Former President Donald Trump went nuclear on Monday after the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago club and residence in Palm Beach, Florida.
“The purpose of the raid was, from what they said, was because the National Archives wanted to corroborate whether or not Donald Trump had a safe full of classified material,” Trump told reporters. “Can you believe this? They actually broke into my safe.”
Trump called the raid “an outrageous abuse of power” and compared it to something you would see in a “third world country.”
“This is some third world bullsh*t,” Trump said. “I have been very cooperative with them. I could have stopped it, but I thought it was very insulting, so I let them go ahead.”
“The FBI showed up at my father’s house with a search warrant to look for classified material that they believed may have been improperly stored,” Eric Trump said. “My father had nothing to do with any of this.”
The raid is the latest development in the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation into whether Trump and his associates mishandled classified information. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.
The FBI raid of Donald Trump’s private residence in Florida has sent shockwaves across America, with many wondering what it could mean for the former president’s 2024 presidential plans.
Trump’s allies have slammed the move as an act of revenge by the Biden administration, while his opponents have called for accountability. Speculation is also rife about what this could mean for Trump’s White House bid in 2024, with some suggesting he may announce his candidacy sooner than planned.
Some prominent Republicans openly speculated that the raid could be an opening move in an effort to impeach Trump or even jail him – prompting howls of outrage from the former president and his allies.
“The greatest overreaction and abuse of power in the history of our country!” Trump tweeted on Tuesday morning.
In a sign of how seriously Trump is taking the raid, he has retained veteran criminal defense attorney William Burck to represent him. Burck also represents Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, in the Mueller investigation.
Trump has long railed against what he sees as politically motivated investigations by law enforcement, and the latest raid is likely to add fuel to those fire. His allies have already begun to cast it as part of a “witch hunt” against the former president.
Some Republicans close to Trump have even suggested that the FBI may have staged the raid in order to embarrass the former president.
“I wouldn’t put it past them,” said one Republican close to Trump, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter. “They have been gunning for him from day one.”
The FBI declined to comment on the raid. It is unclear what agents were looking for or what they seized. A source familiar with the matter said that investigators had served a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago and that the raid was not related to Trump’s social media activity.
