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Trump sues FBI for ‘unnecessary, unwarranted’ raid on Mar-a-Lago with a blistering statement

August 23, 2022 | | Print Article

Former President Donald Trump had promised a motion on the violation of his rights was coming and, on Monday, he and his legal team delivered “regarding the unnecessary, unwarranted, and unAmerican Break-In” of his home.

The same day that U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart rejected the Justice Department’s initial reasoning to keep the affidavit that he had reviewed to approve the FBI search warrant to raid Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, the president’s lawyers filed their own motion for judicial oversight and relief.

Trump released his own statement on the motion summarizing the allegations leveled against the FBI and explaining their request for a third party “special master” to review the materials in order to uphold the president’s attorney-client and executive privileges that may pertain to some of the documents taken from his home.

“We have just filed a motion in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida strongly asserting my rights, including under the Fourth Amendment of our Constitution, regarding the unnecessary, unwarranted, and unAmerican Break-In by dozens of FBI agents, and others, of my home, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida,” Trump wrote Monday.

“They demanded that the security cameras be turned off, a request we rightfully denied. They prevented my attorneys from observing what was being taken in the raid, saying ‘absolutely not.’ They took documents covered by attorney-client and executive privilege, which is not allowed,” he went on and added, “They took my passports. They even brought a ‘safe cracker’ and successfully broke into my personal safe, which revealed…nothing!”

“We are now demanding that the Department of ‘Justice’ be instructed to immediately STOP the review of documents illegally seized from my home,” Trump continued and alluded to his apparent standing order regarding the declassification of materials during his presidency. “ALL documents have been previously declassified.”

The president’s attorneys, Lindsey Halligan, James Trusty and M. Evan Corcoran, addressed the nature of some of the documents that had been taken in their motion which highlighted the alleged political motivation behind the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago.

“According to the Government, the agents seized documents, privileged and/or potentially privileged materials, and other items–including photos, handwritten notes, and even President Trump’s passports–that were outside the lawful reach of an already over broad warrant,” they wrote.

“Law enforcement is a shield that protects Americans. It cannot be used as a weapon for political purposes,” the motion expressed. “Therefore, we seek judicial assistance in the aftermath of an unprecedented and unnecessary raid on President Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.”

As Trump had stated, “We are demanding the appointment of a SPECIAL MASTER to oversee the handling of the materials taken in the raid. We are further demanding that the DOJ be forced to turn over a REAL, without ‘plants,’ inventory of my property that was taken and disclose where that property is now located. We are demanding that all items wrongfully taken from my home be IMMEDIATELY returned.”

His attorneys noted, “Significantly, the Government has refused to provide President Trump with any reason for the unprecedented, general search of his home. To date, the Government has failed to legitimize its historic decision to raid the home of a President who had been fully cooperative.”

Attention was drawn to Attorney Merrick Garland’s press conference later in the week of the Aug. 8 raid where, after declaring that he had “personally approved” the raid of Trump’s home, he had made the claim that the DOJ “does not take such a decision lightly” and stated, “where possible, it is standard practice to seek less intrusive means as an alternative to a search, and to narrowly scope a search that is undertaken.”

“This public statement is deeply troubling, given that President Donald J. Trump is the clear frontrunner of the 2024 Republican Presidential Primary and in the 2024 General Election, should he decide to run,” the motion outlined. “The statement clearly suggests that the decision to raid Mar-a-Lago, a mere 90 days before the 2022 midterms elections, involved political calculations aimed at diminishing the leading voice in the Republican Party, President Trump.”

Garland’s act of transparency expressed his willingness to release portions of the search warrant while representatives for the Justice Department actively worked to maintain the classified nature of the affidavit where the true justifications for the search would reside. Reinhart ordered the DOJ to provide a better legal argument by Thursday after rejecting the “Government’s argument that the present record justifies keeping the entire Affidavit under seal.”

As yet, Trump’s legal team argued that the affidavit contained, “unsupported ‘justifications’ by anonymous sources” and that they “hint at a breakdown in communications between President Trump’s representatives and the Government, or that there developed a need to obtain a search warrant.”

“The wrongful, overboard warrant was signed by a Magistrate Judge who recused himself just two months ago, from a MAJOR civil suit that I filed, because of his bias and animus toward me,” the president specified. “This Mar-a-Lago Break-In, Search, and Seizure was illegal and unconstitutional, and we are taking all actions necessary to get the documents back, which we would have given to them without the necessity of the despicable raid of my home, so that I can give them to the National Archives until they are required for the future Donald J. Trump Presidential Library and Museum.”

Trump concluded, “I will never stop fighting for the American people, our Country, and the Rule of Law. Make America Great Again!”

Kevin Haggerty
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