Former US President Donald Trump, in a campaign rally in Philadelphia for the upcoming midterm elections, heavily criticized the FBI and the US Department of Justice in connection with the raid at his Mar-a-Lago residence, from where the federal law enforcement agency recovered a number of classified documents pertaining to US national security.

Trump, while criticizing the court-authorised raid, said that it was the government “breaking into the homes of their political opponents”. He referred to the raid as a “travesty of justice” and accused the FBI of going through “the first lady’s closet drawers”. He called the FBI and the Justice Department “vicious monsters” who are being controlled by “radical leftist scoundrels”. 

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Trump also said, “There could be no more vivid example of the very real threats from American freedom than just a few weeks ago … when we witnessed one of the most shocking abuses of power by any administration in American history”.

He followed it up by accusing the FBI of scattering the documents they retrieved all over the floor: “They talk about documents not being properly stored, yet they go in and take documents, dump them on the floor, stage a photo shoot and pretend that I had done it, like I had put them all over the floor”.

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Trump has been accused of inappropriately storing a number of documents that were marked “secret” and “top secret” at his Mar-a-Lago residence. A total of 33 items were recovered during the raid.

In his speech, despite not mentioning whether he would run for POTUS again, Trump said that he was confident the Republicans would be taking back the White House in 2024. Trump also criticized Joe Biden’s comments against Make America Great Again (MAGA) Republicans. Biden, earlier this week, had criticized the MAGA philosophy and called it “semi-fascism”. The former US President was of the opinion that Biden’s speech at the Philadelphia Independence National Historical Park was the most divisive speech by any American president.