The campaign of President Donald J. Trump, here at his Mar-a-Lago estate on April 18, is named with WikiLeaks and the Russian government, in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit filed on Friday by the Democratic National Committee. The suit says the defendants conspired to disrupt the 2016 presidential campaign. Photo by Gary I Rothstein/UPI |
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April 20 (UPI) -- The Democratic National Committee filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit on Friday, accusing the Russian government, President Donald Trump's campaign, the WikiLeaks organization and others with conspiracy to disrupt the 2016 presidential election.
The complaint was filed in federal district court in New York City. It alleges that Trump campaign officials conspired with the Russian government to damage the chances of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton by helping Trump secure the election. It adds that Democratic Party computers were hacked and stolen information was disseminated to hurt Clinton's campaign. It asserts that the Russian hacking operations, with the Trump campaign's involvement and encouragement, amounted to an illegal conspiracy to interfere in the election that caused serious damage to the Democratic Party.
"During the 2016 presidential campaign, Russia launched an all-out assault on our democracy, and it found a willing and active partner in Donald Trump's campaign," DNC Chairman Tom Perez said in a statement. "This constituted an act of unprecedented treachery: the campaign of a nominee for President of the United States in league with a hostile foreign power to bolster its own chance to win the presidency."
In March, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee announced their investigation did not find evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russian officials to influence the election.
That decision was rejected by the committee's Democrats. Trump has repeatedly denied any collusion between his campaign and Russia.
While suing a foreign government tends to be problematic because of immunity issues, the DNC suit argues that the hack constituted a trespass on the party's private property and is thus ineligible for immunity protection.
The suits says, "The DNC claims arise out of Russia's trespass on to the DNC's private servers ... in order to steal trade secrets and commit economic espionage."
