Trump Supporters Will Be Targeted After Mar-a-Lago Raid, Part of Leftist ‘Playbook’ as Seen in Latin America: Sen. Rubio

Trump Supporters Will Be Targeted After Mar-a-Lago Raid, Part of Leftist ‘Playbook’ as Seen in Latin America: Sen. Rubio
Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) speaks during a Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on April 21, 2021. (Graeme Jennings/AFP via Getty Images)
Naveen Athrappully
8/12/2022
Updated:
8/12/2022
0:00

Following the raid at Donald Trump’s Florida Home, those who support the former president may be targeted by the Biden administration, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) warned in a recent media interview.

“This is shocking to Americans, but in Latin America and many of the countries around the world, here’s what happens,” Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, told Fox News. “A group takes power. One of the first things that group does is they begin to persecute and go after their political opponents.

“And then when the supporters of their political opponents begin to complain about it, they begin to target them and they criminalize opposition. And that’s what’s happening here now.

“[The Democrats] took power, they’re demanding ... they want Donald Trump arrested, they want him charged right now ... And I’m telling you, the next thing you’re gonna see here—because it’s the playbook ... The next step in this process is going to be that people who are supporters of Donald Trump or just conservatives complaining about this … are going to begin to get labeled as potential insurrectionists and are going to begin to get harassed by law enforcement.

“That’s the next step in this playbook, sadly,” he said of the raid.

The FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida on Aug. 8, an action the former president called the “weaponization” of the U.S. justice system and an “attack by the radical left Democrats” who he said are desperate to prevent him from running for president in 2024.

Rubio, vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, demanding an explanation of the agency’s actions.

The raid, which comes just three months before the November midterms, is eroding public trust in government institutions and electoral processes, Rubio warned in an Aug. 10 letter.

The FBI’s actions against Trump are something the agency has “never taken” against any other president. All Americans have the “right to know” why the FBI raided Trump’s residence.

Rubio asked for a meeting with the FBI to understand why the agency failed to inform the congressional intelligence committee leadership about the matter, as it has done with previous sensitive cases.

“I expect an explanation as to why I, and to the best of my knowledge, every other leader of the congressional intelligence committee first learned of this raid on President Trump’s residence via the media, despite the law requiring the committees to be fully and currently informed of all intelligence activities undertaken by the U.S. Government, including any significant anticipated intelligence activity,” the letter said.

Third World Justice System?

The FBI has attracted severe criticism for its decision to raid Trump’s home, with Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) calling the search “3rd World country stuff,” in an Aug. 9 post on Twitter. He demanded immediate answers from the FBI.
Calling the raid “extremely troubling,” Representative Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) on Twitter warned that America must not “go down the path” of nations like Nicaragua and Cuba that have turned government agencies into weapons by those in power.
In an interview with The Epoch Times, Kash Patel, a former national security official in the Trump administration, said that even countries in Africa now have a “far superior system of justice” than America.

The terrorist trials in east Africa that he was involved in were handled more impartially than how the U.S. Department of Justice now operates. “They brought national security prosecutions and convicted everybody while maintaining due process. We don’t have due process anymore here,” Patel said.

America now has a two-tier justice system that treats Trump and his followers harshly while dealing with Democrats leniently, he added.