‘Anyone Being Investigated by the FBI Is Not Qualified to Be President of the United States’ Trump Quote Is Likely Misattributed

After former United States President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago was raided by the FBI on August 8 2022, an extremely widespread set of memes claimed Trump repeatedly said “anyone being investigated by the FBI” was unfit to hold the office of President of the United States.

No fewer than three variations appeared on Imgur during and after the search at Mar-a-Lago:

Both iterations above had no substantiating links included, but both memes featured the same dates, all of which occurred in the lead up to Trump’s win in the 2016 election: August 3 2016, September 7 2016, October 15 2016, October 20 2016, October 21 2016, October 25 2016, and October 30 2016. These were presumably statements referencing the FBI’s July 2016 investigation of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party nominee and Trump’s opponent in that election.

“Anyone being investigated by the FBI” was marked “popular now” as a search on Facebook on August 9 2022, and most search results were iterations from August 8 and 9 2022:

Similarly, Twitter search was awash in tweets from August 8 and 9 2022, with several popular iterations, which did not include citations:

Twitter Advanced Search indicated that the quote and attribution to Trump existed from as early as January 2018 onward:

However, Google search was a lot less fruitful. Even when not restricted by date, a search for “anyone being investigated by the FBI is not qualified” (in quotes) returned “about” 24 results, most of which were from meme aggregation sites like americasbestpics.com. Abbreviating the search to “anyone being investigated by the FBI” expanded the results to 31.

Variations on Twitter prior to January 2018 included the quote, but typically from supporters of Trump’s campaign, not as an attribution. Restricting Twitter Advanced Search for tweets on or before December 1 2016 returned many versions of “anyone being investigated by the FBI …” — but the tweets were in support of Trump, not quoting him:

August 2022 memes included not one, but several dates on which Trump allegedly made the statement — August 3 2016, September 7 2016, October 15 2016, October 20 2016, October 21 2016, October 25 2016, and October 30 2016. It was possible but not likely that no versions of the commentary (even if spoken at a rally) were transcribed or reported somewhere credible with respect to any of those dates.

A few Imgur commenters requested a source, as did at least two Twitter accounts. One observed that they were unable to substantiate the comment:

The closest thing to a “source” we located was a June 2017 Time.com piece, headlined “Here’s What Donald Trump Said on the Campaign Trail About a President Being Under Investigation.” It referenced claims that Trump was “under investigation” for obstruction of justice, but it did not include any phrasing that matched the popular meme:

But before he was elected president, Trump repeatedly blasted 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for the investigation into her use of a private e-mail server while Secretary of State. In fact, Trump said having a sitting president under criminal investigation would result in a “constitutional crisis.”

“She’s likely to be under investigation for criminality for a very, very long time to come,” Trump said during a Oct. 31, 2016 speech in Warren, Mich.

“We’re going to be tied up in court for the rest of our lives with this deal,” he added, referring to if Clinton were elected. “She’s not going to win the election, but I’m just saying. If Hillary is elected, she will be under protracted criminal investigation likely followed by the trial of a sitting president. This is just what we need.”

“If Hillary Clinton were to be elected, it would create an unprecedented and protracted constitutional crisis,” Trump said during another speech on Nov. 2, 2016 … Two days ahead of the election on Nov. 5, 2016, Trump said Clinton’s “current scandals and controversies will continue throughout her presidency” and it would be “impossible for her to govern.”

Trump did say that a “sitting president” under an active criminal investigation would initiate a “constitutional crisis,” not a former or prospective president. All referenced quotes alluded to Trump’s belief that a putative active investigation would make it “impossible for [Hillary Clinton] to govern.”

Finally, considering the possibility that the comment was tweeted by Trump before he was removed from Twitter in January 2021, we searched an online archive of Trump’s tweets for “FBI” and “president.” Of the 44 tweets in total, the earliest was in 2017, and none matched the meme’s quote.

After the August 8 2022 raid of Mar-a-Lago, circulating memes claimed former President Trump repeatedly said “anyone being investigated by the FBI is not qualified to be President of the United States,” perhaps alluding to Trump’s intent to run for office again in 2024. That particular meme (with several dates attached) began circulating no later than January 2018, in response to previous investigations involving Trump. Going back to 2016 (the year in which Trump purportedly made the statement on numerous occasions), variations on the phrase were repeated by Trump’s supporters, generally referencing Hillary Clinton, but not by Trump himself.

Although it is possible that Trump repeatedly (or even once) claimed that “anyone being investigated by the FBI is not qualified to be President of the United States,” it was exceedingly unlikely, given the nature of his campaign and career, that none of the occasions produced video or a transcribed record. We were unable to locate any credible indication that this statement was properly attributed to Donald Trump.