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Alabama political leaders react to raid at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence

Republicans say the raid erodes trust in the justice system and that it amounts to political weaponization of the FBI.

Then-President Donald Trump at the White House.
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Republicans across the country reacted with ire Tuesday to the news that the FBI had executed a search warrant at the private residence of former President Donald Trump, and Alabama leaders followed suit.

Multiple media outlets, and Trump himself confirmed, that the FBI had searched the residence, reportedly as part of an investigation into the mishandling of confidential and presidential documents.

Republicans have said the raid amounts to weaponization of law enforcement against a political opponent and is akin to corruption that takes place in the governments of third-world countries.

“It’s obvious the liberals, RINOs, and fake news media want to destroy Donald Trump, but an ambush raid on a former president’s home is unconscionable,” Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth tweeted. “Those kinds of political attacks take place in Third World banana republics, not the USA. It’s time to Make America Great Again.”

“This unprecedented search and seizure at the residence of a former President of the United States shows a clear double standard by those leading the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),” said U.S. Rep. Gary Palmer. “These actions by the FBI further erode confidence in what used to be one of the most well-respected law enforcement agencies in the world and demonstrates the length the Biden Administration and the Democrats will go to destroy their political opponents.”

Palmer joined Republicans across the country in pointing to the 2016 investigation of Hillary Clinton not resulting in any search of Clinton’s residence.

“There were no evening raids of residences or seizures of documents when Hillary Clinton and her lawyers held classified emails on a private server or after she had that server wiped while the DOJ sat by and waited for it to be turned over,” Palmer said. “Again, there was no raid, no prosecution, and no charges filed in that instance. This contrast shows that we live in a two-tiered justice system where evidence of wrongdoing doesn’t matter, only your political beliefs.”

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“The Deep state has reached a new low today by raiding a former president’s home,” U.S. Sen. Tommy Tubberville tweeted. “This is a step too far when politics turns into a personal war against a large part of the American people.”

Katie Britt, the Republican nominee to join Tubberville in the Senate, joined the refrain with a statement Tuesday.

“The American people deserve answers immediately,” Britt said. “The politicization of the Department of Justice has been escalating steadily since President Biden took office, but today was completely unprecedented. While this was avoidable and foreseeable, the result is undoubtedly an erosion of many Alabamians’ faith in our justice system. Everyone in our country should want justice to be blind. We need full transparency now.”

“Every single American should be outraged. No perceived enemy of this lawless administration – whether a concerned parent deemed a ‘domestic terrorist,’ a struggling taxpayer, or a political rival – is safe from the full force of the federal gov’t being used to persecute them.”

National Democrats say the search, far from eroding confidence in the justice system, shows that nobody is above the law if there is evidence that qualifies the execution of a search warrant.

Jacob Holmes is a reporter at the Alabama Political Reporter. You can reach him at [email protected]

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