Donald Trump has sued Hillary Clinton and several other Democrats accusing them of attempting to rig the 2016 US election by linking his campaign to Russia.
Despite beating Clinton for the presidency, Trump’s suit accuses Clinton and others of orchestrating a “ unthinkable plot” which made Watergate “pale in comparison”.
The 108-page suit comes after the release of a letter from a New York prosecutor who investigated Trump’s business affairs, who said he believed the ex-President was “guilty of numerous felony violations”.
The suit, filed in a US district court in the southern district of Florida, alleges that “Mrs Clinton and her cohorts orchestrated an unthinkable plot - one that shocks the conscience and is an affront to this nation’s democracy.
“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.”
Russia’s alleged interference with the election was investigated in a two-year probe by special counsel Robert Mueller.
While Mueller’s report did not establish collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia, it did list 10 examples where the former President may have tried to obstruct justice and outlined several connections between Trump aides and Moscow.
In 2020, a Republican-led Senate intelligence committee report found links between Paul Manafort, who was Trump’s campaign manager for part of the 2016 race, and Russian intelligence.
He was later jailed on fraud charges, but was pardoned by Trump.
Among those listed in the suit is former FBI official James Comey; Christopher Steele, who wrote a dossier on Trump’s links to Moscow and Jake Sullivan, now national security adviser to Joe Biden.
The legal action is seeking damages and “other relief” deemed appropriate by the court.
While Clinton has not yet responded to the suit, a former spokesperson for Clinton named in the suit, Philippe Reines, said: “I look forward to deposing the plaintiff.”
The new suit comes amid a series of unsuccessful claims about the 2020 election by Trump and his allies, which allege that Joe Biden won as a result of electoral fraud.
The lawsuits are widely seen as tactical amid an ongoing House select committee into the deadly January 6 Capitol insurrection, fanned by Trump’s unevidenced claims of mass voter fraud.
