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Donald Trump plans to sue the Department of Justice for $100 million over the FBI’s raid at Mar-a-Lago.
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The 2022 raid recovered government records, leading to a 37-count indictment against Trump.
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A judge who was appointed by Trump while he was president dismissed those charges last month.
Former President Donald Trump is planning to sue the Department of Justice for $100 million in damages over the FBI’s August 2022 raid on his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
In a newly-filed notice of claim to the DOJ, Trump’s attorney Daniel Epstein argued that the FBI raid was “unconstitutional” and that the former president faced a “severe and unacceptable intrusion” that resulted in a “lawless criminal indictment.”
“The tortious acts against the President are rooted in intrusion upon seclusion, malicious prosecution, and abuse of process resulting” from the raid at Trump’s Palm Beach home, the memo, obtained by Business Insider on Monday, says.
Trump’s lawyer alleged in the notice that the “FBI’s demonstrated activity was inconsistent with protocols used in routine searches of an investigative target’s premises.”
“President Trump had a clear expectation of privacy at Mar-a-Lago, his and his family’s personal residence,” the memo reads. “Worse, the FBI’s conduct in the raid – where established protocol was violated – constitutes a severe and unacceptable intrusion that is highly offensive to a reasonable person.”
The DOJ declined to comment on the notice of claim to Business Insider. The federal agency has six months to respond to the claim.
The FBI recovered a trove of government records from Mar-a-Lago during the 2022 raid as part of an investigation into Trump’s handling of classified White House documents.
Months later, Special Counsel Jack Smith was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to oversee the probe and Trump was eventually hit with a 37-count indictment related to the mishandling of the top secret documents.
The Florida judge overseeing the case dismissed the charges against the former president last month.
US District Judge Aileen Cannon — who was appointed by Trump — ruled that the Justice Department’s appointment of Smith as special counsel to prosecute the documents case violated the US Constitution’s Appointments Clause.
“For more than 18 months, Special Counsel Smith’s investigation and prosecution has been financed by substantial funds drawn from the Treasury without statutory authorization, and to try to rewrite history at this point seems near impossible,” Cannon wrote in her decision.
Trump’s attorney argued in the notice of claim that Garland, Smith and FBI Director Christopher Wray’s “targeting, indictment, and harassment of President Trump has always been a malicious political prosecution aimed at affecting an electoral outcome to prevent President Trump from being re-elected.”
“This malicious prosecution led President Trump to spend tens of millions of dollars defending the case and his reputation,” the memo reads.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement to BI that Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, “is continuing to fight against blatant Election Interference” by Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden’s “weaponized Department of Justice.”
“As the complaint powerfully details, the raid on Mar-a-Lago was Illegal and Unconstitutional, as are all of the Democrat Witch Hunts that are now falling apart like the rotten house of cards that they are, and which should be immediately dismissed in order to bring unity back to our Nation,” Cheung said.
Read the original article on Business Insider
