Former Vice President Mike Pence slammed the FBI Tuesday, a day after its agents raided the Florida home of his former boss, ex-President Donald Trump, in a move Pence said “undermines public confidence” in the Department of Justice.
Trump’s Florida residence at Mar-a-Lago was raided by the feds on Monday morning. Agents reportedly went into numerous offices, checked safes, and took boxes of documents.
“I share the deep concern of millions of Americans over the unprecedented search of the personal residence of President Trump,” Pence said in a Twitter thread. “No former President of the United States has ever been subject to a raid of their personal residence in American history.”
I share the deep concern of millions of Americans over the unprecedented search of the personal residence of President Trump. No former President of the United States has ever been subject to a raid of their personal residence in American history.
— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) August 9, 2022
“After years where FBI agents were found to be acting on political motivation during our administration, the appearance of continued partisanship by the Justice Department must be addressed,” the former VP continued.
“Yesterday’s action undermines public confidence in our system of justice and Attorney General Garland must give a full accounting to the American people as to why this action was taken and he must do so immediately,” Pence added.
Yesterday's action undermines public confidence in our system of justice and Attorney General Garland must give a full accounting to the American people as to why this action was taken and he must do so immediately.
— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) August 9, 2022
Notably, Pence and Trump have been on the outs since the January 6th breach of the U.S. Capitol. During an interview in June, the former VP acknowledged the distance between the pair.
“We parted very amicably on Jan. 20,” Pence told Fox News. “I don’t know if the president and I will ever see eye to eye on my duties on Jan. 6, but, in the aftermath of that tragic day, we sat down, and we talked through it. And then we rolled our sleeves up and finished the final weeks of our administration working together.”
“We parted very amicably,” he continued. “And we spoke in the months that followed us leaving office—we spoke with some regularity. And now, I think we’ve kind of gone our separate ways over the last year, but I’ll always be proud of the record we created.”
Pence is a possible 2024 presidential hopeful — and he wasn’t the only potential White House contender to speak out about the raid.
Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) blasted the raid as the actions of a “Banana Republic.”
“The raid of [Mar-a-Lago] is another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the Regime’s political opponents, while people like Hunter Biden get treated with kid gloves,” DeSantis posted to social media. “Now the Regime is getting another 87k IRS agents to wield against its adversaries? Banana Republic.”
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted, “Executing a warrant against ex-POTUS is dangerous. The apparent political weaponization of DOJ/FBI is shameful. AG must explain why 250 yrs of practice was upended w/ this raid. I served on Benghazi Com where we proved Hilliary (sic) possessed classified info. We didn’t raid her home.”