Trump Sues Hillary Clinton For Allegedly Smearing His 2016 Campaign

Topline

Former President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit on Thursday against 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee and numerous top Democratic officials for taking part in what he called a “far-reaching conspiracy” to tarnish his 2016 presidential bid by tying it to Russia.

These contrasting photos show then Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in Tampa, Florida, … [+] on November 5, 2016, and then Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in Allendale, Michigan, on November 7, 2016.

MANDEL NGAN, BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

Key Facts

Trump’s civil suit invokes the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, commonly used to prosecute organized crime, to claim Clinton and top Democrats “orchestrated an unthinkable plot” to damage his campaign.

The 108-page lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, contains numerous allegations that Clinton and others “maliciously conspired to weave a false narrative that their Republican opponent, Donald J. Trump, was colluding with a hostile foreign sovereignty,” prompting probes into the connection that damaged the Trump campaign’s image.

Former DNC chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), former FBI Director James Comey and longtime Democratic political consultant John Podesta are among others named in the suit.

Trump is seeking a jury trial and claims his damages total “no less than” $24 million.

Clinton could not be immediately reached for comment.

Crucial Quote

“Their far-reaching conspiracy was designed to cripple Trump’s bid for the presidency by fabricating a scandal that would be used to trigger an unfounded federal investigation and ignite a media frenzy,” the lawsuit said.

Contra

A 2020 report from a Republican-led Senate committee determined Russia engaged in an aggressive effort to boost Trump’s chances of winning the 2016 election, including attempting to influence disgraced former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and working with the website WikiLeaks to release hacked documents to damage the Democrats.

Key Background

Trump’s relationship with Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, is again in the spotlight following comments Trump made about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He notably called Putin’s decision to recognize the independence of two Kremlin-supported breakaway states in eastern Ukraine “genius” and went on to call the Russian leader “very savvy.” The comments were widely denounced, even by Republican leaders. Trump and many of his supporters have also recently turned their attention back to 2016, and Clinton in particular. The ex-president jumped on a February court filing from Justice Department special counsel John Durham, who’s investigating the origins of an FBI probe that searched for connections between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia, to make a convoluted and apparently baseless claim that Clinton’s campaign “spied” on him. But Durham distanced himself from that assertion and has not accused the Clinton campaign of any wrongdoing.

Tangent

Two of the figures Trump claimed helped orchestrate a Clinton campaign spying operation were named as defendants in the suit: former DNC attorney Michael Sussmann and tech executive Rodney Joffe.