Could “place” evidence
Trump suspects manipulation in FBI raid
08/10/2022, 4:55 p.m
The FBI searches Donald Trump’s estate – an extraordinary process. Neither Trump nor his lawyers are allowed to be there. A less unusual occurrence. Nevertheless, the ex-president senses the next conspiracy.
After the raid on his Florida home, former US President Donald Trump suggested that FBI agents could “place” evidence there. “Everyone has been asked to leave the premises,” Trump wrote about the FBI’s search on his online network. “They wanted to be alone, without any witnesses to what they were doing, taking away or – hopefully not – ‘placing’.”
“The FBI and other government officials are not letting anyone, not even my attorneys, near the searched areas,” Trump said. His Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach was searched by the FBI with numerous officers on Monday evening. This had been massively criticized by Trump and leading representatives of his Republicans.
The federal police declined to give a reason for the search. This was a court-authorized action in connection with documents that Trump took from the White House to Mar-a-Lago after the end of his presidency in January 2021. US law requires that all letters, memos, emails, faxes, and other written correspondence sent by a president be archived for posterity. Violators face a prison sentence of up to three years and a ban from holding public office.
Trump uses the opportunity to appeal for donations
Trump apparently wants to make political capital out of the fuss surrounding the raid. The 76-year-old specifically referred to the searches in an email appeal for donations to the party: “The lawlessness, political persecution and witch hunts must be disclosed and stopped,” Trump wrote. The raid is a step in the investigation and does not mean Trump will be prosecuted at all.
Trump is said to have ambitions for another presidential candidacy in 2024. “You are trying once again to stop the Republican Party and me,” he wrote in his email to potential party donors. The ex-president has repeatedly falsely claimed that his victory in the 2020 election was stolen through voter fraud.