Eric Trump and his wife Lara Trump appeared on Fox News to blast the FBI for raiding Mar-a-Lago in search of documents that the former president took with him when he left the White House.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump Jr took to Twitter to slam the measures taken by federal authorities.
Donald Trump issued a statement on Monday night, saying that “Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents”.
“Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before,” he added.
The federal action was in relation to an investigation by the National Archives concerning 15 boxes of documents that he brought with him from the White House. They allegedly contain some classified information.
“I have spoken to my father-in-law and I got to tell you, you know, he’s as shocked as anybody, I think,” Lara Trump said on Fox News on Monday night. “For someone and anyone, quite frankly, who loves this country and believes in America, this should shake you to your core, what has happened today.”
“This is a very clear demarcation in the history of America. Never before, as many of your guests have already talked about ... have we seen something like this happen where an unannounced raid by the FBI is conducted on a former president of the United States,” she added. “Think about this. If this is what they’re able to do to the former president of the United States, think about what they could do to you, to anybody in America. The bottom line here is that these documents that have been in question have been, everybody’s been cooperating.”
Donald Trump Jr tweeted an image of Mr Trump with the words “in reality, they’re not after me, they’re after you. I’m just in the way”.
Ms Trump added to Fox News that “everybody from my father-in-law’s team has been cooperating with the FBI with any authority that asks for anything up until now and there was no need to make such a big scene, to do something this insane, quite frankly, to a former president. But I think everybody clearly knows ... what is going on here. This is about weaponizing the justice system, as it has been so many times in the past against somebody who you politically do not like”.
Mr Trump wasn’t present at the residence at the time of the raid, instead issuing a fuming statement from Trump Tower in New York City. A lot of information concerning the raid remains unconfirmed, such as if Mr Trump was told in advance, but in his statement, he called the action “unannounced”.
“It is prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats, who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024, especially based on recent polls, and who will likewise do anything to stop Republicans and Conservatives in the upcoming Midterm Elections,” Mr Trump claimed in his statement.
Ms Trump told Fox News that “they detest Donald Trump, not just on the Democrat side, but the general establishment, because he’s not one of them, because he doesn’t play their game. They are terrified he’s going to announce any day that he’s running for president in 2024 and this is a very convenient way to just throw a little more mud on Donald Trump as though they haven’t already done enough”.
“After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate,” the former president said in his statement. “They even broke into my safe!”
Eric Trump also appeared on Fox News on Monday night, telling Sean Hannity that “I was the guy that got the call this morning. And I called my father and let him know that it happened”.
He added that the agents were performing the search in relation to locate any potentially classified documents at the estate.
“To have 30 FBI agents, actually more than that, descend on Mar-a-Lago, give absolutely, you know, no notice, go through the gates, start ransacking an office, ransacking a closet,” he said. “You know, they broke into a safe. He didn’t even have anything in the safe.”
He accused the Democrats of organising the raid as part of a scheme of “political persecution”.
“All they want to do is they want to get Donald Trump. They raise money on it, they send fundraising emails about it, they brag on camera about it. They go after him, they subpoena him,” he said. “Every single day we get another subpoena, and they do it for one reason: Because they don’t want Donald Trump to run and win again in 2024.”
“You want to search for anything, if you think anything, like, you know, come right ahead,” he added. “I mean, it was an open-door policy and all of a sudden, 30 agents descend upon Mar-a-Lago?”
“They want to attack a guy who they view as his greatest threat, as Biden’s greatest threat,” he claimed. “And that’s exactly what Donald J Trump is. Because you know what? He had an incredibly strong country.”
“Honestly, I hope – and I’m saying this for the first time – I hope he goes out and beats these guys again because honestly, this country can’t survive this nonsense. It can’t,” Eric Trump said, hinting at a 2024 run by his father.
“This is not who we are. This is who Venezuela is … This is banana republic antics. Having a home of the 45th President of the United States raided by FBI agents, safes broken open, this is not who we are as a democracy. Imagine if that happened to Barack Obama. The world would be in an uproar,” he told Fox News.
