(Article by Steve Watson republished from SummitNews.com)

The report states that Trump intended to “weaponise” the documents as part of his campaign for 2024.

The article notes that “The sought-after documents deal with a variety of intelligence matters of interest to the former president, the officials suggest—including material that Trump apparently thought would exonerate him of any claims of Russian collusion in 2016 or any other election-related charges.”

"The true target was this private stash, which Justice officials feared Donald Trump might weaponize... documents that Trump had been collecting since early in his administration."

"Including material that...would exonerate him of... Russian collusion."https://t.co/JyCtfbKnc9

— Jeff Carlson (@themarketswork) August 17, 2022

The piece also quotes a former Trump official who states that “Trump was particularly interested in matters related to the Russia hoax and the wrong-doings of the deep state.”

“I think he felt, and I agree, that these are facts that the American people need to know,” the anonymous former aide added.

This development comes as a Florida federal magistrate is scheduled to hold a hearing on whether or not to unseal the probable cause affidavit for the raid.

Commenting on the ongoing matter, Senator Rand Paul stated that “the burden is on the FBI to justify this raid.”

In a Fox News appearance, Paul said “This is extraordinary. This is also the same FBI that used a foreign intelligence warrant to snoop on and spy on the Trump campaign to investigate them for over two years. So I think the burden really is on the FBI. They’ve been wrong in the past. They’ve broken the law in using these foreign intelligence warrants. Now they used a domestic warrant, but I do think they need to release the justification for this, because this is extraordinary.”

The Senator further urged “We should not lose sight of the fact this has never, ever happened before for good reason, because we need to have confidence in the FBI. We need to have confidence in our intelligence agencies that they’re there to protect us and not to go after people for political purposes. So the burden is on them to prove that this is not a politically motivated witch hunt.”

Paul hit out at FBI director Christopher Wray, asserting that he “thinks it’s fine to use FISA or foreign intelligence warrants on Americans, and a lot of people think that’s true. I don’t, but this is part of the abuse. But this is part of the same people who are still running the FBI. They have a different understanding, maybe, of what they think the FBI can and cannot do and how it should be used on Americans, but I’m going to require proof that there was actually some sort of probable cause of a crime, and I’m suspicious that there was not.”

Watch:

Read more at: SummitNews.com