Trump threatens to sue FBI over Mar-a-Lago search for classified documents, but experts say it won’t go anywhere
Trying to drag the Department of Justice into court over a legally-authorized warrant would be little more than a fool’s errand, one former federal prosecutor tells The Independent.
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump’s extremely brief foray into “unity” during his speech at last week’s Republican National Convention is, perhaps unsurprisingly, no longer.
“Somebody please explain to Rep. James Clyburn, not the brightest bulb in the House, that I am beating the Biden/Harris Prosecutors, like Deranged Jack Smith, whose case against me in Florida, ‘the biggest of them all’ according to the Radical Left Lunatics, was just ‘thrown out’ as being Unconstitutional,” the twice-impeached former president posted Monday afternoon on Truth Social. “Now it is my time to sue them for illegally breaking into, and raiding, Mar-a-Lago. All of these Biden/Harris cases against me are a Weaponization of Justice against their Political Opponent, Me — Strictly Third World Country. MAGA2024!”
It is not entirely clear what Trump was specifically reacting to, but in a television appearance earlier in the day, Clyburn said of Biden: “I believe he will go down in history as one of the best and most consequential presidents we’ve ever had.”
When Trump was shot at a Pennsylvania campaign rally on July 13, President Joe Biden quickly denounced the attack as “sick,” expressed gratitude that Trump was safe, and emphasized, “We are not enemies.” Vice-President Kamala Harris, for her part, called the shooting “heinous, horrible, and cowardly,” and said that “violence is never acceptable.”
During his RNC speech a few days later, Trump made brief remarks about coming together as a nation, then quickly reverted to form, lobbing ugly insults at Biden, Harris, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and other Democrats.
Trump’s rage-filled screed on Monday followed nearly a dozen other outlandish posts about Biden and Harris that began Sunday evening, and continued into the early hours of Monday. He railed against Biden’s decision to step aside and let Harris run in his stead, following weeks of very public concerns from Democrats that the party needed a younger, more vibrant candidate to foil Trump in November. The Republican nominee also lobbed a lawsuit threat over the classified document raid.
Trump’s claim the federal case brought against him by the Department of Justice and Special Prosecutor Jack Smith for allegedly pilfering a hoard of restricted government documents on his way out of the Oval Office and storing them, unsecured, at the members-only Florida country club he now calls home, was somehow against the law, misses the mark by a significant margin, according to former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani.
“The FBI executing a search pursuant to a lawfully signed warrant is not a constitutional violation,” Rahmani told The Independent, noting that the judge overseeing the case, who was appointed by Trump, dismissed it on procedural grounds. “If Trump really sues the FBI, I expect the lawsuit to be dismissed in short order.”
Suing the law enforcement personnel assigned to search Mar-a-Lago at the outset of the case, seizing hundreds of official documents, including highly sensitive classified materials, would also be a fool’s errand, according to Rahmani.
“The government and its agents generally have immunity from civil suits,” Rahmani explained. “That immunity is qualified, meaning it can be overcome if there is a violation of a clearly established constitutional rights.”
In this instance, there is none, said Craig Holman, a government ethics, lobbying and campaign finance expert at D.C. watchdog group Public Citizen.
“DOJ was simply doing its job recovering stolen documents,” Holman told The Independent.
The dismissal of the case will almost certainly be reversed on appeal, as the ruling contradicts long-established precedent, Holman added. The only way for Trump to “win” this battle, according to Holman, would be to regain the presidency and pardon himself.
Trump followed up his post on Monday about suing the DOJ, Smith, and whatever other officials he believes responsible for some unspecified offense, the onetime commander-in-chief went after Biden, claiming he “will go down as the Worst President in the history of the United States,” and that “KAMALA, OUR HORRIBLE & INCOMPETENT BORDER CZAR, WILL BE WORSE!”
Another missive from Trump, posted mid-afternoon, read, “Wow, just watching the Fake News, and they’re doing their very best to turn the Worst President in the History of our Country into a ‘Brilliant and Heroic Leader’ (He was heroic because he quit!), and to turn ‘Dumb as a Rock’ Kamala Harris from a totally failed and insignificant Vice President into a future ‘Great’ President. No, it just doesn’t work that way!”
Trump has previously referred to himself as the “best” president in U.S. history, claiming he did more for Black Americans than even Abraham Lincoln, who ended slavery.