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The ongoing probes targeting former President Donald Trump have done little to dampen his prospects for a presidential run in 2024, according to political analysts.
Despite a series of investigations, including a Department of Justice (DOJ) probe into whether Trump had mishandled classified documents after leaving office, Republican voters have made up their minds about Trump—which is unlikely to change unless something significant happens, the analysts said.
The affidavit that convinced a federal judge to greenlight a search warrant to be executed at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home weeks earlier was released on Aug. 26. But most of the parts that explain the rationale for the search were redacted, leading to criticism from Trump and his allies that the Justice Department lacks transparency. The DOJ, however, has argued that the redactions are necessary to protect the integrity of the ongoing investigation.
“There’s one thing we know for sure: it’s that the left needs transparency,” Hogan Gidley, former White House deputy press secretary under the Trump administration, told The Epoch Times.
“They don’t want anyone to see behind the curtain as to what they’re actually doing,” he said. “If you put everything out on the table, you’ll get to see the truth and reality of what the FBI wanted at Mar-a-Lago or what they claimed to have wanted.”
Such skepticism is likely a prevailing sentiment among many Trump supporters following the release of the FBI affidavit, analysts said.
“I don’t think that Trump supporters will be swayed by this at all,” Jacob Neiheisel, a political campaign expert who teaches political science at the University of Buffalo, told The Epoch Times.
“If anything, the perception that Trump is being targeted by the “deep state” may push them to double down in their support for him,” he said, referring to the idea that a group of powerful bureaucrats secretly influence policy in Washington.
Swing voters, Neiheisel said, may change their views based on “the major thrust of the media narrative surrounding” the affidavit, but even this could be difficult.
“It is doubtful that many persuadable voters are paying a lot of attention right now,” he said, adding that the details of the case so far are “somewhat arcane—not unlike the first Trump impeachment case.”
Federal agents took more than two dozen boxes of materials on Aug. 8 from Mar-a-Lago. The documents include 11 sets of documents bearing various classified markings including “top secret,” “secret,” or “confidential,” according to a property receipt made public on Aug. 18.
Lawyers for Trump have complained about the lack of detail regarding what was removed from the premise, a reason they have pleaded to have a third-party adjudicator, known as a “special master,” to review the trove before the government does so that no privileged information is revealed.
