The Democratic National Committee is suing the Trump campaign, Russia, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and several relatives and associates of President Donald Trump alleging a grand conspiracy that harmed Democrats through WikiLeaks’ publication of internal party emails during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The 66-page lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court on Friday lays out how the Trumps allegedly curried favor in Russia through their family business, and then Russians allegedly used those connections before the presidential election to disseminate the spoils from a cyberattack on the DNC.
“In the Trump campaign, Russia found a willing and active partner in this effort” to disrupt the presidential election, the Democratic committee alleges.
Judge John G. Koeltl, a Clinton appointee, will preside over the case.
Trump’s campaign called the lawsuit” frivolous” and characterized it as “a last-ditch effort to substantiate the baseless Russian collusion allegations” by a party “still trying to counter the will of the people in the 2016 presidential election.”
“This is a sham lawsuit about a bogus Russian collusion claim filed by a desperate, dysfunctional, and nearly insolvent Democratic Party,” campaign manager Brad Parscale said. “With the Democrats’ conspiracy theories against the President’s campaign evaporating as quickly as the failing DNC’s fundraising, they’ve sunk to a new low to raise money, especially among small donors who have abandoned them. “