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BREAKING NEWS: Trump sues the federal government over the Mar-a-Lago raid, says his Fourth Amendment rights have been violated and asks for a special master to oversee the probe
- Filing calls the FBI raid a ‘shockingly aggressive move’
- Suit seeks judicial relief an a Special Master to oversee materials
- Wants a detailed list of property seized by FBI agents in raid this month
- Demands return of any documbnts ‘not within the scope’ of search warrant
- Federal judge in Florida ordered DOJ to offer redactions for affidavit that buttressed search warrant
- Raid came after Trump removed 15 boxes of material
- Trump’s suit describes back-and-forth between DOJ and president’s staff
- It says documents were held in storage area with clothes and other items
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Donald Trump has sued the federal government and asked for a special master to determine what materials seized from Mar-a-Lago can be used in the investigation into him.
The former president filed the lawsuit in the US District Court in the Southern District of Florida on Monday afternoon saying his Fourth Amendment rights had been violated by the seizure of certain documents, including two of his passports.
It comes a magistrate in Florida prepares to decide whether to unseal the search affidavit that led to the raid two weeks ago.
‘Politics cannot be allowed to impact the administration of justice. President Donald Trump is the clear frontrunner in the 2024 Republican Presidential Primary and in the 2024 General Election, should he decide to run’, the lawsuit reads.
It adds that the raid on Mar-a-Lago was ‘shockingly aggressive’ and the move showed ‘no understanding of the distress that it would cause most Americans.’
‘Like all citizens, (Trump) is protected by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Property seized in violation of his constitutional rights musty be returned forthwith’.
The lawsuit pivots between constitutional arguments about rights to protection from unreasonable search and seizure to some of Trump’s long-held grievances.
‘The Government has long treated President Donald J. Trump Unfairly,’ reads one subject heading in the lawsuit.
It says the DOJ and FBI have treated Trump ‘differently than any other citizen.’
‘Two years of noisy ‘Russian collusion’ investigations led to a Special Counsel’s finding of biased FBI agents and officials,’ the suit says.
It says ‘text exchanges between the lead agent (Peter Stzrok) and his paramour (Lisa Page) reflect their complete disdain and bias against President Trump and his supporters, while they were entrusted with probing the farcical Russian collusion claims.
That is a reference to the FBI ‘lovers,’ lawyers who worked on the probe who were found to have exchanged anti-Trump tweets.
A background preface leading up the extraordinary raid describes the move by Trump and former first lady Melania Trump to Mar-a-Lago after the 2020 election.
‘On January 20, 2021 President Trump and his family left the White House. They moved back to their home at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. Mar-a-Lago is a historical mansion with 58 bedrooms and 33 bathrooms on 17 acres of land extending from the Atlantic Ocean to the Intracoastal Waterway, hence the name, which means sea-to-lake, says the suit, incorporating language that could be found in a glossy real estate brochure.
The suit describes a June 3 visit by DOJ official Jay Bratt, which came amid back-and-forth about government materials held at Mar-a-Lago.
At one point, Bratt and a group of officials, led by two Secret Service agents, visited a storage room where archival documents were held.
‘The storage room contained boxes, many containing the clothing and personal item s of President Trump and the first lady,’ the suit notes.
Donald Trump has sued the federal government and asked for a special master to determine what materials seized from Mar-a-Lago can be used in the investigation into him