For the first time in US history, the F.B.I. searched the private residence of a former president. It was the property of former US president Donald Trump in Florida. The raid by the F.B.I. reportedly appeared to be focused on material that Mr. Trump had brought with him to his Mar-a-Lago home when he left the White House by the end of January of 2021.
| Police are seen outside an entrance to former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. Source: VNA/AFP |
Later on, the F.B.I. revealed that there were many pages of classified documents. It is now clear that Donald Trump didn't hand over all of his presidential records to the National Archives and Records Administration when he left the White House as required by US laws, even after this agency had contacted Trump's legal team earlier this year after discovering that key documents were missing from the Trump administration's records. It could be much more fatal for Donald Trump that there are suspicions in the air that he might have violated the Federal Espionage Act.
For Donald Trump, his perspective for running again for the presidency in 2024 would be getting worse and worse if federal criminal investigations were to proceed against him based on three-fold accusations: alleged document crimes, conspiracy to defraud the United States by seeking to overturn the 2020 election before January 6, 2021, and obstruction of Congress on January 6.
The political impacts of the F.B.I search and its consequences are profound in US politics. Donald Trump will certainly use the recent incident to mobilize and radicalize his fanatic supporters and tighten his control over the Republican Party, to demonize the Democratic Party, the Biden Administration, the Department of Justice, the F.B.I., and Joe Biden himself. His basic argument is claiming to be a victim of political persecution by the Biden Administration aiming at preventing him from running for president again. He accused the Biden Administration of instrumentalizing and politicalize the F.B.I. and the DOJ to discredit him.
Almost all Republican dignitaries quickly lined up themselves hinter Donald Trump but not because they really believed that Donald Trump is fully innocent. They only wanted to avoid becoming targets of verbal attacks by Donald Trump and his fans in America. More than one and a half years after being removed from power, Donald Trump remains one of the most polarizing characters in American politics, and any action taken by whoever relating to him could impact the midterm elections despite he isn't on any ballot and has not yet declared his candidacy for 2024. But for the Republican Party, it will be very harmful and risky that Donald Trump personally becomes a target of juridical investigations in the US. This party couldn't stand if its icon and idol falls. It would be very hard for this party to win those voters who didn't have voted for Donald Trump in 2020, even though many of them aren't satisfied with Joe Biden's records until now.
Disclaimer: The views expressed by Ambassador Tran Duc Mau are of his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Hanoi Times.
