Former US President Donald Trump, outraged by the FBI raids on his Florida residence and claims of 11 classified documents seizure, said "the temperature has to be brought down" and his representatives have reached out to the DOJ to offer whatever help needed following the raid.
He called it a witch hunt in which the FBI could take out and put in what they wanted. He warned " terrible things could happen, even as the FBI and the DoJ viewed it as a veiled threat similar to ones before January 6 Capitol Hill insurrection and began tightening security measures.
Trump said he "will do whatever" he can "to help the country", after the FBI's raid of his Mar-a-Lago home last week, telling Fox News Digital that the "temperature has to be brought down", while stressing that the American people are "not going to stand for another scam."
Representatives will reach out to the Justice Department to offer to help amid outrage over the FBI's unprecedented raid on his private residence last week, in which agents claimed that they seized classified records, including some marked as top secret, Trump said in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital Monday morning. Trump disputed the classification of those records, saying the records have been declassified.
"The country is in a very dangerous position. There is tremendous anger, like I've never seen before, over all of the scams, and this new one -- years of scams and witch hunts, and now this," Trump said.
If there is anything we can do to help, I, and my people, would certainly be willing to do that," Trump said. "There has never been a time like this where law enforcement has been used to break into the house of a former president of the US, and there is tremendous anger in the country -- at a level that has never been seen before, other than during very perilous times," Trump said.
Trump said his team "has not heard yet" from the Justice Department on whether they will accept his offer for help. "I think they would want the same thing -- I've never seen anything like this," Trump said.
"It is a very dangerous time for our country. I will do whatever I can to help the country," he said.
Reflecting on the "years of fake witch hunts and phony Russia, Russia, Russia schemes and scams," Trump said that "nothing happens to those people who perpetuate that -- nothing happens with them."
"And then they break into a president's house -- a sneak attack where it was totally -- no one ever thought a thing like this would happen," Trump said.
FBI agents "break in and take whatever they want to take." Trump said FBI agents told his team on the Mar-a-Lago premises to "turn off the camera," and said "no one can go through the rooms." "They could take anything they want, and put anything they want in," Trump said of the FBI agents. "My people were asked to stand outside."
Trump went on to suggest that the FBI "could have planted anything they wanted" during the raid.
"People are so angry at what is taking place," Trump said. "Whatever we can do to help -- because the temperature has to be brought down in the country. If it is not, terrible things are going to happen. Following the FBI's execution of the search warrant at Trump's home, the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation sent a bulletin to law enforcement agencies warning of increased threats.
The democrats have interpreted this statement as another threat akin to what he said before the January 6 Capitol Hill insurrection on the election outcome when Oath Keepers and Proud Boys descended next on the Congress building.
In the days since the warrant was executed, the FBI and DHS have seen an increase in "violent threats" against law enforcement, judiciary and government personnel, including a particular threat to "place a so-called Dirty Bomb in front of FBI headquarters," according to the bulletin.
"General calls" for "civil war" and "armed rebellion" are doing the rounds on social media in recent days.
Several of the threats are specific, according to the bulletin, which states that "the FBI and DHS have identified multiple articulated threats and calls for the targeted killing of judicial law enforcement and government officials associated with the Palm Beach search, including the Federal judge who approved the Palm Beach search warrant, media reports say.
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The threat warning comes after US Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart unsealed the FBI's search warrant and property receipt from the FBI's raid of Mar-a-Lago. Reinhart signed the warrant on August 5, giving the FBI authority to conduct its search.
FBI agents took approximately 20 boxes of items from the premises, including one set of documents marked as "Various classified/TS/SCI documents," which refers to top secret/sensitive compartmented information, media reports said.
Records covered by that government classification level could potentially include human intelligence and information that, if disclosed, could jeopardize relations between the US and other nations, as well as the lives of intelligence operatives abroad.
Meanwhile, sources close to Trump told Fox News that the former president will soon be making an announcement about a potential presidential run in 2024.
