A lawsuit was officially filed on Monday by former President Donald Trump and seeks to get a detailed inventory and an audit of the total items taken in the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago that happened earlier this month.
The lawsuit from Trump requests the setting up of a special master to carry out the audit on the items taken by the FBI. Said suit also requests the quick return of all items taken that were outside of the scope of the warrant acquired by the FBI, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.
“To date, the government has failed to legitimize its historic decision to raid the home of a President who had been fully cooperative,” read the lawsuit, which has been labeled Trump v. United States Government.
The Department of Justice put out its own short release that recognizes the lawsuit and said that the department would deal with the lawsuit at length via the court filing still to come.
“The Aug. 8 search warrant at Mar-a-Lago was authorized by a federal court upon the required finding of probably cause. The Department is aware of this evening’s motion. The United States will file its response in court,” expressed Anthony Coley, a spokesman for the DOJ, in a release.
As part of the lawsuit, filed by a set of three of Trump’s attorneys, the legal team for the former president states that the raid carried out on the 8th of August at his Florida home seemed to be more motivated by politics than by law and order. “[T]he Government has failed to legitimize its historic decision,” expressed the suit, going on to add that Attorney General Merrick Garland took the “unheard-of step” in the wake of the raid by holding a press conference about the raid and agreeing to release part of the search warrant application.
The lawsuit records a brief history of Trump’s talks with the National Archives about documents that the archives sought to get back from Mar-a-Lago. The suit speaks out about how Trump was cooperative and accommodating of the requests from the National Archive, and the later requests from the Department of Justice.
This cooperation ended abruptly on the 8th of August when Trump, who was in New York when it went down, got a call from Justice Department counterintelligence chief Jay Bratt tellinh him that the FBI was inside of his Florida home.
“At approximately 9:10a.m., Mr. Bratt telephoned counsel for President Trump and informed him that a group of FBI agents was at Mar-a-Lago to execute a search warrant. Heated discussion ensued as to why the Government did not make a voluntary request to further explore the premises, given the expansive assistance that President Trump had provided to that point,” explained the lawsuit.
Trump put out his own statement in the wake of the filing of the suit.
“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 on 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,” expressed Trump.