SUE HIM!
DNC FILES SUIT AGAINST TRUMP
THE DEMOCRATIC National Committee hit President Trump’s cronies and the Russian government with a multimilliondollar lawsuit on Friday alleging they conspired to illegally influence the 2016 election.
The suit — which targets a host of Trump relatives and pals including his son, Donald Trump Jr., son-in-law Jared Kushner, former campaign manager Paul Manafort and adviser Roger Stone, charges that Russia hacked the Dems’ servers to slime Hillary Clinton and bolster Trump’s campaign.
“Russia launched an all-out assault on our democracy, and it found a willing and active partner in Donald Trump’s campaign,” committee Chairman Tom Perez said in a statement, calling it an “an act of unprecedented treachery.”
The suit filed in Manhattan Federal Court alleges a broad conspiracy between the Trump camp and the Russians that began with a stealthy cyberattack on the DNC’s computer network in July 2015. A second attack took place in April 2016, the suit says.
The hacks put in the hands of the Russians tens of thousands of documents and emails they used to tip the 2016 presidential election to Trump, the suit says.
All the while, the Russians had willing partners in the upper echelons of the Trump campaign, the suit says.
“Rather than report these repeated messages and communications that Russia intended to interfere in the U.S. election, the Trump campaign and its agents gleefully welcomed Russia’s help,” the suit says.
The legal volley follows the playbook used by the Democratic Party in the Watergate scandal.
The committee sued thenPresident Richard Nixon’s reelection committee in 1972 — seeking $1 million in damages for the burglary at Democratic headquarters in the Watergate building.
The lawsuit drew fire from Nixon’s allies but it ultimately prevailed, resulting in a $750,000 settlement that was reached on the day Nixon left office in 1974.
Former Nixon lawyer John Dean told the Daily News the suit played no direct role in Nixon’s resignation.
“But it was a major nuisance for Nixon and the Democrats made a lot of money,” Dean
added.
Trump has repeatedly — and loudly — denied conspiring with Russia.
But special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe has already led to the indictment of 13 Russian national hackers and guilty pleas from four former Trump advisers.
Trump tweeted that the action by the “Obstructionist Democrats” could “be good news in that we will now counter for the DNC Server that they refused to give to the FBI” and “Clinton emails.”
Brad Parscale, Trump’s 2016 digital campaign manager, released a blistering denunciation of the high-profile legal maneuver.
“This is a sham lawsuit about a bogus Russian collusion claim filed by a desperate, dysfunctional, and nearly insolvent Democratic Party,” said Parscale, who’s now managing Trump’s reelection campaign.
The Dems’ civil filing claims that the Russian agents who infiltrated the DNC’s info passed it to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange — who then dumped it publicly. Assange, as well as the hacker who claimed responsibility for the cyberattack, Guccifer 2.0, are also named as defendants.
The suit pins a bull’s-eye on Kushner, claiming he was a key figure in the conspiracy.
Kushner led the Trump campaign’s data operation and hired the social media and analytic firm Cambridge Analytica, the suit notes.
Cambridge Analytica is now under investigation for improperly accessing the personal data of at least 50 million Facebook users to create complex algorithms that may have influenced American voters.
The suit also cites the now-infamous June 2016 sitdown where Trump Jr., (below right) Manafort and Kushner (below left) allegedly met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya as alleged proof of a conspiracy. The President couldn’t resist tweeting about the suit, but garbled his message. “Just heard the Campaign was sued by the Obstructionist Democrats. This can be good news in that we will now counter for the DNC Server that they refused to give to the FBI, the Wendy Wasserman Schultz Servers and Documents held by Pakistani mystery man and Clinton Emails,” he posted, misidentifying former DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wassersman Schultz. The suit seeks monetary damages and an admission of wrongdoing from Trump aides.