behavior of Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, is interesting. He is considered a promising potential rival of Trump in the 2024 primaries – but officially sticks strictly to Trump. De Santis called the raid “another escalation in arming federal agencies against the regime’s political opponents.”

The Democrats were initially reticent. It was only on Tuesday that Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House Majority Leader, dared to come out of cover. “Nobody is above the law,” Pelosi explained, “not even a former President of the United States.” She found out about the search from the media, she pushed it afterwards, she didn’t know any details.

The Democrats know only too well that if they show up too much in the face of the investigation against Trump, it can hurt them badly in the elections.

More: FBI searches Trump’s home in Florida and gains access to safe

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