There is still uncertainty about what prompted the attack at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf club in Palm Beach, Florida. Neither the FBI nor the US Department of Justice have yet commented on the incident.
According to information provided to the Washington Post, the crackdown was linked to an ongoing investigation into possible improper handling of classified documents.
Confidential documents
The investigation is said to be about whether the former president took documents from the White House to his golf club, instead of sending them to the National Archives, when he left the presidency.
In that case, it could constitute a violation of a law that stipulates that all documentation that can be linked to the president’s official commitments must be saved and archived.
Already in January of this year, Trump was forced to send back 15 boxes of documents to the National archives.
Now, sources tell Fox News that representatives from the Department of Justice had a meeting with Trump’s lawyers at Mar-a-Lago in June of this year to discuss additional documents sought.
Cooperation difficulties
After the meeting, however, contacts are said to have become more difficult. A source with knowledge of the negotiations between Trump’s team and the federal authorities stated that the Department of Justice and the FBI felt that they were no longer met with the same willingness to cooperate as before in the investigation.
According to the source, that is the reason why a search warrant was requested and finally executed, reports Fox News.
Dystopian video
Just hours after the crackdown, Donald Trump posted a dystopian campaign-like video on the social media platform Truth Social titled “A Nation in Decay,” in which the United States is described as a collapsing state.
The crackdown has also generated a lot of support in favor of Trump from supporters who see the authorities’ actions as politically motivated.
SVT’s US correspondent Stefan Åsberg believes that the incident may now affect Trump’s possible participation in the upcoming presidential election.
– I think that this support that Trump is now getting makes him more eager to run in this election and that a decision will come even before the mid-term elections.