Trump's first interview after the FBI raid: Things must cool down or something terrible will happen! //
Former U.S. President Donald Trump was interviewed on Television on Monday, the first interview he has given since the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago.
In the interview, he reversed his excitement and instead publicly stated that the mar-a-la-mare raid must be cooled down, otherwise something terrible would happen.
He also added that his team has contacted the U.S. Department of Justice and is willing to help to avoid an escalation of public anger over the FBI raid.
He stressed that the United States is now in a very dangerous situation, and people are showing unprecedented anger. If he needs to do something to quell this anger, he and his supporters are willing to help.
However, Trump also said in the interview that he has not yet received a reply from the Justice Department.
The risk of Civil War in the United States rises
Last Monday (Aug. 8), FBI agents raided Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, searching and taking away about 20 boxes of documents. The matter was later published by Trump on his social platform Trust Social, causing an uproar in American public opinion.
This is the first time in U.S. history that a search has been conducted on the residence of a former president. Trump's supporters are furious and have taken action against U.S. law enforcement.
On Aug. 11, a man named Ricky Shiffer Jr. tried to break into the FBI's Cincinnati field office and was shot dead after six hours of confronting law enforcement officers and FBI agents.
On Monday, a man in Pennsylvania was arrested for publicly saying on social media platforms, "If you work for the FBI, you should die, and other massacre remarks."
Calls for "civil war" and "armed insurgency" in the U.S. network are on the rise, with statements such as "bullets loaded" and "arms taken up."
On Friday, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security issued a joint announcement saying that after the Mar-a-Lago incident, the threat of violence against FBI agents and their families has increased significantly, including targeted killings of judicial, law enforcement and government officials related to the Mar-a-Lago search, such as Bruce Reinhart, the magistrate who issued the search warrant.
According to the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. midterm elections, which will take place in November, are likely to be another "flashpoint" or a violence similar to the January 6, 2021 capitol attack.
Raids are turning into an event that endangers U.S. national security
After Trump's call for outside emotions to be contained, former ACTING ATTORNEY General Matt Whitaker also said the Justice Department should improve transparency to cool down the raids.
He said the public needs to understand how the FBI is acting; How the judiciary can legally analyze which are concession confidential documents and which are declassified; and what measures law enforcement agencies have taken to prevent the situation from escalating when enforcing search warrants.
Bipartisan leaders of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee also wrote to Attorney General Garland and U.S. Intelligence Agency Director Haynes over the weekend asking for more details of the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago.
A spokesman for the committee said the committee requested to review classified information recovered during the raid and assess whether the FBI and Justice Department posed a potential risk to U.S. national security due to mishandling.
But neither the Justice Department nor the National Intelligence Service responded.
In addition, in response to trump and other lawmakers' affidavits calling for a public search of Mar-a-Lago Estate, the Justice Department responded Monday that it would not be able to disclose the affidavits because it involved the specific route and possible direction of the investigation.
The FBI "stole" three trump passports? As soon as the denials looked up, the Trump spokesman punched him in the face //
On Monday, Eastern Time, former US President Trump broke the news that the FBI took three of his passports when it raided Mar-a-Lago last week. Trump called the unprecedented search a "surprise attack" and accused the FBI of acting as a political attack.
Despite Trump's hard words, the CBS tv host claimed on Twitter that Justice Department officials said the FBI did not take Trump's passport. However, this statement was quickly bombarded by Trump's spokesman, and screenshots of U.S. Justice Department officials' emails were exposed, confirming that the FBI did take Trump's passport.
Under the contradiction of many sources, the plot of this FBI search for Mar-a-Lago Manor seems to have gradually evolved into a "Rashomon".
Trump claimed that the FBI had "stolen" three of its passports
On Monday, EST, Trump wrote on his self-created social platform True Social:
"Wow! During the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, they stole three of my passports (one of which expired), and everything else... This kind of attack on political opponents has risen to a level never seen before in our country. Third! ”
It is worth mentioning that trump's passport was not listed on the receipt of the seized property released by the US Department of Justice last week.
"Passport Gate" evolved into "Rashomon Gate"
Although the FBI did not publicly comment on whether to take Trump's passport, Norah O'Donnell, the anchor of CBS news on US television station, said on Twitter on Monday:
"According to Justice Department officials, the FBI does not possess Trump's passport," she added, adding, "If the FBI finds anything other than a search warrant during a search of Mar-a-Lago, it will be returned." ”
However, this remark immediately attracted the shelling of the Trump spokesman. Taylor Budovich, a spokesman for Trump and head of communications for the Save America PAC, an organization created by Trump, directly refuted O'Donnell's claims on Twitter.
Budovich shared a screenshot of an email sent earlier in the day by Jay Bratt, an official in the U.S. Department of Justice's national security unit. Screenshots show Blatter informing Trump's lawyers via email:
"We learned that FBI agents seized three of President Trump's passports, two of which were expired and one of which was his valid diplomatic passport. We will return them..."
Budovich slammed: "Guys, that's how fake news works. The Biden administration has aggressively provided these half-truths and half-lies, and the media is happy to amplify them — thus pushing a partisan narrative to attack Trump. ”
He then asked O'Donnell, "Did your 'informant' read this email?" Have you asked if they really confiscated their passports? ”
Budovich also issued a statement to the media, continuing to use the incident to attack the U.S. media and judiciary: "This is a perfect example of how important institutions of the media and the judiciary have been destroyed from within by laziness, corruption and malice." ”
Why does Trump have three passports?
In this "passport gate" storm, another point that has sparked people's discussion is: Why does Trump have three passports?
According to U.S. media analysis, these three passports, in addition to the blue-skinned ordinary travel passport that most Americans have, may also include passports issued by the United States to government officials.
In fact, it is not uncommon for a U.S. president and some government officials to have multiple passports. Because usually the United States issues different passports for government officials, including black-skinned diplomatic passports and brown-skinned official passports. Among them, diplomatic passports usually represent individuals authorized by the federal government to go abroad to perform diplomatic affairs, but cannot be used for leisure travel; Official passports, on the other hand, usually authorize individuals to travel abroad for non-diplomatic official duties.
As state security officials mentioned above in the national security official's message, the only of Trump's three passports that is still valid is a diplomatic passport.
This article originated from the Financial Associated Press