The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have warned of an increased threat to federal law enforcement following last week’s raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
According to a Reuters report on the 14th, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that it issued a notification on the 12th about such threats, but declined to disclose the content. The FBI declined to confirm the existence of the notification on the 14th, but said it had been concerned about the “threat of violence against law enforcement.”
One of the cases that worried law enforcement was the threat to place a “dirty bomb” that could cause radioactive contamination in front of the FBI headquarters, and calls for “civil war” and “armed resistance,” CBS reported, citing the content of the briefing.
According to the briefing, federal law enforcement agencies identified multiple “clear threats” and “targeted removal” calls against judicial, law enforcement and government officials associated with the Mar-a-Lago search, including the federal judge who authorized the search.
Most of these threats appear online, the report said.
On the 8th of this month, FBI officers raided Mar-a-Lago. According to Reuters, the former president’s residence was searched by law enforcement for the first time in the United States. The White House has repeatedly stressed that it had no prior knowledge.
According to a search warrant released on the 12th, police officers found 11 sets of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, suggesting that Trump may have violated the espionage law. Trump said the documents had been declassified and the Justice Department was “playing politics.”
The Republican former president has previously accused Democrats of “weaponizing” the U.S. judicial system and continuing to “politically attack” him in an effort to prevent him from running for president again in 2024.
A man with a gun tried to break into the FBI’s Cincinnati, Ohio, branch on the 11th, but failed to flee in a car and was killed after a confrontation with law enforcement officers.
According to US media reports, the man was associated with a far-right group and incited others to attack the FBI on a social media platform created by Trump after the Mar-a-Lago manor was raided. FBI Director Christopher Wray denounced the incident as an “unprovoked attack on the FBI’s professional ethics.”
(Original title: US law enforcement faces more threats after Trump’s Mar-a-Lago raid)