Even since before he became a presidential candidate Donald Trump equated immigrants with violence, and he’s brought that false association right into the White House. Trump has promoted the idea that Mexicans are murderers and rapists, while painting Muslim as virtually a synonym for terrorist. He’s used these false charges to justify changes in the national security budget, including defunding programs meant to address the threat of white supremacists and channeling more into programs supporting his Muslim ban.
Many of the statements Trump has used to defend these positions have included distortions, bad statistics, ‘fake news,’ and plain old lies. And now someone has decided to do more than complain about it. Ben Wittes, of Lawfare, is suing Trump over his persistent lies concerning national security and the threat of terrorism.
The lawsuit, which Wittes filed on August 11 and announced the next day, challenges a claim Trump made in February before a joint session of Congress, when the president said, “According to data provided by the Department of Justice, the vast majority of individuals convicted of terrorism and terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country.”
Research shows that Trump’s terrorists = immigrants statement is simply not accurate. In fact, based on public documents, it’s wildly untrue, with the greatest threat over the last 16 years coming from radical white nationalists.
But “public documents” is the key part of that statement, as both the White House and the Justice Department have ignored Freedom of Information Act requests for data on terrorist activities. That’s why Wittes is suing—not for money, but for information.
The lawsuit, filed in United States district court in Washington, D.C., also names the Office of Management and Budget as a defendant. A spokesperson for that office was not immediately available to comment on Monday, and a Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment. As of Monday morning, neither defendant appeared to have assigned a lawyer to the case.
Wittes is known to be a friend of former FBI Director James Comey, and also to have good sources within the Trump White House. Since Trump fired Comey, Wittes’ “tick tick tick” messages have sometimes singled the impending release of damaging information about Trump, particularly in the area of the investigation into connections between the Trump campaign and Russia.