Disgraced former president Donald Trump says he may release surveillance footage of the FBI carrying out a search of his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, but some of his closest allies are warning him that doing so could backfire badly on him and all but guarantee he spends decades in prison.
CNN reports that the failed, one-term ex-president thinks he can use the footage as “leverage” against the Justice Department:
Some of Trump’s aides and allies have encouraged the former President to make some of the footage available to the public, believing it could send a jolt of energy through the Republican Party’s base. One person familiar with the conversations said there have been discussions about featuring the August footage in campaign-style ads, believing the footage could bolster Trump’s claims of political persecution.
Another person close to Trump said it’s not a matter of if the former President and his team release any of the footage, but when, noting it could be released before he makes a campaign announcement.
Such a move, however, might swing public opinion against Trump, with one adviser to the former president noting it could “backfire by providing people with a visual understanding of the sheer volume of materials that federal agents seized from his oceanfront residence, including classified materials.
“It’s one thing to read a bunch of numbers on an inventory list, it’s another to see law enforcement agents actually carrying a dozen-plus boxes out of President Trump’s home knowing they probably contain sensitive documents. I don’t see how that helps him,” said this person, who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity in order the speak candidly.
It’s unclear exactly what such a video would show, but the possibility that FBI agents who carried out the search would be identified is especially troubling for the agency, which has seen a significant uptick in threats against its staff since the Aug. 8 event at Trump’s golf club.
Another negative possibility for Trump: Surveillance video might negate his claims that the FBI set him up by fabricating evidence, CNN notes:
But releasing the tapes could neuter some of the most conspiratorial excuses for the search that MAGA personalities have been circulating in recent days, including the baseless notion that the FBI planted evidence at Mar-a-Lago — a claim the former President himself has repeated and which there is no evidence to support, especially after Trump’s own lawyer signed off on the FBI’s seizure receipts at the end of the search.
Considering the many legal and financial failures Trump has had over the decades, the only safe bet is that whatever decision he makes regarding the footage will come back to bite him squarely on the ass.
