Vivek Ramaswamy sues DOJ for Trump indictment communications

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice seeking communications between the agency and the White House about the indictment of former President Donald Trump in relation to his alleged mishandling of classified documents.

"I 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 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," he tweeted on Tuesday.

"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," he continued. "We should demand accountability and transparency. In U.S. v. Alvarez, the Supreme Court held that political candidates have a First Amendment right to knowingly make inaccurate statements. If you're going to indict a former president and leading presidential candidate, it better not be based on unprecedented legal theory."

"Further, it's more than a stretch to call something criminal if someone is seeking legal counsel from their own lawyers," he continued. "Jack Smith has created a dangerous precedent by criminalizing the behavior of Trump's lawyers who offered him legal advice, labeling them co-conspirators instead. This jeopardizes the future of our legal system. If we fail to admit the truth, Jan 6 will just be a preview of far worse to come. We must reunite this country, but the path forward will not be easy."

The presidential candidate's comments come shortly after special counsel Jack Smith announced a second indictment of Trump in relation to his efforts to challenge the 2020 presidential election results.

Ramaswamy has condemned that indictment as "un-American" and committed to pardoning Trump for those charges should he win the White House. 

"Donald Trump isn’t the cause of what happened on Jan 6. The real cause was systematic & pervasive censorship of citizens in the year leading up to it," he stated. "If you tell people they can’t speak, that’s when they scream. If you tell people they can’t scream, that’s when they tear things down. If we fail to admit the truth, Jan 6 will just be a preview of far worse to come & I don’t want to see us get there."

The Republican has seen his political prospects soar in recent weeks and he now stands squarely in third place for the party nomination, behind only Trump himself and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.