The ex-US president may not get a prison term, but his positions are actively strengthening
The search by FBI agents of Trump’s estate at Mar-a-Lago in Florida last week was limited not only to the search for “secret documents”. The most searched politician in the United States complained that agents seized three passports from him. What next awaits Trump in the current situation and is a real prison sentence possible? We are dealing with an expert.
Photo: Global Look Press
Last week was one of the most difficult in recent months for former US President Donald Trump. FBI agents broke into his residence at Mar-a-Lago under the pretext of searching for some “secret documents”. Later it became known about the seized “a box with documents in a leather cover”, “a folder with photos” and “a handwritten note”. The list of seized items was also supplemented with “top secret” and “confidential” documents.
For the United States, this situation has become absolutely unprecedented. No American president has ever been subjected to such “events” before.
In addition to all the documents that were officially already known, information suddenly appeared about three confiscated Trump passports. Moreover, the victim himself shared such information.
On his own Truth Social network, Donald Trump wrote: “During the FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago, they, among many other things, stole three of my passports, one of which expired.”
The politician also supplemented this message with a statement that “this is an attack on a political opponent at a level never seen before in our country. A third world country.
A representative of the Ministry of Justice hastened to report that Trump’s passports were not in the possession of the FBI and were actually returned to the former president.
Externally, the situation around Trump really looks like a specially planned political game. Only the winner in it has not yet been determined. And the prospects of the ex-head of the White House in the political dimension are still quite blurry.
– As for the current situation, Trump has been charged with quite serious charges, – comments «MK» Director of the Foundation for the Study of the USA. Franklin Roosevelt at Moscow State University Yuri Rogulev. It is difficult to say what these accusations are based on. But in the search warrant, which was issued by the court at the request of the Ministry of Justice, there is a question of state secrets, espionage, that is, betrayal, and the transfer of US secrets related to nuclear weapons. As we understand it, whether it will be confirmed or not is a big question. If confirmed, he faces a prison sentence.
Given Trump’s status, the question arises as to how possible the actual detention of the former president of America is at all. After all, the very nature of the situation is quite controversial.
According to Yuri Rogulev, it is premature to talk about such a development of events. And it is unlikely that such a final will come.
– I think it won’t end with anything, no jail time. At best, they will announce some kind of censure, or an administrative fine. But we understand that any high-ranking American official, when he finishes work, takes documents from his office. And he has the right to them, this is his personal archive,” the expert explains. In this sense, officials, taking these documents, decide for themselves where to place them. In principle, for Trump, as a former president, they should prepare an archive and a presidential library at public expense, where these papers could be placed.
However, the number of those documents that attracted the attention of agents does not fit into a couple of pieces of paper that can be hidden unnoticed and taken out of the White House. We are talking about whole boxes of valuable information.
According to the rules, the expert claims, the removal of all confidential and secret papers is made out in a certain way. To claim that the former president himself was capable of secretly carrying out such information is quite strange.
As for secrecy and non-secrecy, there are rules here. Naturally, we understand that Trump did not put these papers in folders himself, but folders in boxes. He has an office for this, specialists, but the fact is that all the documents that the president works with are either for official use, orsecret. Another thing is that they lose this secrecy and there is a declassification procedure. Therefore, we cannot trust the FBI to what extent these charges are justified. Some American senators express fears that they could have staged a provocation, put some kind of folder in the box, which should not have been there.
This assumption was also heard from the mouth of Trump himself. In an interview with Fox News, he complained that “there has never been a time when law enforcement agencies were used to break into the house of the former president of the United States, and there is terrible anger in the country at a level that has never been before.”
Foreign and domestic experts increasingly see only political interests in what is happening, and not a struggle for the truth. It is almost impossible to predict what exactly will turn out.
The chaos and turmoil that is currently being observed in the United States is taking place before the elections (midterm congressional elections will be held in November this year. – «MK»), – comments Yuri Rogulev. “The elections will be held, maybe things will quiet down for a while. I think no one will put Trump in jail before the election. They will try to inflate everything for a certain time. My opinion: this scandal, as in all previous times related to the impeachment of Trump, is designed to deploy this campaign. But what it will lead to is a big question. Because society will not calm down and the split will not be eliminated.
Against the background of Trump’s unequivocal accusation of all sins by the current American authorities, the cohesion of the supporters of the persecuted politician is strongly out of the general mood.
According to Fox News, Trump’s followers were largely inspired by the search, rallied around the former president and criticized these events as a political step, since everything is happening at a time when many expect him to announce his plans to run for a new presidential term.
Experts also note the growing number of Trump supporters.
“We see that the number of Trump supporters has increased in the Republican Party by 10% after the actions of the FBI,” Yuri Rogulev says in an interview with MK. Some even came with weapons to the local FBI office and demanded that this organization be covered up. Among the supporters, the authority of the politician will increase. The opposite camp already hates him, and this situation will definitely not add love to him. But among his supporters, his positions may become stronger.