The nation watched as former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property became grounds for the execution of an FBI search warrant on Monday.
“I just can’t think of any example that reaches this level,” said UCF political scientist Aubrey Jewett.
Jewett said he had never seen anything like this happen to a former president in our nation.
Because it did, it’s creating a never before seen reaction from Democrats and Republicans.
Frank Scherwin, chairman of the Collier County Republican Party, believes it’s another Democratic tactic ahead of elections.
“We’re heading into a critical election control of congress,” said Scherwin.
Annisa Karim, the chairwoman of the Collier County Democratic Party, called it due diligence to carry out the law.
“It’s clearly not partisan, but that’s always what politicians say, right? When they’re being questioned. They say it’s a witch hunt, or rather, authoritarian politicians claim it’s a witch hunt if it’s something that they don’t like that’s happening. So I think we just let it play out,” said Karim.
It’s no surprise that Democrats and Republicans don’t side together on a matter regarding Trump, but while we wait to hear what agents found or didn’t, Jewett said Trump supporters aren’t going anywhere.
“I don’t think it has much effect on his support among Republicans. They really still love him, at least many of them do,” said Jewett.
That is a stance neither side can argue.
“I think that the people who are still supporting Donald Trump have made that decision long ago,” said Karim.
“This unites us because the timing is so is so obviously suspicious before an election that this is actually going to have the opposite effect,” Scherwin said.
“It is Donald Trump, and so nothing about him since he started his run for office, you know, five, six years ago, has been sort of normal within political standards of American history, right?” said Jewett.
Jewett agrees the odds have been defied in recent years. Now, FBI agents scouring Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property has Democrats and Republicans curious.
“I think a lot of us were expecting this to happen at some point. And so the fact that it happened is not surprising. It’s just, we were just waiting to see when it would happen. Really,” said Karim.
“They had every opportunity to they could have said let’s wait till after the election, and so forth, but they didn’t,” said Scherwin.
In a statement President Trump released Monday, he called the warrant, “An attack by radical left democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for president in 2024.”
Karim said that’s not the case at all. “A former president’s home has been raided by the FBI. So, I think that we have to kind of stop and, and kind of take notice about where we are right now and come together as Americans, not Democrat or Republican.”
Jewett said if the FBI find nothing in the search, it will amplify voices on the Republican side. On the other hand, if they do turn up evidence, Democrats would positively feel the impacts.
Since the FBI search at former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, protesters for and against him have gathered outside of Trump-owned properties in several states.
Twenty-four hours after the search, Republicans in congress are slamming the Justice Department. The search was connected to a Justice Department investigation involving the national archives that found 15-boxes of records, including classified material, at Mar-a-Lago earlier this year.
The former president and his family publicly blamed President Biden and the Democrats.
Trump’s son Eric Trump told Fox News Channel on Monday, “They want to attack a guy who they view is his greatest threat is Biden’s greatest threat.”
Florida politicians took to Twitter to voice their opinions on the FBI search.
Using government power to persecute political opponents is something we have seen many times from 3rd world Marxist dictatorships
But never before in America
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 9, 2022
The raid of MAL is another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the Regime’s political opponents, while people like Hunter Biden get treated with kid gloves. Now the Regime is getting another 87k IRS agents to wield against its adversaries? Banana Republic.
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantisFL) August 9, 2022
The @FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago is incredibly concerning, especially given the Biden admin’s history of going after parents & other political opponents. This is 3rd World country stuff.
We need answers NOW. The FBI must explain what they were doing today & why.
— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) August 9, 2022
The White House said they were given no heads-up about the search, and on Tuesday, Palm Beach County police expressed disappointment that they were not made aware of the FBI’s search warrant and did not assist in it.