THE Donald Trump filed suit and action against the American Ministry of Justiceseeking $100 million in damages for attempted “political prosecution” of him when his Florida residence was searched by the FBI in order to retrieve confidential and classified government documents.

The lawsuit, filed last week and seen by AFP on Monday, accuses Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray of violating “the protocol” applied to former presidents’ cases in order to “do harm ” to Mr. Trump.

Messrs. Garland and Ray “should never have authorized the (incidentally at Mar-a-Lago) search and the (criminal) investigation that followed,” says the suit, which seeks $100 million in damages and interest and another $15 million for legal fees.

The Republican candidate in the November presidential election keeps repeating, without any evidence, that the Democrats have rigged the justice system to hurt him, and he does not hesitate to file lawsuits, which he sometimes withdraws later.

In May, Mr Trump caused an uproar when he suggested that the FBI’s search warrant proved that his presidential successor, Joe Biden, wanted him dead.

The warrant contains the standard wording that FBI agents are authorized to use deadly force if faced with imminent danger to life or bodily integrity.

In a rare announcement, the FBI had countered that there was “no deviation from standard procedure” in this case, in the investigation carried out by its agents on August 8, 2022.

Donald Trump wasn’t even in Florida the day the federal police executed the search warrant.

The former president faced criminal charges over his negligent handling of confidential and classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago home after he left the White House in 2021. A federal judge ruled the charges on file in mid-July, but the special prosecutor who handled the case appealed.

Mr. Trump was accused in that case of endangering US national security by keeping classified confidential and top secret material at his home, including military plans, nuclear weapons data, etc., instead of handing it over to the national records as required by law.

He was also accused of attempting to destroy evidence in the case.

The most serious of the charges against him carry a ten-year prison sentence.