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Donald Trump is set to sue the US Department of Justice for $100m in damages over the 2022 raid of his Mar-a-Lago estate less than a month after his classified documents case was overturned, according to reports.
The FBI’s raid on his Palm Beach, Florida resort on August 8, 2022, resulted in hundreds of pages of classified documents – including in his bedroom – being removed and saw Special Counsel Jack Smith indict the former president on 37 felony counts. Trump pleaded not guilty on all accounts.
Now, Trumps lawyers have argued that the DOJ’s raid was conducted with “clear intent to engage in political persecution,” according to memo first obtained by Fox News.
The filing condemns the alleged condemning the “tortious conduct by the United States against President Trump,” citing intrusion upon seclusion, malicious prosecution, and abuse of process from the raid.
Trump’s lawsuit accuses both attorney general Merrick Garland, who assigned Smith in 2022 to oversee two federal investigations, and FBI Director Christopher Wray for running a “malicious prosecution” against him.
“Garland and Wray should have never approved a raid and subsequent indictment of President Trump because the well-established protocol with former U.S. presidents is to use non-enforcement means to obtain records of the United States,” Epstein writes in the memo.
The suit was filed by Trump attorney Daniel Epstein on Monday, giving the DOJ 180 days to respond to the notice. The case will move to federal court in the Southern District of Florida. if no resolution is made.
“What President Trump is doing here is not just standing up for himself – he is standing up for all Americans who believe in the rule of law and believe that you should hold the government accountable when it wrongs you,” Trump attorney Daniel Epstein told Fox Business.
It comes after US District Judge Aileen Cannon granted Trump’s notion to dismiss Smith’s federal case on July 15, just two days after the attempt on his life at his Butler, Pennsylvania rally.
She ruled that Smith was unlawfully appointed and funded, pointing to the Appointments Clause in the Constitution.
‘The Court is convinced that Special Counsel’s Smith’s prosecution of this action breaches two structural cornerstones of our constitutional scheme – the role of Congress in the appointment of constitutional officers, and the role of Congress in authorizing expenditures by law,” Cannon concluded in her 93-page order.
The Supreme Court ruled last month the presidents to have absolute immunity for actions undertaken in office if they fall under the president’s core responsibility.
Citing the high court’s ruling and Cannon’s decision, Epstein’s argued that there was “no constitutional basis for the search or the subsequent indictment,” he wrote in the memo.
Cannon’s decision came after prosecutors in May had presented compelling evidence that the former president had knowingly stashed national security documents in his home and then tried to conceal them when the DOJ tried to retrieve them.
“Notably, no excuse is provided as to how the former president could miss the classified-marked documents found in his own bedroom at Mar-a-Lago,” Judge Howell wrote in her 87-page opinion.
After the opinion’s release, Trump claimed that FBI agents had been authorized to use “deadly force” during the “unconstitutional” raid of his Florida property. The FBI said that its agents had followed “standard procedure” during the raid.
This is a breaking story. More to follow
