Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump walks to the stage to speak during a rally at Montana State University’s Brick Breedon Fieldhouse on August 9, 2024 in Bozeman, Montana.
Michael Ciaglo | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Lawyers for former President Donald Trump have announced that their client plans to file a $115 million lawsuit against the Department of Justice and the FBI for alleged “malicious political prosecution” and “abuse of the legal process.”
A copy of the notice, obtained by NBC News on Monday, baselessly accuses Justice Department officials and special counsel Jack Smith of conducting “a malicious political prosecution aimed at influencing the outcome of the election in order to prevent President Trump’s reelection” — an accusation Trump has made frequently online and on the campaign trail.
“This malicious prosecution has caused President Trump to spend tens of millions of dollars defending his case and his own reputation,” Trump lawyer Daniel Z. Epstein said in a complaint to the Justice Department. Epstein is a former Trump administration lawyer who now serves as vice president of America First Legal, a law firm founded by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller.
The lawsuit alleges that the FBI’s court-authorized search of Trump’s Florida mansion in August 2022 for classified documents was improper, as was his subsequent prosecution of dozens of classified documents that agents found during the search. Trump has maintained his innocence.
The complaint, first reported by Fox News, said the searches violated “established procedures” regarding former presidents, cited social media posts by Trump after the searches and said the government could have obtained the records “at any time.”
“All they had to do was ask,” the Truth Social post said. The complaint doesn’t mention that the National Archives and the Department of Justice had repeatedly requested Trump return the records. The Justice Department issued a subpoena seeking such documents as early as May 2022, and Trump’s lawyers signed a declaration in June that year that they had all been returned. The search warrants were executed after investigators received a tip that they had been misled.
The lawsuit alleges that the Department of Justice’s “procedures” were “unconstitutional.”
It says Smith pointed out that U.S. District Judge Eileen Cannon dismissed the case last month after filing “unlawful criminal charges” stemming from the investigation last July. Judge Cannon, a Trump appointee, dismissed the lawsuit, finding Smith’s appointment as special counsel and funding of the investigation were illegal.
Other federal judges have rejected similar arguments about previous special counsels. Judge Smith is appealing Cannon’s decision.
The Justice Department declined to comment.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Chung said the move was part of Trump’s fight against a “weaponized Department of Justice” and that the criminal charges against Trump “should be dismissed immediately to restore unity to the country.”
The notice filed by Trump is a required step in most civil damage claims against the government. No deadline is set for a response, but if a claimant doesn’t receive a “final disposition” within six months of sending the claim, the claimant can consider the silence a dismissal and sue. The motion suggests the lawsuit will be filed in the same district of Florida where Cannon sits.
The application was signed on Aug. 7, the day before the second anniversary of the start of the search. “Failure to complete this form or to provide the requested materials within two years of the date the claim arose may render the claim void,” the request states.
According to the lawsuit, Trump is seeking “$15 million in actual damages for the costs of defending the Special Counsel in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.” It is unclear how much of that amount has been paid by Trump personally. NBC News previously reported that Trump appears to be using political action committee money to pay his legal fees.
He also seeks $100 million in punitive damages.
Author E. Jean Carroll’s lawyers are currently appealing an $83 million defamation award against Trump, but they argue the award should be reduced because the punitive damages were about four times the amount of the compensatory damages, which Carroll is seeking in her lawsuit, are more than six times the amount of the compensatory damages.
It is unclear what would happen to the lawsuit if Trump is re-elected in November, or whether he would be able to direct the Justice Department to pay the amounts he is seeking.
