Armed federal agents stormed into an American’s home to seize documents they had already been privy to and had an open invitation to come back anytime to retrieve them. If bullets started flying, they had an embedded triage unit and maps to local hospitals.
The media was tipped off to the raid and accompanied the agents, broadcasting their every move, including the salacious details of rummaging through the bedroom of the citizen’s wife. The documents they were after, supposedly top secret, were removed from their boxes and strewn across the floor for a photo op.
Now the citizen, former President Donald Trump, is suing the government for $100 million, alleging the raid was a violation of his civil rights and a political persecution scheme engineered by the Biden team to eliminate him as a challenger. The case is one of many instances of lawfare against the 45th president and his associates that were directly coordinated at taxpayer expense with the White House.
After months of contending that the documents represented a national security threat, the special counsel hired by the Department of Justice, Jack Smith, had his 37 felony charges against Trump thrown out by a federal judge.
As the 2022 Mar-a-Lago raid drove headlines worldwide, Joe Biden’s lawyers tipped off the Justice Department that the former vice president had confidential government documents of his own to declare. These were found stacked in his garage and at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, an office funded by the communist China government. Unlike the treatment of Trump, who rails against a “two-tiered justice system” in his bid to retake the Oval Office, Biden’s home was not raided, and the special counsel in his case found nothing wrong.
As per U.S. law, Trump, as president, has every right to obtain government documents and has the authority to declassify anything he wants. Biden, as vice president when he obtained his sensitive materials, had no such authority. Trump attorneys hold that the 15 boxes of documents seized by the 30 armed agents contained evidence of corruption by the Biden family, which has been accused of taking bribes from China, Russia, Ukraine, and other foreign actors in exchange for official acts.
"What President Trump is doing here is not just standing up for himself—he is standing up for all Americans who believe in the rule of law and believe that you should hold the government accountable when it wrongs you," said Trump attorney Daniel Epstein. The suit argues that the "tortious acts against the president are rooted in intrusion upon seclusion, malicious prosecution, and abuse of process resulting from the August 8, 2022 raid of his and his family’s home at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach Florida."
Decisions made by Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray, the Trump suit says, were not grounded in "social, economic, and political policy” but were in "clear dereliction of constitutional principles, inconsistent standards, and a clear intent to engage in political persecution—not to advance good law enforcement practices."
"Garland and Wray should have never approved a raid and subsequent indictment of President Trump because the well-established protocol with former U.S. presidents is to use non-enforcement means to obtain records of the United States," the suit continues. "But notwithstanding the fact that the raid should have never occurred, Garland and Wray should have ensured their agents sought consent from President Trump, notified his lawyers, and sought cooperation. Garland and Wray decided to stray from established protocol to injure President Trump."