Ramaswamy information lawsuit towards DOJ after company fails to answer FOIA over Trump docs case

Vivek Ramaswamy introduced Tuesday that he had filed a lawsuit towards the Justice Department after it failed to answer his Freedom of Information Act request in regards to the categorised paperwork case towards former President Donald Trump.

The Republican presidential-primary hopeful tweeted Tuesday night time that he had “just filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice following its failure to substantively respond to my Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.”

The request, he stated, sought “to uncover what White House officials, including President Joe Biden, communicated to Merrick Garland & Jack Smith about the unprecedented indictment in the classified documents case of a former U.S. President and one of Biden’s political opponents in the 2024 Presidential election.”

“I’m also filing a separate FOIA request with the DOJ to uncover any similar communications relating to the just-issued Jan 6 Trump indictment. We should demand accountability and transparency,” he stated.

The Washington Times reached out to the Justice Department however didn’t hear again.  

Mr. Ramaswamy’s announcement got here on the heels of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s 4-count federal indictment towards Mr. Trump on 4 prison fees stemming from the previous president’s efforts to reverse the outcomes of the 2020 presidential election and the occasions surrounding the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot.

The four-count, 45-page indictment accuses Mr. Trump of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to hinder an official continuing, obstruction of an official continuing, and conspiracy towards the rights of residents.

Prosecutors say Mr. Trump was so determined to stay in energy that for 2 months after the November election that he “spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he actually had won.”

“These claims were false, the defendant knew they were false. But the defendant repeated and widely disseminated them anyway — to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger and erode public faith in the administration of elections,” prosecutors wrote.

But Mr. Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur surging within the polls amongst GOP major voters, denounced these grounds, citing the U.S. Supreme Court case U.S. v. Alvarez, which held that political candidates actually have a First Amendment proper to make inaccurate statements knowingly.

“If you’re going to indict a former president and leading presidential candidate, it better not be based on unprecedented legal theory,” he stated. “Further, it’s more than a stretch to call something criminal if someone is seeking legal counsel from their own lawyers.”

Mr. Smith has “created a dangerous precedent,” Mr. Ramaswamy stated, accusing him of “criminalizing the behavior of Trump’s lawyers who offered him legal advice, labeling them co-conspirators instead.”

Mr. Trump’s marketing campaign denied he had dedicated any wrongdoing and accused Mr. Biden of weaponizing the Justice Department to subvert his presidential marketing campaign.