Trump tells FBI to ‘call off’ probe into supporters who threatened Biden bus: ‘These patriots did nothing wrong’

President Donald Trump has called on the FBI to stop investigating an incident in which his supporters were seen surrounding a Biden campaign bus in Texas, which led Democrats to cancel an event there.

The president´s tweet came hours after the FBI confirmed that it was "aware of the incident and investigating."

On Sunday night, Trump retweeted a screenshot of the FBI statement, adding: "In my opinion, these patriots did nothing wrong. Instead, the FBI & Justice should be investigating the terrorists, anarchists, and agitators of ANTIFA, who run around burning down our Democrat run cities and hurting our people!"

In videos posted on Twitter, a group of cars and pickup trucks - many adorned with large Trump flags - could be seen riding alongside the campaign bus on Friday, and at times boxing it in, as it traveled from San Antonio to Austin. At one point, one of the pickup trucks can be seen colliding with an SUV that was driving behind the bus.

Trump’s tweet on the investigation comes with just two days left until polls close in the 2020 election and was posted in a frantic day of campaigning with five rallies across the country. 

In his fourth appearance, the president arrived at Richard B Russell Airport outside Rome, Georgia, shortly before 9pm. He was greeted by a large, raucous, predominantly maskless, crowd who cheered as Air Force One landed.

The president lamented that ballot counting would not be over on Tuesday night and decried that it may continue for days — again signalling that he plans to challenge the validity of mail-in ballots counted after 3 November.

Turning his sights on big tech he again complained about trending topics on social media that so often focus on him and not conspiracy theory allegations against Hunter Biden that the president is so keen to perpetuate.

Mr Trump again pleaded for suburban women to vote for him. It is thought that many have turned against him since the last election.

“Don’t let anything stop you,” Trump said, urging supporters to cast their ballots in person on election day and help him bring about the “red wave” he has repeatedly spoken about.

Democrats see Georgia as winnable this year, though the state hasn’t gone blue since the 1992 election that saw Bill Clinton elected.

There has been a surge in voter registrations, mostly among Black people. Stacey Abrams’ group Fair Fight has registered more than 800,000 new voters.

The RealClear Politics polling average has Joe Biden ahead by 0.4 percentage points. Mr Trump won the state by five points in 2016.

As of Saturday, almost 3.9 million people had already cast their ballots, equal to 94 per cent of the total number of votes cast in Georgia in 2016.

Speaking ahead of the president, first-term Georgia Senator David Perdue said: “If Chuck Schumer gets a majority in the Senate and we lose the White House, what he's going to do is make us into a one-party state. They want America to become a socialist state.”

Mr Perdue is in a tough Senate fight against Democrat Jon Ossoff. The RealClear Politics polling average has Mr Ossoff leading by one percentage point.

City Commissioner Wendy Davis criticised the Trump campaign's decision to hold a rally in Rome during a pandemic, citing the county's large number of Covid-19 cases.

“We can’t take another reckless Trump visit, or another four years of his administration’s failures. Floyd County is already seeing spikes in Covid-19 infection rates, and we continue to lose loved ones to the virus that could have been contained if Donald Trump had not failed us,” she said.

Georgia has recorded more than 373,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19, and 7,790 deaths.

After Georgia, the president will speak at a rally in Opa-locka, Florida, rounding off his tour of key battleground states.