Former Gov. Paul LePage said that America has been turned into a “banana republic” following a raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence on Monday.
The Republican gubernatorial candidate said that a situation like this is “normally dealt with by lawyers calling each other up and bringing the boxes in,” WABI reported on Tuesday.
“This year, they make a big deal and their lights are just a-blaring. It’s like it’s a murder. This is not what America is about,” LePage told the Bangor station. “This is not the Constitution of the United States. We’re being taken over by the oligarchs, the elitists.”
The raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on Monday appeared to be focused on classified documents that Trump brought with him after he left the presidency in early 2021. The FBI and Justice Department have not commented on the raid, while the White House has said President Joe Biden and top aides learned about it through media reports.
LePage, who once called himself “Trump before Donald Trump became popular” and chaired the former president’s 2020 campaign in Maine, has put some distance between his current bid for the Blaine House and the former president, declining to comment recently on whether he would support Trump if he runs for president in 2024.
Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican who has broken often with Trump, called the raid “shocking” on Tuesday, noting that it is “unprecedented for there to be a raid on a former president’s home over an issue involving disputed documents.”
