Former President Donald Trump released a dramatic political video, hours after the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, in which he laments the “declining” state of America and says it’s “time to start talking about greatness for our country again.”

“We are a nation in decline … We are a nation that in many ways has become a joke,” says Trump over the ominous sounds of thunder and rain in the nearly four-minute video in which he lists the apparent failures of the Biden administration, before promising, “Soon we will have greatness again.”

Trump, who is expected to announce that he will run again for president in 2024, released the video on his Truth Social platform late Tuesday.

In the video, he says that America has the “highest inflation in over 40 years” and “highest energy cost in its history.” He adds that in the two years since President Joe Biden took office, America has lost its energy independence and dominance.

“We are a nation that is begging Venezuela and Saudi Arabia for oil,” Trump says. “We are a nation that surrendered in Afghanistan, leaving behind dead soldiers and American citizens and $85 billion worth of the finest military equipment in the world.”

Trump accuses the Biden administration of allowing “Russia to devastate a country, Ukraine, killing hundreds of thousands,” and suggests that “it will only get worse.”

‘Weaponization of the Justice System’

“We are a nation that has weaponized its law enforcement against the opposing political party like never before. We’ve never seen anything like this,” Trump says in his video.

Late on Monday, Trump announced that the FBI was raiding his Palm Beach estate, Mar-a-Lago, calling it evidence of “prosecutorial misconduct” and a “weaponization of the Justice System.”

The former president said the raid wasn’t announced and that it was motivated because Democrats do not want him to run again for president in 2024.

“They detest Donald Trump, not just on the Democrat side but the general establishment, because he’s not one of them. Because he doesn’t play their game,” his daughter-in-law Lara Trump told Fox News on Tuesday.

“They are terrified he’s going to announce any day that he’s running for president in 2024. And this is a very convenient way to just throw a little more mud on Donald Trump.”

America ‘No Longer Respected’

In his video, Trump also cites the legacy media as contributing to what he says is a nation in decline, saying America “no longer has a free and fair press. Fake news is about all you get.”

Traditionally, the media acts as a guardian of the public interest and a watchdog on government activities. But Trump has in the past accused legacy outlets of being partisan and colluding with “radical left Democrats … to hide the real facts.”

“We are a nation that is allowing Iran to build a massive nuclear weapon and China to use the trillions and trillions of dollars it’s taken from the United States to build a military to rival our own,” Trump says in the video.

“We are a nation that over the past years is no longer respected or listened to all around the world. We are a nation that is hostile to liberty and freedom and faith.

“We are a nation whose economy is floundering, whose stores are not stocked, whose deliveries are not coming, and whose educational system is ranked at the bottom of every list,” he says.

“We are a nation that in many ways has become a joke,” says Trump. “But soon we will have greatness again.”

‘Soon We Will Have Greatness Again’

Trump’s political video starts in black and white with only the sounds of rain and thunder underscoring it. This sequence features video representative of the Biden administration’s apparent failures, including oil fields, the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

However, the last third of the video becomes colorized and the musical score uplifting as Trump shifts to speak about his promise of America having “greatness again.”

“It was hard-working patriots like you who built this country. And it is hard-working patriots like you who are going to save our country,” Trumps says in his video.

“There is no mountain we cannot climb. There is no summit we cannot reach. There is no challenge we cannot meet. There is no victory we cannot have.

“We will not bend. We will not break. We will not yield ever, ever, ever. We will never give in, we will never give up, and we will never ever back down. We will never let you down.

“As long as we are confident and united the tyrants we’re fighting do not stand even a little chance. Because we are Americans and Americans kneel to God and God alone. And it is time to start talking about greatness for our country again,” he says.

The video ends on a black screen with the words, “The best is yet to come.”

 Judge who signed off the FBI raid on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago mansion donated $2,000 to Barack Obama’s campaign and represented Jeffrey Epstein’s Lolita Express pilots, his scheduler and ‘Yugoslavian sex slave’

The Florida judge who signed off the FBI raid on Donald Trump‘s mansion represented Jeffrey Epstein‘s workers, it has been revealed.

Bruce Reinhart acted for several employees of the billionaire pedophile before he sanctioned the ‘unannounced’ search on Mar-a-Lago yesterday.

He left the local US Attorney’s office over a decade ago to set up a private practice and help staff members including his Lolita Express pilots and his scheduler.

He was accused in a lawsuit of breaking the Justice Department’s policies by using information from his previous job to benefit in the private sector, which he denied.

Meanwhile Reinhart was also revealed to have donated to Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008 and Jeb Bush’s when he ran against Trump in 2015.

The FBI searched Trump’s estate as part of a probe into whether he took classified records from the White House to his Florida mansion.

The ex-president revealed the raid in a lengthy statement and said the Feds broke into a safe at his home as they hunted the documents.

The agents are reported to have seized 15 boxes worth of classified information but have not commented on what they contained.

 Sources told the New York Post Reinhart approved the FBI warrant that let them ransack the Florida mansion yesterday morning.

Agents had filed two requests with the federal magistrate in West Palm Beach before the search was carried out.

The office is made up of three judges – William Matthewman, Ryon McCabe and Reinhart, who was assigned the cases.

The two warrant applications entered the system on Monday but do not disclose that Trump was the target.

Reinhart was made a magistrate judge four years ago after spending 10 years in the private sector where he worked with Epstein’s staff.

Pilot David Rodgers was another the pilots to be represented by Reinhart

He helped the billionaire pedophile’s pilots Larry Visoski, David Rodgers, Larry Morrison and Bill Hammond.

He also worked with scheduler Sarah Kellen and Nadia Marcinkova, who was known as his ‘Yugoslavian sex slave’.

On New Year’s Day 2008 he left his job at the South Florida US Attorney’s Office and went to work with the employees the next day.

His official biography says he ‘managed a docket that covered the full spectrum of federal crimes, including narcotics, violent crimes, public corruption, financial frauds, child pornography and immigration’.

Reinhart was hauled over the coals in a 2011 Crime Victims’ Rights Act lawsuit which accused him of violating Justice Department policies by switching sides.

It implied the attorney had leveraged inside information about the probe into Epstein’s affairs to gain favor with him.

He flatly denied this and said he was nothing to do with the team that was looking into the pedophile’s horrific crimes.

But two years later his former supervisors in the US Attorney’s Office said ‘while Bruce E Reinhart was an assistant U.S. attorney, he learned confidential, non-public information about the Epstein matter’.

He hit back in 2018, telling the Miami Herald: ‘Even assuming I had participated ”personally and substantially” in the Epstein investigation [which I did not], the relevant Department of Justice regulations only prohibited me from communicating with, or appearing before, the United States on behalf of Mr. Epstein.’

He made clear in the statement he had represented the disgraced financier’s workers but had nothing to do with him – yet would not say who paid for them.

But in Newsmax appearances, he appeared to shrug off accusations against Epstein and his workers.

It also emerged today Reinhart donated to Obama’s campaign twice in 2008 totaling $2,000, as well as to Trump rival Bush in 2015.

It also emerged today Reinhart donated to Obama’s campaign twice in 2008 totaling $2,000, as well as to Trump rival Jeb Bush in 2015

In Newsmax appearances, he appeared to shrug off accusations against Epstein and his workers

The search on Trump’s house intensifies the probe into how classified documents ended up in boxes of White House records located at Mar-a-Lago earlier this year.

It occurs amid a separate grand jury probe into efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and adds to the potential legal peril for Trump.

Trump and his allies sought to cast the search as a weaponization of the criminal justice system and a Democratic-driven effort to keep him from a 2024 bid.

This is despite the White House saying it had no prior knowledge of it and that FBI director Christopher Wray was appointed by Trump five years ago.

Trump wrote: ‘These are dark times for our Nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents.’

He said: ‘Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before.’

‘After working and cooperating with the relevant Government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate.’

Justice Department spokesman Dena Iverson declined to comment on the search, including about whether AG Merrick Garland had personally authorized it.

Trump did not elaborate on the basis for the search but the Justice Department has been investigating the potential mishandling of classified information.

It comes after the National Archives and Records Administration said it had received from Mar-a-Lago 15 boxes of White House records, including documents containing classified information, earlier this year.

The National Archives said Trump should have turned over that material upon leaving office, and it asked the Justice Department to investigate.

There are multiple federal laws governing the handling of classified records and sensitive government documents, including statutes that make it a crime to remove such material and retain it at an unauthorized location.

Though a search warrant does not suggest that criminal charges are near or even expected, federal officials looking to obtain one must first demonstrate to a judge that they have probable cause that a crime occurred.

Two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the search happened earlier Monday and was related to the records probe.

Agents were also looking to see if Trump had additional presidential records or any classified documents at the estate.

Trump has previously maintained that presidential records were turned over ‘in an ordinary and routine process.’

His son Eric said on Fox News on Monday night he had spent the day with his father and the search happened because ‘the National Archives wanted to corroborate whether or not Donald Trump had any documents in his possession’.

Asked how the documents ended up at Mar-a-Lago, Eric said the boxes were among items that got moved out of the White House during ‘six hours’ on Inauguration Day.

He said: ‘My father always kept press clippings. He had boxes, when he moved out of the White House.’

Trump emerged from Trump Tower in New York City shortly before 8 pm and waved to bystanders before being driven away in an SUV.

n his first public remarks since news of the search surfaced, Trump made no mention of it during a tele-town hall on behalf of Leora Levy, the Connecticut Republican he has endorsed in Tuesday´s US Senate primary to pick a general election opponent against Democratic US Senator Richard Blumenthal.

Trump gave his public backing to Levy late last week, calling her on Monday the best pick ‘to replace Connecticut´s joke of a senator.’

But in a social media post he called the search a ‘weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don´t want me to run for President in 2024’.

GOP National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel denounced the search as ‘outrageous’ and said it was a reason for voters to turn out in November.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican who is considered a potential 2024 presidential candidate, said it was ‘an escalation in the weaponization’ of US government agencies.

Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader, said in a tweet that the Justice Department ‘has reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization’ and said that if Republicans win control of the U.S. House, they will investigate the department.

That Trump would become entangled in a probe into the handling of classified information is all the more striking given how he tried during the 2016 presidential election to exploit an FBI investigation into his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton over whether she mishandled classified information via a private email server she used as secretary of state.

Then-FBI Director James Comey concluded Clinton had sent and received classified information but the FBI did not recommend criminal charges because it determined Clinton had not intended to break the law.

Trump lambasted that decision and then stepped up his criticism of the FBI as agents began investigating whether his campaign had colluded with Russia to tip the 2016 election.

He fired Comey during that probe, and though he appointed Wray months later, he repeatedly criticized him too as president.

Thomas Schwartz, a Vanderbilt University history professor who studies and writes about the presidency, said there is no precedent for a former president facing an FBI raid – even going back to Watergate. Source