"They even broke into my safe!". Donald Trump is outraged. The former American president announced on Monday August 8 that his famous Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago, had been “searched” by the federal police (FBI). "Our nation is living in dark times, my beautiful home, Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is under siege and has been raided and occupied by numerous FBI agents," Donald Trump said in a statement, saying to himself. victim of "political persecution".
"After working and cooperating with the relevant government agencies, this unannounced search of my home was neither necessary nor appropriate," said Donald Trump, who was not there, according to the New York Times. Aerial footage of Mar-a-Lago showed police cruisers outside the property. Supporters of Donald Trump also gathered outside, waving banners bearing his name or American flags bearing his likeness. Contacted by AFP, the FBI, which has not yet confirmed the search, declined to comment.
The Republican, directly or indirectly linked to several court cases, did not specify the reason. But, according to American media, in particular the New York Times, which cites sources close to the investigation, the intervention is part of an investigation into the mismanagement of classified documents, which had been sent to Mar-a-Lago. In February 2022, the National Archives said it had to recover in Florida fifteen boxes of documents that Donald Trump had taken with him when he left Washington in January 2021.
In these boxes, letters from Barack Obama and the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, a map of the United States which had been the subject of stormy exchanges with the American weather service, but also, according to the Washington Post, several documents marked "defense-secret".
The National Archives assure that the Republican had no right to leave with these boxes: under a 1978 law, any American president must transmit all of his e-mails, letters and other working documents. to this agency, responsible for keeping them. This federal agency had asked the American justice to open an investigation into these facts, according to American media.
White House staff also routinely discovered wads of papers clogging toilets from an upcoming book by a star New York Times reporter, or shredded classified documents in her room and elsewhere, sometimes leading officials to pick them up.
As the American daily reminds us, the criminal codes can be used to prosecute anyone "willfully injuring or committing depredation against any property of the United States" and anyone "willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, erases or destroys" government documents. . An offense punishable by imprisonment. In 2007, for example, Donald Keyser, an Asia expert and former top State Department official, was sentenced to prison after he confessed to keeping more than 3,000 sensitive documents - ranging from classified to top secret - in his basement.
The announcement of the search did not fail to provoke indignation in the Republican ranks. The leader of the Conservatives in the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, has denounced an “intolerable instrumentalization for political purposes” of the Ministry of Justice, promising an investigation into its functioning when the Republicans return to power. The director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, was in any case appointed … by Donald Trump.
Other cases threaten the former head of state. A House committee is seeking to shed light on the role the billionaire played in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. That day, hundreds of his supporters sowed violence and chaos inside the seat of Congress, delaying the certification of Joe Biden's presidential victory.
On July 21, Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the attack on the Capitol, estimated that all those responsible for the assault should answer for their actions in court, including at the White House. Even if Bennie Thompson did not name Donald Trump, his little sentence further increased the pressure on Justice Minister Merrick Garland, who will decide whether or not to indict the former Republican president. According to several lawyers, Donald Trump could instead be criminally prosecuted for "obstructing official procedure" or on a very broad count of "fraud in the government" which involves having disrupted the functioning of institutions.
The Department of Justice is investigating the attack on the Capitol but has not yet brought charges against the former president. At the end of July, Merrick Garland had not however ruled out this possibility. “We intend to hold to account whoever is criminally responsible for (their role in) the events around January 6, in any attempt to interfere with the legal transfer of power from one administration to another. “, he had said. Finally, two investigations, one civil and the other criminal, are being conducted in New York on suspicion of financial fraud within the Trump Organization.
Donald Trump, still very popular among Republicans, is flirting more and more openly with the idea of running for president in 2024. Some therefore warn against legal proceedings which would inevitably be perceived as political. "Indicting the president's former and future adversary would be a cataclysm from which the nation would struggle to recover," wrote Jack Goldsmith, a former senior Justice Department official in a column published by the New York Times. "It would fuel the already burning acrimony between our two parties."
Donald Trump is already presenting himself as the victim of a political cabal. The search of his famous Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago, is "a misconduct by the prosecutor, the instrumentalization of the justice system and an attack by the radical left Democrats who desperately do not want me to run for president in 2024”, thus denounced the former American president, according to the New York Times.
