Trump Strikes Back

Former President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against the Feds over the unprecedented raid on his Mar-a-Lago home.

Trump is suing the Feds to get back the items taken from his home during the nine-hour long raid on August 8. He’s also asked for a “special master” to be put in charge of the documents in a move to take them away from the FBI.

More than 30 FBI agents and technicians took eleven “sets” of documents that the DOJ claims are classified. As we’ve pointed out at PJ Media multiple times, the president has an undisputed authority to classify and declassify documents without oversight from underlings no matter what the Democrats may say.

The lawsuit was delivered Monday to U.S. Attorney Juan Gonzalez of the Southern District of Florida and Jay Bratt, the chief of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section (CES) of the National Security Division at the Department of Justice. As PJ Media reported before, Bratt “argued to Judge Reinhart that the ‘open investigation was still in its ‘early stages’ and that to reveal any of the supporting documents at such an early stage would ‘ jeopardize ‘several witnesses’ whose accounts of Trump’s actions were specific enough that the sources for them might be easily identified.’ That’s normally how it’s done, but it’s clear these are not normal circumstances.” Bratt’s admission that the raid was carried out before the Feds had a fuller idea of what documents to take underscores the appearance that it was a raid in search of a crime.

Related: Trump Ally Says He Knows What the FBI Was Looking for in Mar-a-Lago Raid

Trump announced on his TruthSocial account on Friday that a lawsuit was imminent.

Credit: Truth Social

The lawsuit thundered that “law enforcement is a shield that protects Americans. It cannot be used as a weapon for political purposes,” and claimed that the FBI failed to “legitimize its historic decision to raid the home of a President who had been fully cooperative.”

The lawsuit calls for a detailed accounting of all documents taken from his home. A demand is made that the judge stop the FBI from paging through the documents until a “special master,” usually a retired judge, has been named to take over sorting the documents.

Former Senate Judiciary chief legal counsel and founder of the Article III Project Mike Davis told PJ Media that Trump should demand all the documents be returned post-haste following U.S. rules of seized property 41 (g), but Trump’s attorney would leave this determination to the “special master.”

Without further information from the Government, President Trump currently has no ability to assess whether any FBI agents involved in the Russian defamation matter are participating with NSD in the current situation. [… But] in light of  recent FBl behavior when PresidentTrump is a part of its aim, this Court should feel obliged to demand candor and transparency, and not just “trust us” assertions from DOJ. The appointment of a Special Master with a fair-minded approach to providing defense counsel with information needed to support Rule 41 (g) filing is an appropriate use of this Court’s authority on such matters.

Rule 41 (g) is a motion to return property by “an unlawful search and seizure of property or by the deprivation of property may move for the property’s return. The motion must be filed in the district where the property was seized,” which in this case is the Southern District of Florida.

The lawsuit characterized the raid, which gave all appearances of a slow-motion smash and grab, as a “shockingly  aggressive move — and with no understanding of the distress that it would cause most Americans.”  It alleged the FBI agents also took “privileged and 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.”

Related: Did Joe Biden Reclassify the Russia Collusion Docs That Trump Declassified?

On Monday, the U.S. Magistrate selected by the Feds released a statement indicating they would release the affidavit he saw that justified the never-before-done raid on the home of a former president. Magistrate Bruce Reinhart said the federal government has not made its case to seal all of it. That means, as he said last Thursday in a special hearing, that investigators will be given a chance to redact some items but not all.

As I’ve also reported, and as is being alleged in President Trump’s lawsuit, it’s looking more and more likely that the FBI raid was an excuse to get his copies of the Russia collusion documents. On his Truth Social account, [Kash] Patel wrote, “DOJ and FBI – and vindictive librarians at NARA – continue to perpetuate the Russia hoax by ‘seizing’ documents that President Trump declassified and the American people need to see. … Bottom line, they never want you to see their corrupt Russia Gate documents and will use any and all power to keep them from the American people.”

This view is shared by others, and if we get a look at the affidavit for the search warrant on Thursday, we may get some answers. If that doesn’t happen, Trump’s lawsuit and the appointment of a “special master” is another fallback. Of course, Trump and his representative to the National Archives, Patel, thought the declassifying of Trump Russia and Clinton email investigation documents in 2020 and 2021 would solve the issue, but the FBI and DOJ seem to think that they’re in charge.