Former President Donald Trump speaks to supporters during a rally on August 05, 2022 in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
Scott Olson/Getty Images)
The unsealed Mar-a-Lago search warrant alarmed some in Trump’s orbit, WaPo reporter Josh Dawsey told MSNBC.
The warrant revealed that the DOJ is investigating whether Trump broke three laws.
Now, Dawsey said, Trump allies are taking cover from the explosive investigation.
Allies of former President Donald Trump, alarmed and shocked by the details in the unsealed Mar-a-Lago search warrant and receipt of goods, are starting to distance themselves and “go dark” in recent days, according to The Washington Post political investigative reporter Josh Dawsey.
“Alarm has grown in recent days when you talk to advisers of the former president,” said Dawsey, speaking on MSNBC on Friday night, per HuffPost.
Some of them are now “trying to go dark,” refusing to defend Trump, and hope to “stay as far away from this as they can,” Dawsey said.
Dawsey said that certain advisers expressed “shock” when the Mar-a-Lago raid took place on Monday. But, as more details emerged about the extent of what Trump was keeping there, that shock turned to alarm, he added.
Indeed, the Freedom Caucus of conservative Republican members of the House of Representatives hastily canceled a press conference on Friday to discuss the FBI search of Trump’s Florida estate. The decision followed after Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that he had asked a court to unseal the FBI search warrant.
Headed by Pennslyvania’s Jim Jordan, the Freedom Caucus includes some of Trump’s most fervent political cheerleaders, including Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert from Colorado, and Florida’s Matt Gaetz.
Supporters of former President Donald Trump gather near his residence at Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on August 9, 2022.
Giorgio Viera/Getty Images
Federal agents found 11 sets of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago this week, labeled Confidential, Secret, and Top Secret. An inventory list of the items retrieved also included Trump’s order commuting the GOP strategist Roger Stone’s prison sentence, information about the “President of France,” and binders of photos.
Dawsey said that there were people in Trump’s orbit “who are pretty close to him” who are “somewhat in the dark” about what’s going on behind the scenes.
The unsealed search warrant revealed that the Department of Justice is investigating whether former President Donald Trump broke three laws — one of them being a key facet of the Espionage Act.
But, The Washington Post reporter said, certain advisers expect Trump to make a “Houdini-like escape” from being held accountable.
Insider’s Darren Samuelsohn and Charles R. Davis reported that GOP strategists are even arguing that Trump could spin the investigation into a narrative that could make him “unbeatable” in a Republican primary,