Trump Plans To Sue Justice Department For $115 Million Over Mar-a-Lago Search

An attorney for former President Donald Trump has filed a legal notice, obtained by news sources on Monday, indicating Trump intends to sue the Justice Department and the FBI for $115 million, alleging “malicious political prosecution” and “abuse of process” related to the 2022 search of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

The legal notice accuses Justice Department leadership and special counsel Jack Smith of engaging in “malicious political prosecution” intended to influence the election and prevent Trump’s reelection, a claim frequently made by Trump in online statements and campaign events.

The filing asserts that the FBI’s court-approved search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in August 2022 was improper, as was the subsequent indictment for the sensitive classified documents found during the search, to which Trump has pleaded not guilty.

In the filing, Trump attorney Daniel Z. Epstein, a former Trump White House lawyer and current vice president of former Trump advisor Stephen Miller‘s legal group, American First Legal, wrote, “This malicious prosecution led President Trump to spend tens of millions of dollars defending the case and his reputation.”

The legal notice claims the search violated “well-established protocol” for former presidents and references a post by Trump on social media after the search, in which he said the government could have obtained the records “anytime they wanted.”

“All they had to do was ask,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

The filing, however, overlooks multiple requests from the National Archives and the Justice Department for Trump to return the records, as well as the May 2022 subpoena from the Justice Department for their return, which a Trump lawyer falsely certified had been fulfilled by June.

The search warrant was executed only after investigators discovered that Trump’s team had falsely certified compliance with the subpoena.

Nonetheless, the legal notice argues that the Justice Department’s “process” was “unconstitutional.”

The filing alleges that Smith “brought a lawless criminal indictment” resulting from last year’s search and points out that U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, dismissed the case last month, citing illegalities in Smith’s appointment as special counsel and the funding of his investigation.

However, other federal judges have rejected similar arguments involving previous special counsels, and Smith is currently appealing Cannon’s decision.

The legal claim states that Trump is seeking “15 million in actual harm due to his legal costs in defending the Special Counsel proceedings before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida,” along with an additional $100 million in punitive damages.

However, it remains unclear how much of that money came from Trump personally, as previous reports suggest that Trump may have used funds from a political action committee for his legal fees. 

Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign, said these legal actions are part of Trump’s fight against a “weaponized Department of Justice” and argued that the criminal case against Trump “should be immediately dismissed in order to bring unity back to our Nation.”

The notice filed by Trump is a required step for pursuing most civil damage claims against the government. Although there is no set time limit for a response, if the claimant does not receive a “final disposition” within six months, they can treat the lack of response as a denial and proceed with a lawsuit.

The filing suggests that the suit would be filed in the same Florida district where Cannon presides.