The Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced last week that it is suing Russia, WikiLeaks, and the Trump campaign and Representative Devin Nunes (Rep-CA) is livid. “The Democrats”, says Nunes “ought to be suing themselves … they’re the ones that colluded with the Russians.”
Nunes, the Chairman of the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence dismissed the lawsuit as “nothing more than a scam” aimed at keeping the DNC base fired up. In particular, the DNC is working to please the far left extreme that has never accepted that Donald Trump is the duly elected President of the United States.
DNC chairman, Tom Perez doesn’t believe the lawsuit is a scam as “Russia launched an all-out assault on our democracy, and it found a willing and active partner in Donald Trump’s campaign.”
The DNC’s complaint filed in federal district court in Manhattan, claims that the “illegal conspiracy inflicted profound damage” to their campaign in 2016, drove away donors, cost the party millions of dollars in damages and encourage personal attacks on party employees.
Perez told Chuck Todd on NBC’s Meet the Press that the release of stolen materials, namely damaging emails, was timed to drive a wedge between Democratic voters and the DNC. The suit reads: “The release of stolen materials also impaired the DNC’s ability to support Democratic candidates in the general election.”
The lawsuit identifies as defendants various Trump campaign aides who met with Russian nationals during the campaign, most notably former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. It further lists 12 laws those parties allegedly violated including the Wiretap Act, the Stored Communications Act, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, D.C.’s ‘Trespass’ law, and the Stored Communications Act.
In the 66 page suit, the DNC cites news reports, public comments, and a series of events that prove conspiracy between actors such as Donald Trump Jr., WikiLeaks, and Russian agents. It also cites President Trump’s public praise of WikiLeaks as the proof of conspiracy.
Perez disagrees, but suing a foreign government is a non-starter. Most countries, including Russia, are immune from U.S. lawsuits.
In an amazing case of misdirection, the DNC appears to be willing to try anything to take the spotlight off of its own mishandling of classified information and its abuse of power.
In spite of its own clear record of ignoring democratic process DNC chairman Perez claims that “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.”
He went so far to say that the actions of those named in the lawsuit “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.”
When asked about the lawsuit Representative Nunes said when he first heard of it he thought it had to be some kind of joke.
“My first thought is that is this some kind of joke? This must be a joke. I mean, we know who colluded with the Russians. They don’t want to admit that they colluded with Russians, but they hired Fusion — they hired a law firm that hired Fusion GPS that hired a British spy that went and colluded with Russians. So I don’t understand why they didn’t just open up a lawsuit against themselves,” said David Nunes.
While Nunes is adamant that the DNC’s lawsuit is a frivolous attempt to fire up its base that has no merit, Perez told Chuck Todd, “I’m confident we will get a jury trial.”
The DNC is trying to use the lawsuit to reframe itself as the defender of democracy. According to Perez and others, the DNC is fighting to protect what it calls “an assault on our democracy” that they have to protect. As Perez said, “I’m punching back not only for my colleagues, I’m punching back for democracy.”
Former Trump campaign ally, Roger Stone responded to the Democratic National Committee’s Russia collusion lawsuit by telling the DNC it had better preserve its records, databases, and servers for inspection.
Mr. Stone is one of the more than a dozen defendants listed in the suit that claims they colluded to hack the DNC’s emails for the purpose of helping the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.
The lawsuit alleges the Trump campaign was aware of the hacking and welcomed it rather than report the cyber breach to authorities. Stone said: “The DNC lawsuit opens the door of discovery. My lawyers and I want to examine the DNC servers to settle this bogus claim of Russian hacking once and for all.”
President Trump was quick to fire back at the DNC in a tweet:
So funny, the Democrats have sued the Republicans for Winning. Now [t]he R’s counter and force them to turn over a treasure trove of material, including Servers and Emails!
Trump echoed Roger Stone as he expressed hope that Republican lawyers would use the suit to force the DNC to turn over computer servers hacked by Russian intelligence agents during the election. He tweeted:
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 Debbie Wasserman Schultz Servers and Documents held by the Pakistani mystery man and Clinton Emails.
Despite initial support for the lawsuit it is already coming under fire from some Democratic lawmakers. California Representative Jackie Speier said that based on public evidence from the various Russia probes she couldn’t support the lawsuit.
Trump is not a party in the suit but he sees it as “good news.” The DNC has unwittingly provided an opening for him to gain more information about his political opponents. Perhaps those misplaced email servers will be found after all.
