Donald Trump has sued Hillary Clinton and other Democrats, claiming that they tried to rig the 2016 election by tying the former president’s campaign to Russia.
Reuters reported the lawsuit on Thursday.
“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,” Mr Trump claimed in the lawsuit filed in Florida federal court.
Mr Trump beat Ms Clinton in the 2016 election, entering office in 2017. He claims that she and other Democrats are guilty of “racketeering” and a “conspiracy to commit injurious falsehood”.
But Mr Trump’s claims stand in contrast to a report released by the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2020 when the chamber was controlled by the Republicans.
The 966-page report found that Russia used Republican lobbyist Paul Manafort and the Wikileaks website in their efforts to try to aid Mr Trump in the 2016 election.
Mr Manafort served as the Trump campaign chairman and had deep connections to Russian oligarchs. In that capacity, he was also active on the pro-Russian side of Ukrainian politics. He was working for the 2016 Trump campaign for five months.
While Moscow has rejected any involvement in election interference, the Russian efforts were laid out in the report put together by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, whose investigation lasted for two years.
Mr Trump is looking for compensatory and punitive damages in the lawsuit against Ms Clinton and her fellow Democrats.
He claims that he was “forced to incur expenses in an amount to be determined at trial, but known to be in excess of twenty-four million dollars ($24,000,000) and continuing to accrue, in the form of defence costs, legal fees, and related expenses”.
The other defendants in the lawsuit include the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Biden National Security adviser Jake Sullivan, former DNC chair and current Florida Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Bill Clinton Chief of Staff, Obama adviser, and Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, former FBI Director James Comey, and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, among others.
“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.
“The actions taken in furtherance of their scheme—falsifying evidence, deceiving law enforcement, and exploiting access to highly-sensitive data sources - are so outrageous, subversive and incendiary that even the events of Watergate pale in comparison,” Mr Trump claims in the legal filing.
“Under the guise of ‘opposition research,’ ‘data analytics,’ and other political stratagems, the Defendants nefariously sought to sway the public’s trust,” the legal team adds in the 108-page document. “They worked together with a single, self-serving purpose: to vilify Donald J Trump. Indeed, their far-reaching conspiracy was designed to cripple Trump’s bid for presidency by fabricating a scandal that would be used to trigger an unfounded federal investigation and ignite a media frenzy.”
Mr Trump previous personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has falsely claimed that it was Ukraine that interfered in the 2016 election in support of Hillary Clinton.
