The Democratic National Committee filed a sweeping lawsuit Friday, alleging that Russia found a “willing and active partner” in the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. The lawsuit is making a case for collusion and names the Trump campaign, Trump family members, Russian government, and WikiLeaks among others.
“No one is above the law and the perpetrators of this attack must be held accountable,” Tom Perez, the DNC chairman said in a statement. “They successfully hacked the Democratic Party in 2016 and they will be back. We must prevent future attacks on our democracy, and that’s exactly what we’re doing today. This is not partisan, it’s patriotic.”
According to ABC News, the defendants in the case include Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and the Trump campaign’s former chairman Paul Manafort.
President Trump himself was not named. But he took to Twitter on Friday to excoriate the lawsuit.
“Just heard the Campaign was sued by the Obstructionist Democrats,” he said. “This can be good news in that we will now counter for the DNC Server that they refused to give to the FBI, the Debbie Wasserman Schultz Servers and Documents held by the Pakistani mystery man and Clinton Emails.”
Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale called the lawsuit “frivolous” and said the campaign will fight back aggressively.
“This is a sham lawsuit about a bogus Russian collusion claim filed by a desperate, dysfunctional, and nearly insolvent Democratic Party,” he told USA Today.
The DNC is seeking both financial damages and an admission of responsibility in the case.
The case comes as special counsel Robert Mueller continues his investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections.