Rep. Adam Kinzinger said Donald Trump's claims about the FBI search of his property are "evolving."
He likened it to Trump's changing claims about the Jan. 6 riot as more evidence emerged.
Kinzinger is one of two Republicans on the House Jan. 6 committee.
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Rep. Adam Kinzinger said that Trump's changing claims around the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago property mirror the way his account of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot shifted over time — and shows that he is not telling the truth.
In a ninterview on CNN's "Situation Room" Monday, Kinzinger addressed the August 8 FBI search of Trump's Florida resort that has caused a political firestorm.
Kinzinger who is one of two Republicans on the House Jan. 6 committee and has long been a vocal Trump critic.
Trump initially claimed that the search of Mar-a-Lago was politically motivated and that the FBI may have even planted evidence.
But after the Justice Department on Friday unsealed the warrant used in the search, revealing that investigators believe he may have violated the Espionage Act, his position shifted and his main defense became that he had already declassified the documents.
In the interview, host Wolf Blitzer asked Kinzinger about the explanations Trump has offered about why secret documents were found in the search, at which point Kinzinger linked it to Trump's approach to January 6.
"The explanations from Donald Trump fearing stuff was planted, to all of a sudden saying he just, like, mentally declassified this stuff to saying, well, people take work home all the time, I mean, just like anything, just like Jan. 6, when it started as an Antifa operation, then it was the FBI, and then it was really just a bunch of tourists, and then it was a bunch of people that were misunderstood."
"There is always an evolving explanation, but that evolving explanation is always a lie, and it points to the fact that Donald Trump knew what he was doing," Kinzinger concluded. "So I don't know the details of the raid. But it certainly seems like Donald Trump's explanation is not accurate."
The Justice Department and National Archive were involved with Trump voluntarily returning one stash of 15 boxes of documents earlier in 2022.
But, according to reports, officials came to believe that Trump had held back some documents, prompting them to take a more drastic approach.
The Jan.6 committee is conducting a separate investigation into whether Trump may have violated the law in pushing baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Its members have argued strongly that Trump is personally responsible for the violence that day from his supporters in Washington, DC, who attacked the US Capitol.
Graphics_Nerd on August 16th, 2022 at 12:22 UTC »
It's just mementos <--- 2021 Archives came and got everything, it's 'totally normal.' <--- Feb 2022 [FBI Search] <--- Aug 8 The FBI is planting documents. <--- Aug 8 [Warrant is released] <--- Aug 12 They could have asked. what about Obama? <--- Aug 12 The documents were already declassified. <--- Aug 13 I had a standing order to declassify anything I took. <--- Aug 13 They're privileged, give them back. <--- Aug 14
In less than a week, we went from classified documents that were being planted to "They're mine! Gimme!" And that's coming from a few months prior when there shouldn't have been any documents left, and they were supposed to just be mementos from his time in office.
Scottishchicken on August 16th, 2022 at 11:44 UTC »
It's like psychic mediums working a crowd. "I'm getting an M over here. Martha, Mary, Marie, Margaret, Mom, Mama," guy in audience "I used to call my mother MAMA!" Just keep working the audience till something sticks, and they'll forget the misses because they want to believe.
Orbitingkittenfarm on August 16th, 2022 at 11:30 UTC »
"There is always an evolving explanation, but that evolving explanation is always a lie, and it points to the fact that Donald Trump knew what he was doing,"
We’d all be better off if we recognized that this is a commonly used Republican tactic. They’ll try several different talking points on every issue, ignoring their contradictions, until they settle on one they think will work well. At that point, that final talking point becomes the official narrative which is dutifully parroted across Fox News, Facebook and other social media, and eventually their base.
The raid, and its after effect, are a classic example and it’s important for the media to forcefully call out the evolving narratives and contradictory talking points.