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Donald Trump’s Raid, The Terror Regime

El régimen del terror, EFE

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The unprecedented raid on former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence last week is yet another sign that democracy is in danger in the United States. It was a show of force, similar to those carried out by autocratic regimes in countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, clearly aimed at criminalizing the main opposition leader of the country’s current president.

Never in the history of the United States has the FBI raided the home of a former president. And it is hard to believe that there was any valid justification for doing so.

Only an imminent danger to the security of the nation could excuse such an action, and recovering classified documents (which was the reason articulated by the government for seeking the search warrant) definitely doesn’t rise to that level. They claim that some documents allegedly had information about nuclear weapons, but that in itself does not mean that there was a proximate risk to the security of the country. If it had been, why didn’t they conduct the raid sooner? The warrant was issued on a Friday, but executed the following Monday.

It is also striking that Trump has been treated so harshly for withholding classified documents when high-level officials in past administrations who engaged in similar conduct were never so treated. Hillary Clinton, while Secretary of State, for example, and in violation of the law, maintained a private server for emails on which more than 100 messages containing classified material were found, 65 of them labeled “secret” and 22 “top secret.” However, her home was never raided in the middle of the night by dozens of FBI agents, and she was not criminally prosecuted.

Similarly, the FBI did not raid the residence of Sandy Berger, President Bill Clinton’s former National Security Advisor, after he stole several copies of a classified document from the National Archives in Washington.

It is shocking now to hear Attorney General Merrick Garland say that the Justice Department “when possible” looks for the least intrusive ways to seize evidence, when it is obvious that the FBI could have obtained the documents they were seeking in a more civil manner. Federal authorities were already in communication with President Trump’s lawyers and could easily have requested that all classified material be turned over to them immediately.

Former President Donald Trump addressing the nation. (Image: EFE)

Garland’s goal was to create a theater to humiliate the former president and make him look like a criminal to the public.

It is also possible that the search for classified documents was merely an excuse to conduct an extensive search of the property to try to find compromising evidence of some other unrelated crime.

The country’s establishment sees Donald Trump as a threat to their globalist and “progressive” interests. His America First agenda of defending the country’s sovereignty in economic, immigration, foreign policy, and national security matters, and his stances in favor of U.S. culture and history, as well as family and religious values, have clearly put at risk the advancement of the ideological and governmental program that the political, economic and cultural elites want to impose on the country.

That is why they have used all the tools at their disposal, particularly the power of the state, to destroy it. It must be recognized that at present the leadership of agencies such as the Department of Justice and the FBI is ideologically compromised and responsive to the interests of the ruling class.

Evidence of this is abundant. Trump and his associates were investigated by the FBI for possible conspiracy with the Russian government to derail Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency, despite the fact that there was no credible evidence to substantiate it. Special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s investigation concluded that there was no evidence of the alleged collusion with the Russians.

The Justice Department has also targeted Trump associates, criminally prosecuting them for crimes that in the past had not triggered charges and mounting humiliating raids to arrest them, sometimes even informing their favored media outlets before conducting them. Recently, the Justice Department filed charges against those advisors to the former president who chose not to appear before the biased committee investigating the events of January 6, despite the fact that in over forty years no one had ever been charged for failing to appear to testify before a congressional committee.

The use of the government apparatus to persecute the political opposition is something we expect from third-world countries, not the United States. The raid on former President Trump’s residence is the straw that broke the camel’s back. If Republicans regain control of Congress in November, they should investigate the abuses of state criminal investigative agencies and legislate the necessary reforms to depoliticize them.

Alfonso Aguilar es de Senior VP and Political Director de El American, exjefe de la Oficina de Ciudadanía de los Estados Unidos durante la administración del presidente George W. Bush y presidente del Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles. // Alfonso Aguilar is the Senior VP and Political Director of El American and former head of the Office of United States Citizenship during the administration of President George W. Bush and president of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles.

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