Former President Trump sued Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, and a host of other parties on Thursday, accusing them of plotting to falsely accuse him of collusion with Russia ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
“In the run-up to the 2016 Presidential Election, Hillary Clinton and her cohorts orchestrated an unthinkable plot—one that shocks the conscience and is an affront to this nation’s democracy,” the lawsuit states. “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 suit further alleges that “the scheme was conceived, coordinated and carried out by top-level officials at the Clinton Campaign and the DNC—including ‘the candidate’ herself—who attempted to shield her involvement behind a wall of third parties.”
The suit claims that the dissemination of the Steele dossier, which contained unfounded claims about Trump’s connections to Russia, was part of the initiative.
Trump is demanding a jury trial for the suit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Special Counsel John Durham was assigned by former attorney general William Barr to investigate the origins of the FBI’s Russia probe, and has since continued his investigation into the matter. The main researcher behind the Steele dossier, Igor Danchenko, was arrested in November 2021 on charges of lying to the FBI, following a grand jury indictment in connection with Durham’s investigation.
Lawyer Michael Sussmann pleaded not guilty to similar charges in September 2021, with a grand jury indictment alleging that Sussmann was working for the Clinton 2016 presidential campaign. Former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith has already pleaded guilty to falsifying a document used to obtain a FISA warrant to surveil former Trump-campaign official Carter Page.