The former president, the Republicans and the extreme right exploit the action of Justice for political purposes
The White House denies that Biden previously knew about the operation, linked to the irregular handling of documents
The latest earthquake in United States politics once again has at its epicenter donald trump. As is often the case when he is involved, he is shaking the tectonic plates of the country. And in less than 24 hours since it began, he has supported the former president as potential presidential candidate in 2024 and how most influential figure in the Republican Partyhas exploded again radical polarization only three months before the legislative elections and has given wings to the extreme right to stir up a cocktail of political and social tension that, as the assault on the Capitol recalled, is highly unstable and explosive in the US.
On Monday, in an action for which historians find no precedent and which represents an escalation in the siege of investigations that hang over Trump, agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI for its acronym in English) searched for hours with a judicial authorization the residence of the former president in Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach, Florida.
Document management
Although the official silence of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice regarding this search currently prevents knowing with certainty what was sought and what the agents took, the operation is linked to the Trump’s irregular handling of official documents, according to sources familiar with the investigation cited by the US press.
Specifically, at the center of the investigations are 15 boxes that contained some classified documents and that Trump took from the White House to Mar-a-Lago. The National Archivesthe agency to which they should have turned them over had they followed the Presidential Records Act, only got them after months of negotiations in January of this year and under pressure to pursue them through legal action.
Trump may not have delivered all the materials he was due. At least that is what various reports point to, explaining that in June federal agents visited Mar-a-Lago to discuss the official materials. According to a FoxNews source, after that meeting the FBI and Justice felt that Trump’s cooperation eroded and your team.
Trump, angry
Be that as it may, and with Judicial and political consequences for Trump still unknown, the record arrived on Monday. And despite the questions still open about the objective of Justice, the earthquake began.
Trump himself reported the operation in a statement in which he spoke of “raid” and “trespassing” and in which he framed the record as part of the political persecution of which he claims to be a victim even before he became president. “Is a assault that could only happen in third World countries” he said. “Unfortunately, the US has become one of those countries, corrupt to a level never seen before & rdquor ;.
The exmandatario also assured that what happened had been orchestrated by “the radical left democrats” to stop him as a candidate in 2024 and also to stop the Republicans in the legislative elections.
His denunciations immediately resonated with other Republican politicians, including potential presidential candidates who would benefit if Trump could not run for president again, and in conservative media. And the right has not stopped from the first minute after the FBI record of repeating slogans accusing the Democrats of “having turned the Department of Justice and the FBI in a politicized weapon”.
These are accusations that, as many critics of Trump have underlined, contrast with the own politicization that during his tenure he made of the Department of Justice, whom William Barr, his attorney general, has testified, tried to involve in his attempt to reverse the results of the presidential elections that he lost to Joe Biden. And they also collide with the multiple calls he made since his first candidacy to investigate (as was done) the Democrat Hillary Clinton for using a private email server when I was Secretary of State.
Biden was not informed
From the White House It has been denied from the outset that there was evidence of the action that the FBI was going to take. And this Tuesday, Biden’s spokeswoman, Karine Jean-Pierre, has assured that the president was not informed in advance.” The Department of Justice independently conducts investigations and we leave any matters related to law enforcement & rdquor ; to them, the Press Secretary has said, which she has dismissed as “inappropriate & rdquor; comment further on the operation and has refused to assess its political implications.
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You will, in any case. Republicans have been united in their criticism of the registry. They have started using it in their fundraising messages and with the clear hope that, as happened with the Supreme Court ruling on abortion that has mobilized progressives, it will serve to mobilize conservatives ahead of November.
More problematic still is that the extreme right, politics and media, he is showing more than just fury and indignation. And influential figures and radical media speak since Monday of “war” or “civil war”.