Andrew Yang found himself cornered during a CNN interview when asked to explain his tweets concerning the FBI search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
The former Democratic presidential candidate and founder of the Forward Party was asked by Jim Acosta about posts he made on Twitter that appeared to let Mr Trump “off the hook” for his removal of classified documents when he left office.
On 9 August, the morning after federal agents spent the day searching the Palm Beach home of the former president, Mr Yang tweeted: “The FBI raid of Trump’s home has fired up his base of support in the GOP – and has seemingly increased the odds of his running in ‘24.”
In a later post, he wrote that he didn’t think that the mishandling of official documents seemed like a good enough reason for the search warrant.
“It looks increasingly like the FBI raid was to find mishandled classified documents and not some other DOJ investigation which was my first thought. Mishandling documents doesn’t seem like raid material. It does however seem like excellent campaign material for Trump,” Mr Yang tweeted.
“I’m no Trump fan. I want him as far away from the White House as possible. But a fundamental part of his appeal has been that it’s him against a corrupt government establishment,” he continued. “This raid strengthens that case for millions of Americans who will see this as unjust persecution.”
He added: “It seems like this was authorised by a local judge and a particular FBI office without buy-in or notification of higher levels of government. But literally no one will believe that or make a distinction. It’s probably bureaucratic but it seems political.”
While Mr Yang’s point regarding the optics of the raid to Mr Trump’s base of supporters has been proved in recent polling showing him take a lead over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, his statement about the validity of the search was questioned.
Appearing on CNN, Mr Acosta asked him: “It sounds like you are letting Trump off the hook here – taking top-secret documents to your mansion is okay with you? Are you giving Trump a pass?”
Mr Yang deflected the question and Mr Acosta asked again: “I don’t think you answered my question. Are you saying that the Attorney General had political motivations with this search?”
“Oh, I trust that all of the DOJ employees, and particularly the FBI agents, are faithful public servants discharging their duty,” replied Mr Yang.
However, Mr Acosta continued to push about the tweets, stating: “You seemed to be suggesting that it was okay for the former president to be bringing top-secret documents to Mar-a-Lago. Is that what you’re saying?”
Mr Yang discussed the various legal rationales for the raid on the former president’s home, as well as the “hodge-podge” explanations from Mr Trump’s team as to why the documents were there in the first place, and Mr Acosta tried again: “Forgive me for trying to pin you down, Andrew, are you okay with Trump taking top-secret documents to Mar-a-Lago? Let’s put it that way.”
“Of course not,” Mr Yang finally replied. “I’m for anything that enhances our national security and the rule of law,” concluded Yang.
In addition to his candidacy to be the Democratic Party nominee in the 2020 presidential election, Mr Yang also threw his hat into the ring for the 2021 New York City Democratic mayoral primary.
Mr Yang left the Democratic Party in October 2021 and founded the Forward Party in an attempt to break the dominance of the two-party system. The party’s key principles include ranked voting, open primaries, human-centered capitalism, and universal basic income.
