And the drama continues.
You might recall that last month, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee concluded that after a lengthy investigation, there’s “no evidence of collusion, coordination, or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians.”
That conclusion came as the panel announced they were shutting down their yearlong investigation and in the course of communicating that to the public, the committee also broke with the intelligence community in asserting that the Kremlin had no “preference” for Trump over Hillary Clinton.
Obviously all of that was absurd and nobody besides Trump really cared because everyone had given up on the committee months ago after the panel’s probe devolved into a pissing contest between Devin Nunes and Adam Schiff. The decision to end the probe came shortly after the “memo” fiasco that found Nunes throwing what amounted to a Hail Mary in an effort to make the American public believe that the FBI can’t be trusted. That memo was refuted by a Democratic counter-memo.
Since then, Trump has continued to (loudly) insist that there was never any collusion between his campaign and the Russians despite voluminous evidence to the contrary uncovered by the Mueller probe – I mean, it’s difficult to “prove” collusion, but between Manafort, Gates, Flynn, Sessions, Papadopoulos, and on and on, it’s abundantly clear that something was going on there and now, the Democratic National Committee has filed a lawsuit against the Russian government, the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks.
Here’s WaPo with some context:
Suing a foreign country may present legal challenges for the Democrats, in part because other nations have immunity from most U.S. lawsuits. The DNC’s complaint argues Russia is not entitled to the protection because the hack constituted a trespass on the party’s private property.
The lawsuit argues that Russia is not entitled to sovereign immunity in this case because “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.”
The lawsuit echoes a similar legal tactic that the Democratic Party used during the Watergate scandal. In 1972, the DNC filed suit against then President Richard Nixon’s reelection committee seeking $1 million in damages for the break-in at Democratic headquarters in the Watergate building.
Trump is going to have a field day with this on Twitter. You can amuse yourself with the full complaint embedded below and as you read it, don’t forget these super-fun screengrabs from Don Jr.’s DMs:
Hard to believe that this came out of the DNC. I couldn’t believe my eyes when the WAPO article hit my inbox at 11:07am, I read the article and towards the end observed the words “Cohen Milstein!” I knew then it was to be a real lawsuit. They are top flight trial lawyers that work mostly on the plaintiff’s side and their case outcomes* are all you need to know to get a feel for the firm.
The complaint is an awesome piece of work. So wonderfully creative and as you can see, it’s filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, the same courthouse where Cohen is having his inner apoplectic moments these days.
This is now a double pincer move, with Stormy and this civil case on the civil side and Mueller and Robert Khuzami, Acting US Attorney, for the Southern District.
In this DNC case everybody will be giving depositions except those who prefer the fifth amendment. It will not be long before they add Destructo as a party-defendant and take his deposition.
Oh the thrill of this! So much more to come of this. Maybe they can take Nunes’ deposition as it’s relevant to the coverup. Just think of everyone on “Trump’s coverup team” …. is their testimony relevant? Of course it is!!
This is wonderful!!
*https://www.cohenmilstein.com/cases/?status=Past%20Success