Former President Donald Trump is suing a plethora of people in relation to allegations levied against him of Russian collusion and, among the names, is his former presidential opponent and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The former president’s RICO lawsuit alleges that Clinton and a host of others were involved in a conspiracy in which they falsified evidence deceived law enforcement authorities and exploited access to “highly-sensitive data sources” in a way that “even the events of Watergate pale in comparison,” CNBC reported.
The lawsuit seeks more than $72 million in damages, an amount that is triple the $24 million in legal fees and other damages that Trump allegedly has accrued as a result of the defendants’ purported conduct.
Clinton’s spokesman on Friday issued a tart single-word statement on Trump’s suit: “Nonsense.”
The Republican ex-president, who is highly litigious, filed the suit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida more than five years after defeating Clinton the race that was the subject of the supposed plot to harm his chances in the election.
During the campaign in 2016, Trump had said at a press conference, “Russia, if you’re listening — I hope you are able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” referring to electronic communications that had been deleted from a private email server Clinton used while she was secretary of state.
The lawsuit also names DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Clinton campaign chief John Podesta, law firm Perkins Coie, research firm Fusion GPS, former FBI officials Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, and Christopher Steele as defendants.
“Acting in concert, the Defendants maliciously conspired to weave a false narrative that their Republican opponent, Donald J. Trump, was colluding with a hostile foreign sovereignty,” the former president alleged in his lawsuit which was filed in federal court in Florida.
In the lawsuit the former president seeks compensatory and punitive damages and alleges that he was “forced to incur expenses in an amount to be determined at trial, but known to be in excess of twenty-four million dollars ($24,000,000) and continuing to accrue, in the form of defense costs, legal fees, and related expenses.”
“The lawsuit filed today outlines the Defendants’ nefarious plot to vilify Donald J. Trump by spreading lies to weave a false narrative that he was colluding with Russia,” Alina Habba, the former president’s attorney, said in an email.
“For years, Hillary Clinton and her cohorts attempted to shield themselves from culpability by directing others to do their dirty work for them. This lawsuit seeks to hold all parties accountable for their heinous acts and uphold the principles of our sacred democracy,” the attorney said.
