Trump raid poses risks for US

Both sides of politics in the US face risks in the fallout from Monday’s unannounced FBI raid on Donald Trump’s Florida home. The Biden White House claims it had no prior knowledge of the raid. That, if true, would be a surprise. If the intention was to damage the former president’s reputation further (which he has been doing a good job of on his own), the tactic backfired. Ninety days from the US midterm elections, Mr Trump’s support base, which remains significant, is in uproar over what he claims is an unprecedented law enforcement operation against a former president. As he ponders a 2024 run for the presidency, even Republicans who believe it is time to turn the page on the Trump era have been enraged by what they regard as a political witch-hunt. The FBI has handed him a potential cloak of political martyrdom.

But he faces big risks. The FBI has remained tight-lipped but it is believed to have been searching Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago mansion for documents, some marked “top secret”, taken in contravention of US law when he left the White House. Mr Trump’s fury and that of his febrile supporters over the FBI’s action contrasts with their “Lock her up! Lock her up!” campaign against Hillary Clinton over her alleged mishandling of official papers before the 2016 election. Mrs Clinton was not prosecuted. Neither has Mr Trump been, so far. But she was investigated and he needs to recognise that US law applies equally to everyone, even former presidents.

On Wednesday, Mr Trump invoked the fifth amendment to the US constitution to protect himself against self-incrimination over an investigation into his family’s business. He claims to be the target of a witch-hunt. But that does not change the view of respected elder statesmen such as John Howard who, in a new book, A Sense of Balance, describes Mr Trump’s behaviour as “appalling” and “atrocious” for not accepting the result of the 2020 election. The book was written before the FBI raid. But Mr Howard’s view that Mr Trump is “unfit” to return to the White House is timely. All sides in the US need to be prudent. The mob attack by deranged Trump supporters on the Capitol on January 6 last year, while he did not stop them, shows the dangers boiling at the heart of US politics. A replay would be disastrous for the US and the free world.