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Trump plans to file a $100 million lawsuit against the Justice Department over Mar-a-Lago search and 'witch hunts'

Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump walks toward the stage to speak at a rally at the Brick Breeden Fieldhouse at Montana State University on August 9, 2024 in Bozeman, Montana.

An attorney for former President Donald Trump has filed a legal notice announcing that his client plans to sue the Justice Department and the FBI for $115 million for alleged "malicious political prosecution" and "abuse of process."

The notice, a copy of which NBC News obtained Monday, baselessly accuses DOJ leadership and Special Counsel Jack Smith of having perpetrated a "malicious political prosecution aimed at affecting an electoral outcome to prevent President Trump from being re-elected" — a frequent accusation that Trump makes online and during campaign events.

"This malicious prosecution led President Trump to spend tens of millions of dollars defending the case and his reputation," Trump attorney Daniel Z. Epstein wrote in a notice of claim against the department. Epstein is a former Trump White House lawyer who is now vice-president of America First Legal, the legal group founded by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller.

The filing complains that the FBI's court-approved search for classified documents at Trump's Florida estate in August of 2022 was improper, as was Trump's subsequent indictment for the scores of sensitive classified documents that agents turned up during the search. Trump had pleaded not guilty.

The filing, which was first reported by Fox News, said the search violated "well-established protocol" involving former presidents and cites a Trump social media post after the search saying the government could have had the records "anytime they wanted."

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