US Business

US authorities’ search of Donald Trump’s Florida residence drew renewed attention to the various investigations involving the former president.

Prosecutors and lawmakers are looking into questions from his potential role in the US Capitol attack to his family firm’s business practices.

Here are some of the key probes:

– Capitol assault –

A series of explosive hearings by the House of Representatives panel probing the attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters on January 6, 2021, offered a roadmap for potentially charging the ex-president with a crime.

The lawmakers leading the hearings presented their case that Trump knew he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, yet pressed his claims of fraud and ultimately brought his supporters to Washington for a rally that ended with a violent assault on Congress.

The House committee’s work is separate from the criminal probe that the Justice Department has launched into hundreds of people involved in the attack and US Attorney Merrick Garland has not said if his prosecutors are investigating Trump.

Besides the legal ramifications, an unprecedented prosecution of a former chief executive would likely cause a political earthquake in a country already starkly divided along partisan Democratic and Republican lines.

– ‘Find’ the votes –

Trump pressured election officials in Georgia to “find” the votes he needed to win in 2022, prompting a prosecutor in the southern state to investigate.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has impaneled a special grand jury and investigators have already interviewed dozens of witnesses.

The probe is taking in the now infamous phone call with election officials and Trump’s alleged public and private pressure on authorities, including the governor, attorney general and the secretary of state’s chief investigator.

Trump has defended himself, alleging “prosecutorial misconduct” at a rally in Texas in January, in which he called for protests against “radical, vicious, racist prosecutors,” prompting Willis to request beefed-up FBI security. 

– The Trump Organization –

Authorities in New York state have been looking into the business practices of the Trump Organization, including whether the firm misled lenders and tax authorities on the value of the firm’s real estate holdings.

However, in March the prosecutor leading a probe into the former president’s finances quit over the decision by new Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg not to move ahead with prosecution of the Republican billionaire. 

The investigation had probed whether Trump fraudulently overvalued multiple assets to secure loans and then undervalued them to minimize taxes.

It was launched by Bragg’s predecessor Cyrus Vance, with Bragg taking over the case when he took office in January.

The prosecutor Mark Pomerantz alleged Trump is “guilty of numerous felony violations,” according to his resignation letter published by the New York Times.

New York state Attorney General Letitia James is also pushing ahead with a civil probe of the Trump family firm’s practices on property valuations and tax reporting.

– ‘Raid’ on Florida residence –

The FBI search on Monday of Trump’s Florida residence was reportedly related to the potential mishandling of classified documents that had been sent to Mar-a-Lago after he left the White House in January 2021.

Justice Department authorities declined to provide a reason for the unprecedented move against a former chief executive.

The National Archives said in February that it had recovered 15 boxes of documents from Mar-a-Lago and asked the Justice Department to look into Trump’s handling of classified information.

The recovery of the boxes raised questions about Trump’s adherence to presidential records laws enacted after the 1970s Watergate scandal that require Oval Office occupants to preserve records.

Trump called the search “prosecutorial misconduct” and “weaponization of the Justice System” by “Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024.”

The FBI raid on former US president Donald Trump’s beachside Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida was unprecedented and stunned America.

But facts about the raid and what lay behind it remain sparse. Here’s what we know and what questions remain unanswered:

– How the raid happened –

On Monday morning a group of FBI agents — around 30, claimed Trump’s son Eric — arrived at the palatial Mar-a-Lago. Trump was staying in New Jersey at the time.

It was not a forceful raid, as the agents notified the Secret Service, which protects the former president, before their arrival, according to NBC.

Once inside they searched the premises for hours, including opening a safe. Politico, citing a person familiar with the events, said the agents took away “paper records.”

“Nothing like this has ever happened to a president of the United States before,” Trump said in a statement, calling the raid “not necessary or appropriate.”  

– What is the FBI investigating?

The Justice Department and FBI have stayed silent on the investigation. 

Experts said that a raid directed at Trump, who could seek the presidency again in 2024, was such a politically fraught move it had to be approved by Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray. 

The FBI would have needed a warrant, which would require a judge’s review of their justification for pushing into an ex-president’s home.

But the warrant, which could reveal the nature of the investigation, remains secret.

Seamus Hughes deputy director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University and an expert on court filings, said the federal prosecutor in southern Florida by practice keeps warrants sealed. 

“Each court district can set their own local rules for public access to documents,” he said.

– Classified documents? –

Eric Trump told Fox News that the raid was linked to allegations over large amount of documents the president took with him when he exited the White House in January 2021.

Early this year he was forced to turn over 15 boxes of those documents to the National Archives, which controls presidential records.

The Archives later reported to the Justice Department that the boxes included some highly classified documents.

The raid suggested there were more such records in Mar-a-Lago.

“The purpose of the raid, from what they said, was because the National Archives wanted to corroborate whether or not Donald Trump had any documents in his possession,” Eric Trump said.

– Illegal to keep presidential records?

The Presidential Records Act says all records related to official business must be turned over to the Archives. But violating the act brings little consequence.

On the other hand, US law strictly forbids people retaining classified documents, and carries stiff prison sentences.

One indication that the investigation could involve classified materials was a visit to Mar-a-Lago in June by the chief of the Justice Department’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, according to CNN.

That section oversees cases affecting national security, like espionage and sabotage, as well as cases involving Americans who lobby for foreign governments. 

– So is Trump under investigation?

The raid itself doesn’t necessarily mean Trump is under investigation for a crime. 

The records sought could be required in other investigations involving members of his administration, including for the probe into the January 6, 2021 attack on Congress by hundreds of Trump supporters.

But the nature of the raid, analysts say, suggests something much more weighty.

Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe told CNN he didn’t believe it was simply about National Archives materials.

“The idea that they would do this simply because they were not getting the sort of compliance they were looking for… seems really unimaginable to me.  It seems like they must have more than just that.”

The dramatic FBI raid on Donald Trump’s palatial Florida residence has supercharged the polarizing political debate around the slew of judicial investigations facing the former president as he considers another White House run.

Monday’s shock action marked a stunning escalation of legal probes into the 45th US president, drawing cheers from his political foes and condemnation from his allies.

“Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before,” the 76-year-old Trump said of the day-long FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago resort.

He denounced the FBI raid as “weaponization of the Justice System” by “Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024.”

The FBI declined to provide a reason for the unprecedented move against a former chief executive.

But multiple US media outlets said agents were conducting a court-authorized search related to the potential mishandling of classified documents that had been sent to Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the White House in January 2021.

Trump has also been facing intense legal scrutiny for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and the January 6 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters.

Since leaving office, Trump has remained the country’s most divisive figure, continuing to sow falsehoods that he actually won the 2020 vote.

– ‘Deep concern’ –

Leading Republicans rallied around the former president, who was not present at Mar-a-Lago when the raid took place.

Trump’s former vice president Mike Pence, a potential 2024 rival, expressed “deep concern” over the search of Trump’s home and said it smacks of “partisanship” by the Justice Department.

Kevin McCarthy, who is seeking to become speaker of the House of Representatives if Republicans win November’s midterm elections, accused the Justice Department of “weaponized politicization.”

Republican Party chairwoman Ronna McDaniel called the raid “outrageous.”

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally, said “launching an investigation of a former President this close to an election is beyond problematic.”

Dan Scavino, Trump’s former social media manager, urged him to accelerate an announcement that he would run again.

“DO IT — 45! #TRUMP2024,” Scavino tweeted.

– ‘No one is above the law’ –

Democrats reacted cautiously or withheld comment.

“No person is above the law,” Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House, told NBC. “Not even a former president of the United States.”

Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, said “once we decide that the rich and powerful are above the law, we stop being America.”

In his statement, Trump did not give any indication about why the FBI raided his home but said: “They even broke into my safe!”

Andrew McCabe, a former FBI deputy director, said he believed agents may have been looking for “something specific” related to its probe into the handling of classified information.

The National Archives said in February that it had recovered 15 boxes of documents from Mar-a-Lago and asked the Justice Department to look into Trump’s handling of classified material.

The recovery of the boxes raised questions about Trump’s adherence to presidential records laws enacted after the 1970s Watergate scandal that require Oval Office occupants to preserve records.

Speaking on CNN, McCabe said “there had to be a suspicion, a concern and indeed specific information that led (the FBI) to believe that there were additional materials that were not turned over.”

– ‘Some sort of massive overreach’ –

Trump’s former communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin told CNN the raid could fire up his supporters, a small number of whom rallied outside Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday.

“If it’s seen as some sort of massive overreach and not something incredibly serious, this is a very good day for Donald Trump,” Farah Griffin said.

For weeks, Washington has been riveted by hearings in Congress about the January 6 storming of the Capitol and Trump’s attempts to overturn the election won by Democrat Joe Biden.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has been careful not to tip his hand when asked whether the Justice Department is building a legal case against Trump over the Capitol riot.

“No one is above the law,” Garland has said, while adding that he intends to “hold accountable every person who is criminally responsible for trying to overturn a legitimate election.”

An administration official said the White House “did not have notice of the reported action” and referred further questions to the Justice Department.

Trump is also being investigated for his efforts to alter the 2020 voting results in the state of Georgia, while his business practices are being probed in New York in separate cases, one civil and the other criminal.

Russia Tuesday attributed loud blasts at a key military airbase on the Moscow-annexed Crimean peninsula to exploding ammunitions, downplaying the possibility that the site was hit by Ukrainian fire.

Dramatic amateur footage shared on social media appeared to show panicked holidaymakers fleeing a Crimean beach with young children, as ballooning clouds of grey smoke rose over the horizon.

The blasts rocked the Saki airfield on the 167th day of Moscow’s invasion.

Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and has used the region as a staging ground for its attacks on Ukraine, but it has rarely been a target for Ukrainian forces.

The Russian defence ministry said “several aviation munitions detonated” at the base in an incident the head of the region said had left one person dead. 

Local health officials earlier said five people, including one child, had been injured.

The defence ministry said it was looking to establish the reason for the explosions but indicated the airfield was not targeted in an attack.

There was no immediate reaction from Kyiv.

Ukraine’s army, which for months pleaded for long-range artillery from Western allies, has been hitting targets deeper in Russian-held territory since some started arriving in recent weeks. 

Kyiv has also taken credit for several acts of sabotage inside Russian-held territory.

Moscow seized Crimea from Ukraine in the wake of massive nationwide street demonstrations that led to the ouster of a Kremlin-friendly president.

Those protests precipitated fighting between the army and Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, which would lay the groundwork for Moscow’s full-scale assault on February 24 this year.

The invasion has left thousands dead, forced millions in Ukraine from their homes, and led to a deep rupture in economic ties between Russia and the West.

– Mandatory evacuations –

In response to economic sanctions against Moscow for the invasion, Russia has squeezed gas deliveries to Europe.

It announced on Tuesday that its oil deliveries through Ukraine had been halted.

Transneft, the Russian pipeline operator, said the Ukrainian side had stopped flows because it was “not receiving funds for these services”.

The Ukrainian side did not comment.

One of the impacted countries, Slovakia, confirmed flows had been halted for several days, and a spokesman for Bratislava refinery Slovnaft cited “technical problems at the bank level in connection with the payment of transit fees from the Russian side”.

The Kremlin lashed out after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview that Europe should close their borders to Russians in response to the war. 

The Ukrainian leader told The Washington Post that current Western sanctions against Moscow were too weak, in a call that has been echoed by Russia’s neighbours Estonia and Finland.

“The irrationality of thinking in this case is off the charts,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

On the frontlines, Ukraine said Russia was pursuing a campaign of bombardment of the east of the country that has left much of the industrial Donbas region in ruins.

Kyiv said Tuesday it had transported at least 3,000 people out of the battle-scarred eastern region of Donetsk since it ordered evacuations ahead of winter. 

The Ukrainian authorities are asking people to leave the area, as they do not expect to be able to provide it with heat during the cold winter months.

The presidency earlier said that three people had been killed and 19 more wounded in Russian shelling across the Donetsk region on Monday.

The head of the central region of Dnipro, meanwhile, said that 11 medical facilities had relocated there from the battle-torn Kharkiv and Lugansk regions further east.

“Those facilities transferred over 100 pieces of equipment and 10 ambulances,” Dnipro regional governor Valentyn Reznichenko said.

“The hospitals are restarting work. They are mostly receiving displaced people.”

President Joe Biden signed into law Tuesday a multibillion dollar bill boosting domestic semiconductor and other high-tech manufacturing sectors that US leaders fear risk being dominated by rival China.

The Chips and Science Act includes around $52 billion to promote production of microchips, the tiny but powerful and relatively hard-to-make components at the heart of almost every modern piece of machinery.

Tens of billions of dollars more are allocated for scientific research and development.

The White House says the government commitment to bolstering high-tech industries is already drawing in large-scale private investors, with some $50 billion in new semiconductor investment alone. The lion’s share of that is a plan announced by US firm Micron to put $40 billion into domestic expansion by 2030.

Biden said at a White House speech that the cash injection from the Chips Act will help “win the economic competition in the 21st century.”

Entrepreneurs are “the reason why I’m so optimistic about the future of our country,” he said, and “the Chips and Science Act supercharges our efforts to make semiconductors here in America.”

One of the Democrat’s key themes since taking office has been the need to revamp US leadership in cutting-edge innovation and rebuild the homegrown industrial base in the face of China’s mammoth state-backed investments.

Semiconductors are of particular concern because they are vital to everything from washing machines to sophisticated weapons and nearly all are made abroad.

Although the semiconductor was invented in the United States, the country only produces around 10 percent of global supply, according to the White House, with some 75 percent of US supplies coming from east Asia.

“Today’s signing of the bipartisan Chips Act is a historic investment in America’s future. It will boost microchip production at home, strengthen our supply chains, increase domestic research and development, and bolster our national security,” said US Chamber of Commerce vice president Neil Bradley.

– Wider economic, political appeal –

Biden is also counting on the Chips Act to generate enthusiasm among voters, as his Democratic party tries to defend a thin congressional majority from a Republican takeover in this November’s midterm elections.

He told Americans that studies show the expansion of factories will create around a million construction jobs over the next six years — and these will be “union jobs” that pay “the prevailing wage.”

On Wednesday, Biden will sign another bill increasing funding for military veterans exposed to toxins. Like the Chips bill, this won bipartisan support in the usually bitterly divided Congress.

Shortly, Biden is also expected to be signing an enormous domestic investment bill — backed only by Democrats — aimed at fighting climate change and reducing health care costs.

Reflecting on the string of successes in Congress and the sudden momentum for his long stalled agenda, Biden predicted that “people will look back at this week and all we passed, and all we moved on, that we met the moment at this inflection point in history.”

“We bet on ourselves, believed in ourselves and recaptured the story, the spirit and the soul of this nation,” he said.

President Joe Biden signed into law Tuesday a multibillion dollar bill boosting domestic semiconductor and other high-tech manufacturing sectors that US leaders fear risk being dominated by rival China.

The Chips and Science Act includes around $52 billion to promote production of microchips, the tiny but powerful and relatively hard-to-make components at the heart of almost every modern piece of machinery.

Tens of billions of dollars more are allocated for scientific research and development.

The White House says the government commitment to bolstering high-tech industries is already drawing in large-scale private investors, with some $50 billion in new semiconductor investment alone. The lion’s share of that is a plan announced by US firm Micron to put $40 billion into domestic expansion by 2030.

Biden said at a White House speech that the cash injection from the Chips Act will help “win the economic competition in the 21st century.”

Entrepreneurs are “the reason why I’m so optimistic about the future of our country,” he said, and “the Chips and Science Act supercharges our efforts to make semiconductors here in America.”

One of the Democrat’s key themes since he took office has been the need to revamp US leadership in cutting-edge innovation and rebuild the homegrown industrial base in the face of China’s mammoth state-backed investments.

Semiconductors are of particular concern because they are vital to everything from washing machines to sophisticated weapons and nearly all are made abroad.

Although the semiconductor was invented in the United States, the country only produces around 10 percent of global supply, according to the White House, with some 75 percent of US supplies coming from east Asia.

Biden is also counting on the Chips Act to generate enthusiasm among voters, as his Democratic party tries to defend a thin congressional majority from a Republican takeover in this November’s midterm elections.

He told Americans that studies show the expansion of factories will create around a million construction jobs over the next six years — and these will be “union jobs” that pay “the prevailing wage.”

On Wednesday, Biden will sign another bill increasing funding for military veterans exposed to toxins. Like the Chips bill, this won bipartisan support in the usually bitterly divided Congress.

Shortly, Biden is also expected to be signing an enormous domestic investment bill — backed only by Democrats — aimed at fighting climate change and reducing health care costs.

Reflecting on the string of successes in Congress and the sudden momentum for his long stalled agenda, Biden predicted that “people will look back at this week and all we passed, and all we moved on, that we met the moment at this inflection point in history.”

“We bet on ourselves, believed in ourselves and recaptured the story, the spirit and the soul of this nation,” he said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in DR Congo on Tuesday for a one-day visit expected to focus on a conflict in the east of the country that has sparked tensions with Rwanda.

Blinken, on the second leg of an African tour, was met at Kinshasa’s Ndjili Airport by Foreign Minister Christophe Lutundula, the president’s office said.

He and President Felix Tshisekedi will have a “one-on-one” meeting at the presidential palace in the evening, it said in a statement. 

The Democratic Republic of Congo is seeking international support as it tussles with neighbouring Rwanda over an armed group, the M23, in the country’s deeply troubled east.

The DRC accuses Rwanda of backing the rebels — an assertion repeatedly denied by Kigali, which Blinken will visit immediately after his one-day stay in Kinshasa.

Tshisekedi “will not fail to raise the questions of strategic partnership between the DRC and the USA”, the presidential office said in a statement on Monday.

Blinken arrived from South Africa, where he said the United States was seeking a “true partnership” with Africa and was not vying with other powers for influence on the continent.

The M23 — for “March 23 Movement” — is a primarily Congolese Tutsi group.

It first leapt to prominence in 2012 when it briefly captured the eastern DRC city of Goma before a joint Congolese-UN offensive drove it out.

After lying mostly dormant for years, the rebel group resumed fighting late last year, seizing the strategic town of Bunagana on the Ugandan border in June and prompting thousands of people to flee their homes.

Kinshasa and Kigali have had strained relations since the mass influx of Rwandan Hutus accused of slaughtering Tutsis during the 1994 Rwanda genocide.

Relations began to thaw after Tshisekedi took office in 2019 but the M23’s resurgence has revived tensions.

– Rwanda and M23 –

On the eve of Blinken’s swing through the DRC and Rwanda, Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged him to condemn the M23 attacks and press Rwanda on its rights record, which included a “brutal” crackdown on dissent.

“As in 2012, the M23 are committing war crimes against civilians,” HRW said in a press release.

“Witnesses described summary killings of at least 29 people, including children, in June and July… The US should raise with Rwanda the reliable reports that it is again supporting the M23’s abusive conduct in eastern Congo.”

In a 131-page report to the UN Security Council seen last week by AFP, experts said Rwandan troops had intervened militarily inside the DRC since at least November. 

Rwanda also “provided troop reinforcements” for specific M23 operations, the experts’ report said, “in particular when these aimed at seizing strategic towns and areas”.

The M23 is just one of scores of armed groups that roam eastern DRC, many of them a legacy of two regional wars that flared late last century.

One of the bloodiest militias is the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) — an organisation that the Islamic State group describes as its “Central Africa Province” affiliate.

The State Department placed the ADF on its list of IS-linked “terrorist” organisations in March 2021.