Ron DeSantis.Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty
In December 2020, DeSantis aggressivelypushed backwhen a reporter used the term “raid” to describe the search of a former state employee who was under federal investigation.
“It’s not a raid, with all due respect,” DeSantis said, after a reporter used the term. “What you just said is editorializing.”
He continued: “I’m not gonna let you get away with it. These people did their jobs. They’ve been smeared as the Gestapo for doing their jobs. They did a search warrant … They went, they followed protocol … It was not a raid, they were serving valid process, in accordance with the laws and constitution of the United States and the state of Florida.”
“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,” the governor wrote on Twitter last week. “Now the Regime is getting another 87k IRS agents to wield against its adversaries? Banana Republic.”
Others have used even more incendiary rhetoric, talking about a “civil war,” and using phrases like “banana republic” and — as DeSantis pushed against years earlier — “Gestapo” to describe federal agents who served the warrant.
An inventory of the items taken in the search shows 11 sets of classified documents. Some were marked as top secret, which theWall Street Journalnotes should only be available in special government facilities.
Among the many boxes of items taken were binders of photos, an unspecified handwritten note and the executive grant of clemency forformer Trump aide Roger Stone. The three-page list of items also showed that information about the president of France was collected.
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Politicoreports that the warrant reveals the FBI is investigating Trump for “removal or destruction of records, obstruction of an investigation, and violating the Espionage Act.” Conviction of those statutes, notes the outlet, “can result in imprisonment or fines.”
source: people.com
