An Unprecedented Escalation Against Donald Trump May End His Political Future

Less than two years after leaving the White House, former US President Donald Trump is facing legal troubles on more than one front; an investigation is underway into the possibility that he kept classified documents, as well as his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Trump is also under investigation for attempts to alter the results of the presidential elections in Georgia, while his business practices in New York are being investigated in separate cases, one civil and one criminal, according to the Washington Post on August 8, 2022.

Meanwhile, Republican politicians sympathized with the former president, who views the search as a politically orchestrated act of revenge, because of his views and policies when he was the 45th president of the United States, ABC News reported on August 9, 2022.

Trump's crises are increasing, while many are awaiting whether he will announce his candidacy for the next presidential elections before the mid-term congressional elections next November or after.

On the other hand, Business Insider revealed in a report on August 9, 2022, that what Trump was recently exposed to brought back to the fore the threats of his supporters to ignite a civil war in the country, which is witnessing severe political division; political scientists have warned the public for months that this scenario could happen soon.

 

Mounting Pressures

In an unprecedented escalation by the US judiciary and law enforcement agencies alike against former Republican President Donald Trump, FBI agents raided Trump's Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, on August 8, 2022, in search of secret documents he is accused of illegally keeping after the end of his term in the White House.

One of Trump's lawyers said that the FBI took nearly 10 boxes of items that were not returned to Washington last January when the government asked the former president, for the first time, to return the documents.

According to what the New York Times reported on August 9, 2022, the search carried out by the FBI at Trump's Mar-a-Lago home was the culmination of a lengthy conflict between a president proud of his disdain for rules and officials charged with protecting the nation's records and secrets.

All of the US president's official papers are considered public property when he leaves office; those papers go to the National Archives, according to the Presidential Records Act of 1978.

On its part, Bloomberg indicated in an article on August 9, 2022, that Trump had a special mechanism that he used to keep records during his presidency, as he piled up some of them, shredded others, and got rid of some documents that he wanted to hide completely in the White House toilet.

According to a forthcoming book by New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, White House staff regularly discovered piles of paper clogging toilets, leading them to believe that Trump was trying to dispose of certain documents.

In addition to the missing documents, Trump is also under investigation in other cases, most notably his supporters storming Congress on January 6, 2022, to prevent the ratification of his Democratic rival's victory and his attempts to alter the outcome of the presidential elections in Georgia, and some of his business practices in New York.

Questions have been raised in Washington about whether the search will lead to the detection of mistakes made by Trump during his tenure of the presidency or whether this step will enhance his political credit while hinting at the possibility of running for the presidency in 2024 by portraying himself as a victim of what he calls the radical left, referring to the Democrats.

In a lengthy statement issued on August 10, 2022, Trump, who leads a political initiative called Save America, denied that he was involved in any breach of the law, accusing the Biden administration of targeting him in several ways and asking his supporters to donate money to his campaigns.

In Trump's first reaction to the search of his residence, the New York Times reported in a report on August 10, 2022, that the former president had been investigated by the New York attorney general for several hours; but he refused to answer more than 400 questions about his business and real estate amid miscalculation of valuable assets such as golf courses and skyscrapers, and misleading lenders and tax authorities.

 

Republican Candidate

The exciting search fueled the great political debate and deepened the division that the United States is witnessing over a number of important files.

The incident also brought about a restoration of the front of the Republican Party, which was not so close to Trump, who is already seeking the party's nomination in the presidential election in 2024.

Trump was not a person subject to agreement among Republicans, especially after the escalation of the investigation into his involvement in the storming of Congress on January 6, 2022, but as judicial pressure on the former president intensifies, analysts believe Trump may turn things upside down. Especially with many Republican lawmakers and political candidates declaring that the search was a politically motivated attack aimed at blocking the former Republican president's chances of running for president again.

In turn, the Daily Mail reported that Trump revealed to his fellow Republicans that the time to announce his candidacy for the race again for the White House was approaching, noting that a new poll confirmed that "Trump is the most likely candidate for the Republican Party's nomination in the 2024 presidential elections."

In the first reactions, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said that "the launch of an investigation with a former president close to the time of the elections raises problems."

Meanwhile, Republican Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, expected to become House Speaker, said, "if Republicans win a majority in the November midterm elections, he will launch oversight investigations into the Justice Department."

On his part, Republican Representative Carlos Jimenez of Florida said in a televised statement to Fox News: "The Mar-A-Lago raid on Trump by the FBI is yet another glimpse into what happens when unelected, unchecked Washington bureaucrats weaponize their agencies."

Fox News quoted Andrew Surabian, a Republican Party strategist and former Trump White House official, that "the Mar-A-Lago raid could end up benefiting the former president's possible return attempt in 2024."

On the other hand, a poll of the American public opinion conducted by the Rasmussen Center showed that "former US President Donald Trump will win over current President Joe Biden if the US presidential election takes place today."

The poll showed that 40% of voters would vote for Biden, and 46% would vote for Trump, while 10% of voters surveyed said they would vote for another candidate.

 

Trump's Fall

From another point of view, The Intercept wondered whether former US President Donald Trump would fall like the gang leader Al Capone had fallen in the 1920s.

This question came in an article written by journalist James Risen and published on August 10, 2022, after FBI agents raided Trump's home in Florida amid accusations of mishandling government secrets.

In his article, the writer compared what happened to Al Capone in the first quarter of the last century -- which fell into the hands of the agent Eliot Ness, director of the risk office at the time, and was put in prison on charges of tax evasion -- and Donald Trump, who may be subjected to investigation by US Attorney Merrick Garland, because he leaked confidential documents.

The writer says that "Trump has not yet been charged with criminal charges related to his attempt to incite a violent coup against the US government and undermine American democracy," noting that "Trump may be thrown in prison because he infuriated the National Archives, the body responsible for the lost documents and who reported it to the Ministry of Justice."

The writer believes that "Trump deliberately transferred these documents to his home in Florida, thinking that they would somehow benefit him in the future, perhaps in another presidential campaign, or in his private dealings, or even with foreign leaders."

"Can Donald Trump be banned from running for the presidential election of 2024?" a question asked by the diplomatic correspondent of The Times newspaper, Catherine Philp, against the background of the FBI's search of his home.

"If Trump is charged and convicted of concealing or destroying government records under this law, it appears that he will be barred from running in the next presidential election," Philp said in her article on August 9, 2022.

"The search represented a major escalation of the various ongoing investigations into his final days in the White House, which increases the chances of a political battle if he goes to court, which could destroy any chance of him running for the presidency for the third time in 2024," she said.