Trump news – latest: Ex-president blames FBI raid on Democrats’ 2024 fears and bemoans Liz Cheney being in spotlight

Rep Liz Cheney, vice chair of the January 6 House select committee, says that the panel still wants to hear directly from former Vice President Mike Pence.

“Look, he played a critical role on January 6. If he had succumbed to the pressure that Donald Trump was putting on him, we would have had a much worse constitutional crisis,” she told Jonathan Karl, chief Washington correspondent for ABC News, on Friday.

“And I think that he has clearly, as he’s expressed, concerns about executive privilege, which, you know, I have tremendous respect. I think it’s, you know, hugely important constitutional issue in terms of separation of powers.”

It’s Sunday morning, so as the political talk shows get underway on the major networks, former President Donald Trump has fired up his Truth Social account.

In his first post of the morning, he claimed the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago was a “politically motivated raid” arranged by Democrats, who he claims, fear him the most as a candidate in 2024.

Mr Trump wrote: “All polls STRONGLY indicate that I am the candidate that Democrats LEAST want to run against, by far, hence the politically motivated Raid on Mar-a- Lago – Which has backfired, big time! I beat them twice, did much better the second time (many millions more votes than the first!), and may just have to do it again. Our Country is going to Hell!”

The former president lost to Joe Biden in the 2020 election by 7 million votes nationally (74.2 million to 81.2 million) and only gained 232 Electoral College votes versus Mr Biden’s 306.

Mr Trump then turned his attention to his favorite foe, Wyoming GOP Rep Liz Cheney, vice chair of the January 6 committee. ABC News is screening a wide-ranging interview with Ms Cheney at 10am ET on its flagship show This Week.

The former president wrote: “The Fake News Media has badly soiled Liz Cheney, who has just suffered the biggest defeat of a sitting Congressperson in history (broke the record of another Impeacher, Tom Rice of South Carolina!), losing by 40 points, all over the place doing interviews that nobody wants to hear. No wonder their ratings are sooo BAD. Her record setting horrible results were a referendum on the Unselect Committee of political Hacks and Thugs, of which she is definitely one! Amazing how they keep her on the air?”

Donald Trump has claimed rank and file FBI agents “love” him after he spent days verbally attacking the agency over the Mar-a-Lago raid.

Mr Trump’s comments on Truth Social came as his new lead attorney Jim Trusty promised to “come out swinging” as he prepares to file a new legal challenge against the breadth of the Justice Department search warrant.

Mr Trump has led a chorus of Republican criticism against the FBI over the 8 August search of his private club in Palm Beach, Florida, for classified materials he took with him when he left office.

The Justice Department has been ordered to release a secret memo in which it discussed whether Donald Trump had obstructed Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The decision by a federal appeals court found that former Attorney General Bill Barr had improperly withheld portions of the March 2019 memo which he said he relied on to determine if Mr Trump should face prosecution.

The memo has been at the centre of a legal battle for more than a year after the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) fought for its release in a public records lawsuit.

A new book claims that an associate of Rudy Giuliani tried to pass a message to Donald Trump shortly after the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot asking if he could grant Mr Giuliani a general pardon and award him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Maggie Haberman reports in The New York Times that the associate, Maria Ryan, also pleaded for Mr Giuliani that he be paid for his services to the president and sent a separate note allegedly seeking tens of thousands of dollars for herself.

The message never made it to the president.

Former White House photographer Pete Souza says he is being threatened with legal action for displaying a photo he took of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on his personal website.

Mr Souza, 67, took the photo aboard Air Force One in 2009 on Mr Obama’s first overseas trip as president and included it on a photo gallery on his site after leaving the White House in 2017.

Bevan Hurley reports on the bizarre situation.

Former vice president Mike Pence says that he doesn’t believe he took any classified information with him when he left office.

Mr Pence further called on the Justice Department to show “unprecedented transparency” as it investigates whether former President Donald Trump broke federal laws when he took top secret documents to Mar-a-Lago.

Mr Pence made the comments in an interview with the Associated Press during a visit to Iowa on Friday, as he mulls a run for president in 2024.

Bevan Hurley has the story.

A Republican candidate for Congress has backtracked on his comment that US attorney general Merrick Garland “should be executed” for authorising the raid on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-lago residence.

Millionaire real-estate developer Carl Paladino, who is seeking office from Western New York, made the comment during an interview with Breitbart News on 13 August, but has now clarified that he was “just being facetious”.

Donald Trump has hinted that he may take legal action over the FBI’s search at his Mar-a-Lago estate last week.

The former president took to Truth Social on Friday and stated that a “major motion” related to the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment will be filed soon.

Mr Trump claimed on his social media website that his rights “have been violated at a level rarely seen before in our country”.

Under the Fourth Amendment, Americans are protected against unreasonable searches and seizures.