Trump: Raid on Mar-a-Lago “Backfired”

by Sharon Rondeau

(Aug. 21, 2022) — On Sunday morning, 45th President of the United States Donald J. Trump opined on TruthSocial that the August 8 “politically motivated” raid at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, FL “backfired, big time!” and that in regard to another presidential run, he “may just have to do it again.”

“All polls STRONGLY indicate that I am the candidate that Democrats LEAST want to run against, by far, hence the politically motivated Raid on Mar-a- Lago – Which has backfired, big time!” his comment reads. “I beat them twice, did much better the second time (many millions more votes than the first!), and may just have to do it again. Our Country is going to Hell!”

Depending on the source, public reporting states that voters either approve of the raid or strongly oppose it and are now more “energized” to vote in the 2022 midterm elections.

Although Trump has not declared himself a candidate, he has given strong indications he intends to run in 2024 while continuing to maintain he won the 2020 election over Joe Biden.

One of those indications was his posting of a video in early July showing the refurbishing of his 2016 campaign aircraft, now in a new color scheme, with the commentary, “Get ready!” and the declaration that the plane would be “coming back to the skies in the Fall of 2022, or maybe sooner.”

Biden reportedly garnered more than 81 million votes, a number unheard-of in any national election, including presidential contests. At the same time, USA Today reported, Trump garnered more than 74 million votes, 12 million more than the 62.9 million votes The New York Times reported he won in 2016.

The electoral votes, the National Archives reported, were Biden’s 306 to Trump’s 232, almost an exact inversion of the results between Trump and Hillary Clinton four years before.

In a “Fact-Check” article dated December 9, 2020, USA Today reported:

Joe Biden received over 81 million votes, the most in history 

In the presidential election, there were 81,282,903 votes cast for Biden and 74,223,030 votes cast for President Donald Trump, according to a current tally from USA TODAY…

Both Biden and Trump racked up higher vote totals than Obama, who previously held the record – 69,498,516 votes in 2008, per USA TODAY.

What about county-level results?

On Nov. 10, the Brookings Institution published a report on county-level results. The report showed that Biden won 477 counties, while Trump won 2,497 counties. Results from dozens of counties were not finalized at the time, per Time magazine.

According to that data, Biden won just 16% of counties with finalized results.

On Dec. 8, the think tank updated its report with new data. The updated report showed that Biden won 509 counties, while Trump won 2,547 counties. Results from 28 counties have still not been finalized, per Brookings Institution.

But according to the updated data, Biden won 16.7% of counties with finalized results. That represents a record-low proportion for a winning presidential candidate.

Obama set the previous record in 2012 – with 689 counties, equal to 22%. Before that, he also set a record in 2008 with just 28% of counties, per NBC News.

In regard to the FBI, Trump posted late Saturday:

I hear that the great Agents & others in the FBI are furious at FBI leadership for what they are doing with respect to political weaponization against a President (me) that always had their backs, and that they like (love!) a lot. They don’t like being “used” by people they do not agree with, or respect. Likewise, they are not exactly thrilled with the leadership at DOJ! Similar to the revolt against Comey when he exonerated Crooked Hillary, but was forced, by them, to withdraw the exoneration!

According to several members of Congress, 14 FBI whistleblowers have reported political bias and “interference” at the Bureau which FBI Director Christopher Wray and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland have not addressed.

The Washington, DC FBI Field Office, which launched the probe into the 2016 Trump campaign’s alleged “collusion” with Russia which proved unsubstantiated and is itself under investigation by Special Counsel John Durham, also headed the Mar-a-Lago raid, according to RealClearInvestigations on August 18. RCI’s article focuses in part on an agent named Brian Auten, who Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) stated in a July 25 letter to the FBI and Justice Department protected Hunter by claiming reports of his questionable remuneration from Ukraine and other countries when his father was the sitting vice president was “disinformation.” Auten’s dismissal of the evidence, Grassley added, “caused investigative activity to cease.”

In December 2020, Hunter Biden reported himself to be under investigation for possible tax evasion. Since December 2019 the FBI has had in its possession a laptop computer alleged to contain evidence incriminating to the Biden family and to belie Joe Biden’s claims that he had “never spoken” to Hunter about his overseas business dealings.

In a subsequent August 17 letter to the FBI and DOJ, Grassley wrote:

Starting on May 31, 2022, I’ve written three letters to you regarding political bias that has
infected the FBI’s Washington Field Office.1 Two of those letters provided specific and credible allegations based on numerous whistleblowers that have approached my office with information that one can only conclude is indicative of a deeply rooted political infection that has spread to investigative activity into former President Trump and Hunter Biden. As I’ve noted both in my public letters and public statements, the FBI approved investigative activity into Trump based in substantial part on liberal news articles and information derived from a liberal non-profit yet shut down investigative activity and sources, which included verified and verifiable information, relating to Hunter Biden.2 The FBI has not refuted these serious allegations. Thus far, the FBI has failed to address the concerns that I’ve raised and failed to produce the requested records. The consistent failure to respond to Congress continues to erode trust in the FBI.

The raid reportedly came about after then-National Archives archivist David Ferriero early this year contacted the Justice Department concerning documents from Trump’s presidency he claimed should have been turned over when Trump departed the White House in January 2021.

The “investigation” Justice opened prompted the convening of a grand jury, which issued a subpoena for documents to which Trump’s attorneys claim they responded appropriately.

While the FBI indicated on the search warrant that the materials it sought were “classified” or of a higher classification, Trump and the individual he reportedly appointed to coordinate the National Archives’s requests, Kash Patel, say all of the documents Trump retained at Mar-a-Lago were “declassified.”

However, the warrant also said FBI agents were to seize “any government and/or Presidential Records created between January 20, 2017, and January 20, 2021.”

According to CNN on August 13, “One of former President Donald Trump’s attorneys signed a letter in June asserting that there was no more classified information stored at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, according to two sources familiar with the matter.”

An August 15 column written by The Federalist‘s Margot Cleveland, who is an attorney, is titled, “Records suggest a backbench bureaucrat’s partisan grievance spurred the FBI’s nakedly political raid on Trump.”

According to Cleveland:

Reporting by the New York Times and Washington Post — some from months ago — when pieced together and considered in tandem with past practices related to presidential and other governmental records, reveals this reality. The relevant reporting started no later than February of this year, when the Washington Post broke the news that the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) confirmed in a statement, issued by the then-archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero, that in January of 2022 NARA had retrieved from Mar-a-Lago 15 boxes of presidential records, which according to sources included items such as mementos, gifts, and letters. NARA added that Trump representatives were “continuing to search” for additional records.

Months later, in interviewing the then-recently retired Ferriero, the Washington Post detailed the origins of the retrieval of the 15 boxes. At the conclusion of Trump’s presidency, the Post reported, Ferriero “was told by the White House Office of Records Management about a group of boxes in the White House residence that should go to the Archives.”

…During the spring of 2021, NARA reportedly “discovered some high-profile documents missing, such as correspondence with North Korean’s leader Kim Jong Un, that Trump once described as ‘love letters,’” the letter President Barack Obama had left for Trump, and a map of Hurricane Dorian that had been altered with a black marker by Trump. And according to Ferriero’s congressional testimony, NARA “began talking with Trump’s people right after they left office” about “presidential records.”

Cleveland frequently linked to articles at The Washington Post, which in the spring reported that the DOJ had convened a grand jury “in probe of classified documents taken to Mar-a-Lago.”

“Investigators have begun conducting interviews, and a federal grand jury has issued a subpoena, as part of the Justice Department’s probe into how 15 boxes of government documents — some marked classified — made their way to President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, people familiar with the matter said,” The Post reported on May 12.

“After National Archives officials went through the recovered materials and discovered that among them were documents marked classified, including at the ‘top secret’ level, they asked the Justice Department to investigate, people familiar with the matter have said,” the article continued.

Ferriero retired April 30.

As indicated by Cleveland, in an August 10 “exclusive,” Newsweek reported:

The raid on Mar-a-Lago was based largely on information from an FBI confidential human source, one who was able to identify what classified documents former President Trump was still hiding and even the location of those documents, two senior government officials told Newsweek.

The officials, who have direct knowledge of the FBI’s deliberations and were granted anonymity in order to discuss sensitive matters, said the raid of Donald Trump‘s Florida residence was deliberately timed to occur when the former president was away.

Previous accusations stemming from Trump’s presidency have thus far failed to result in his conviction in the U.S. Senate, removal from office, a criminal referral or a prohibition on his seeking federal office in the future.

On Friday evening Trump indicated his legal team is considering a Fourth-Amendment challenge to the raid.