The Democratic National Committee filed a lawsuit in federal court in Manhattan Friday against President Trump’s campaign, some of his allies and associates, as well as Russians and Wikileaks. The suit alleges that the Russian effort to meddle in the 2016 election was a racketeering enterprise.
The complaint details the various alleged connections Trump associates had with Russians. It relies on information that has been released via Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, as well as on media reports.
President Trump is not a named defendant in the lawsuit, but his son Donald Trump Jr., son-in-law Jared Kushner, longtime ally Roger Stone and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort are. Manafort deputy and ex-campaign aide Rick Gates is a defendant, as is former campaign advisor George Papadopoulos. Both pleaded guilty in Mueller’s probe and are currently cooperating with it.
Among the other defendants are the Russian Federation, its intelligence entity the GRU, the hacker Guccifer 2.0, Wikileaks and Julian Assange. Aras and Emin Agalarov — the father-son Russians who helped Trump bring his Miss Universe pageant to Moscow in 2013 — are also defendants.
The complaint zeroes in on the hacking of the DNC during the 2016 campaign. It alleges that the hack involved violations of the Wiretap Act and the Stored Communications Act.
“No one is above the law and the perpetrators of this attack must be held accountable,” DNC Chair Tom Perez 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.”
The Washington Post was first to report the lawsuit.
Read the full complaint below:
SWEET! A beautiful weekend Fuck You Very Much to Trump, Putin, and Assange! HAHAHAHAHAHA!
And a civil suit keeps the matter going no matter what Trump and the GOPigs try to do the criminal probes. And there’s no ducking being deposed in a civil suit, either. HAHAHAHA – Merry Christmas in April, Fat Boy!
If it’s what this article says it is, “I love it!”
I’m not totally sure the DNC has standing to claim damages on these theories, but it’s an interesting idea.
Plus, we’ll get to see what lawyers are willing to represent all these defendants. That could be even more interesting!
I got to the Comey memos late. Posted on 2 other threads. Reposting here. Sorry if this feels like thread jacking.
I’ve read the Comey memos a few times. Here are my thoughts:
As expected, this was another self-own by the GOP that one could see coming miles away. Though it is often tiresome to watch Comey feel the need to put himself into situations where he projects his inner struggle to find the line among virtue, self-righteousness and hypocritical, self-serving arrogance, he is an honest and a first rate witness. The GOP just made Trump look more and more guilty. It’s Russia, Russia, Russia; hookers, hookers, hookers; McCabe, McCabe, McCabe; Hillary, Hillary, Hillary.
More than that, these memos wipe away the notion that Trump isn’t aware, doesn’t know what he’s doing and isn’t intelligent. Trump comes across here as menacing, manipulative, calculating, obsessed with sexual violence, motivated by a desire to punish and imprison those that threaten him, and above all, purposeful. In each meeting, Trump conveys a clear purpose hidden beneath the cacophony of thoughts that fly out of his mouth without a filter. He is much more, as I’ve long assumed, like a Tony Soprano style mob boss.
Meeting 1 - 1/6/17, Trump Tower
This is the meeting where Trump gets a security briefing with Clapper, Comey and others, and then Comey, at Clapper’s instruction, has a private sidebar with Trump.
Trump initially seems pleased to have a one on one with Comey. It was his way of thanking him for the help resulting from his various intrusions into the campaign. Trump sees Comey as useful because he always thought that HRC should’ve been indicted and yet Comey came around to bail him out at the end (we know why—actually Rudy knows why). As the end result worked out for Trump, he feels that Comey is a man he can work with and use his independence to his advantage in the way that Cheney used Powell to sell and prosecute the Iraq War. Comey will be a company guy; Trump will run the Company; and Trump will force Comey to do what he wants.
But then Comey blindsides Trump about the pee pee tape and the Steele Dossier. Trump’s obsession with ‘prostitutes’ and his defensive/denialist tactics quickly emerge to challenge not only this accusation, but also the sexual harassment accusations. It’s also important to note that Trump embeds lies in every one of his topics of conversations and in his alibis. Lies to him are just currency to fill dead air time and to provide justifications to his backers and dead ends to investigators. It is a practiced craft on Trump’s part. Here, we have the ridiculous lie that he never stayed overnight in Moscow (he stayed for at least 1 night).
Per the Corn/Isikoff book, Trump felt vulnerable and blindsided by this meeting and thought it was a set up by Obama/Clapper and Comey to blackmail him. Comey’s explanations that they were trying to protect him from blackmail and from the Russians as the incoming POTUS are valid, but that’s not how Trump sees it. In this case, I think Trump is right and Comey was naive.
Trump didn’t care if Buzzfeed had the Dossier and released it. He had survived tons of personal scandal. He had an ongoing trial for rape of a minor all through the campaign and the Media didn’t care (emails are MSM catnip). What he cared about was that the FBI had looked into the pee pee tape/Russia matter. You can see Trump grasping right away (and correctly I might add) that Comey wouldn’t have that meeting with Trump if it were idle rumor. He knows that the FBI is having that meeting with Trump in that particular situation because the FBI is looking into the matter. It’s also about consciousness of guilt because Trump knows what he did that summer, and the summer before that, and the one before that…etc. So, in this case, I think Trump demonstrates his wily nature and that he is a step or two ahead of Comey. His fear after this meeting is rationally based.
Meeting 2 - 1/28/17, Dinner at WH Green Room
This is the meeting where Trump invited Comey to dinner at the WH, 4 days after Flynn messed up his FBI interview, and 1-2 days after Sally Yates informed the WH that Flynn was ‘compromised’ by the Russians.
Comey describes a chaotic ‘jigsaw puzzle’ conversation with Trump with certain themes that Trump kept returning to. This is Trump at his most manipulative and controlling. He dominates the conversation, the topics and puts you on the defensive until he sees that he has softened you up to get to his main points and asks. In my view, Trump had 4 purposes in this meeting (based on my read of what Comey describes):
(1) Continue to reiterate his defense to allegations of sexual misconduct, and general misconduct against him.
IMHO, Trump believes the FBI is investigating him on all of these fronts + Russia. He knows that Flynn has been interviewed. He revisits every detail of the sexual harassment allegations against him. He brings up the ‘golden showers thing’. He reiterates his defense to it, but Trump’s real purpose is to assess whether Comey is hiding something about whether the FBI is investigating it. This is where Trump asks Comey to investigate the ‘pee pee tape’ story to prove it’s a lie. What Trump really means by that is he wants to know who the sources were so that he can have them punished or refer them to Vladimir to be ‘taken care of’. Comey explains to Trump how proving that something didn’t happen is a near impossibility and it would look bad if the FBI appeared to be investigating him, but Trump is not convinced. Here, where Comey (based on his interviews) immediately realized that Trump is morally suspect, he doesn’t seem to get how Trump is manipulating him. This portion of the conversation by Trump is obstruction of justice.
(2) Demand a loyalty oath from Comey and suggest to him that the job might not be his for long should be not agree to act on Trump’s terms.
Unlike the first conversation, Trump essentially starts out by saying that Comey’s job, while nominally his, may not be for long as many want his job. He gently suggests that Comey may want to walk away ‘after all that he has been through’ in the prior year. Trump is basically interviewing Comey to figure out what he wants to do. He peppers in compliments from Mattis and Sessions to keep the tone light, but Trump is clearly probing here. It’s at this point that Trump tells Comey twice about a loyalty oath. What I gathered from this is that Trump doesn’t trust Comey and while he feels his supposed ‘independence’ can be useful, the fact that Comey blindsided him on the Russia/Steele thing may mean he is more trouble than he is worth. It also can’t be separated from the fact that Flynn was interviewed a few days earlier and that Trump by this time (by way of McGahn) now knows the interview didn’t go well. Trump will need a show of loyalty, in terms of a pledge + concrete action. The action he wants is on the Flynn investigation.
(3) Revisit the HRC email investigation for the purpose of identifying his enemies list to punish (HRC, Holder, McCabe).
There is a lengthy recounting of the email investigation. Trump looks at each Comey intrusion as an important inflection point in the campaign. It demonstrates his command of detail, his understanding of politics, and how much he saw the email investigation as key to defeating Hillary. But Trump isn’t looking at the email investigation as a historian or to reminisce about the campaign. He’s looking to find enemies to punish who might have it out for him (i.e., who might be investigating him for his connections to Russia). He centers on McCabe a few times, and Trump’s early obsession with him is revealed. This will help McCabe’s case against Trump should he file a civil suit. He asks about HRC, Lynch and Holder, for a reason. He wants to know whom to go after. In Holder’s case, he views him as a loyal friend to Obama and admires it. Comey, in a case of unctuous foolishness, volunteers opinions on Holder and Lynch that frankly tell us what an arrogant shithead he can be.
(4) Probe the Flynn investigation and get a safe distance from it.
This is the first instance where we can confirm that Trump did in fact bring up the topic of Michael Flynn in this meeting. So all this stuff about loyalty oaths was not disconnected from Flynn. It was deeply connected to it. Here Trump approaches the topic in a gingerly way, as he knows that Flynn had a bad interview with the FBI and is looking to get some distance to throw Flynn under the bus. Trump goes off on Flynn for not telling him that Putin had called 6 days prior and then bringing it up in a toast of Theresa May, and pivots to say that Flynn has ‘judgment’ issues. What I really think Trump is getting at is that Flynn had poor judgment to get caught and he is preparing to throw him under the bus if Comey can’t bail him out.
But I see what Trump is doing here; he brought up Flynn like planting a seed. He wanted to see if Comey would put two and two together:" loyalty + Flynn + Russia…make it happen and we’ve got a deal. Fail to do what I want and there will be trouble."
Meeting 3 - 2/8/17, WH Meet and Greet with Priebus and later Priebus/Trump
This meeting is all new information to my knowledge. Comey has an awkward casual conversation with Flynn before he is escorted to Priebus’ office. Comey offers a pretty stupid legal opinion on the Trump travel ban. He thinks its facially valid but hasn’t studied the matter and isn’t aware of other considerations (like the INA and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment?!!). So why even volunteer an opinion if you’re no better educated on the topic than a lay person!!? These types of things make Comey’s personality grating to the casual observer. It’s the type of attitude that got him and the country into trouble in 2016: stepping out of his lane, thinking he can freestyle or riff, when he has to just shut up and do his job.
But Priebus, who I also think was softening Comey up and isn’t as ignorant as he came across to Comey, gets to his point as to how the Steele Dossier claims ended up in the intel report. Although a lot of text is blacked out, Priebus appears to be making the now familiar GOP complaint that the Steele Dossier is not a US intel source document, it was done by a paid private investigator, and is therefore suspect. Comey reminds Priebus that US intelligence had corroborated a lot of it and had its own independent sources. In this conversation we see the roots of the entire Congressional GOP attempt to thwart the investigation by making the Steele Dossier itself suspect. Priebus is also concerned about leaks.
But the big bombshell here is that Priebus asks “Do you have a FISA order on Mike Flynn?” It appears that Comey answered ‘yes’ but then tried to educate Priebus on the right way to make such inquiries. (As an aside, this is another example of Comey trying to ingratiate himself to the WH in a way that he probably shouldn’t have).
How did Priebus know to ask about a FISA warrant? Was Priebus worried that multiple people were at Mar a Lago conversing contemporaneously with Flynn on 12/29/16 as he talked to Kislyak about how to respond to Obama’s sanctions? (violation of the Logan Act and a loose thread which could unravel the entire conspiracy). Priebus wasn’t really asking about Flynn, but about who was on the other end of the line with Flynn. If Flynn had a FISA warrant, the Feds would not only be able to capture any conversation with Kislyak, they would also be able to capture conversations Flynn had with Trump’s inner circle. That’s what Priebus is getting at. He’s trying to figure out whether throwing Flynn under the bus is a plausible strategy to end the controversy or whether it will balloon into something bigger. This should tell us that the key players in the WH had collectively conspired with Flynn to undermine the Obama sanctions and now they were working for angles to avoid getting caught for it.
Priebus then also delves into the email investigation. This looks to me to be an obsession of Trump’s which Priebus feels compelled to raise with Comey on the boss’ orders. The purpose here, in my view, is to assess Comey and also assess whether there are enemies within current FBI/DOJ and former that Trump can target as a political response to any inquiry made against him.
Trump is a straight up thug.
Priebus then takes Comey to meet Trump (again). Trump goes into detail on the email investigation, again focusing on McCabe (Trump suspects McCabe of being against him and a likely leader within the FBI to investigate Trump). He again brings up the ‘golden showers thing’ and continues the lie that he didn’t stay overnight in Russia (an impossibility frankly). This is also the conversation where Trump reveals that Putin told him ‘we have some of the most beautiful hookers in the world.’. Was that comment made in 2013? Or Recently? We don’t know, but Trump mentioned it. He’s obsessed with sexual depravity and getting caught for it.
The conversation ended on the Russians wanting an apology from Bill O’Reilly for some critical commentary of Putin, and the interesting part is that Trump asks Comey about an answer he gave to a question from Bill O about respecting Putin. Part of it is blacked out but Comey states that Trump shouldn’t have made a reference to Putin being a killer as a good or morally equivalent thing to the US because ‘we aren’t the kind of killers Putin is’. Trump notices that Comey is criticizing him.
Meeting 4 - 2/14/17, Oval Office Meeting
This is the now infamous meeting which started out as a briefing on homeland security threats and then Trump excused everyone else to talk to Comey separately.
Here, Trump avoids the pleasantries and the jigsaw puzzle of stream of consciousness thoughts and bullshit to get right to the point: he 'wanted to “talk about Mike Flynn.”. The memo describes the now familiar story of Trump asking Comey “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” What appears new to me are Trump’s exact words as quoted by Comey, “'to letting Flynn go”. That’s the first that I can recall where Trump directly made his request without qualifiers. He asked the FBI director ‘to let Flynn go’. He asked him to end the investigation and let Flynn skate (and let himself skate). Trump is obsessed with turning the Russia investigation into a dead end trail or a letter stuck at the dead letter office.
This conversation, like others, focuses a lot on leakers: those who leaked contents of his private conversations with world leaders, and Comey and Trump share some jocular banter about the value of ‘putting a head on a pike as a message’, and Trump responds about putting reporters in jail. Comey again attempts to ingratiate himself to Trump with ‘locker room talk’ type stuff, but Trump knows no boundaries. Trump, ironically, mentions jailing Judy Miller (who protected Scooter Libby whom he just pardoned) as an example of what he wanted to see. Comey tried to draw a distinction between leakers and the press, but it’s lost on Trump. Trump wants Sessions and Comey to focus on leakers. In Trump’s mind, that means going after the free press and putting them in jail.
Meeting 5 - 3/1/17, Phone Conversation
Trump does a check in call and Comey expresses his support of Sessions’ speech on violent crime. Suggests that Comey come by and say hello the next time he is at the WH. I interpret the follow-up as Trump trying to get another opportunity to probe Comey to see if Flynn is being investigated and whether it is ballooning into something bigger.
Meeting 6 - 3/30/17, Phone Conversation
Trump calls Comey again for an 11 minute conversation. The context here is that 10 days prior, Comey had announced to the world that there was a FBI investigation into the Trump campaign’s potential connections to and coordination with Russia. Here, Trump plainly tells Comey that the ‘Russia business’ was hurting his ability to run the country and then goes through his various alibis, embedded with lies and politically useful prop justifications, about how he is not involved with Russia: no money, or hookers (what about the blow?), and that he intends to bring a personal lawsuit against Christopher Steele (didn’t happen and the one that Cohen brought against Buzzfeed for leaking the Steele Dossier is now dropped). Trump also claims that he has talked to everyone who traveled with him in Russia and has confirmed that ‘he didn’t do anything etc’. This is Trump covering his bases and coaching potential witnesses. Comey reminded Trump that Trump himself wasn’t being investigated personally and that he had told the Congressional leadership the same thing. Trump seizes on that information and wants to get that out and wants Comey to find a way to do it.
Here, others at the FBI questioned Comey’s decision to tell Trump that he wasn’t being investigated because obviously he was going to be at some point given the information that they already had. Comey got himself into some trouble here by offering Trump this as a type of pacifier.
He again asks Comey to ‘lift the cloud’ of Russia. He wanted to know who in Congress was pushing for this information. He also made a reference to Sergei Millian (one of the 5 sources of the Steele Dossier who knew Jared Kushner personally). It’s in this context that Trump states that if there was ‘some satellite’ that did something it would be good to find out, but that he hadn’t done anything wrong. Here, Trump is thinking about getting other to take the fall for the ‘Russia collusion’ matter. Trump also revisits McCabe, this time in a convoluted way.
What we see here is that Trump views the Russia investigation as threatening to him and links that investigation to his own personal conflicts (bribes, emoluments, investments, and of course, Russian prostitutes and other forms of blackmail).
Meeting 7 - 4/11/17, Phone Conversation
Trump calls again to follow-up on whether Comey could make a public statement that Trump himself is not under investigation. Comey tells Trump that he had passed the request to the acting Attorney General (Dana Boente…post Sessions recusal) but that he had not heard back. Here, I commend Boente for not getting caught up in either Comey’s or Trump’s circle of bullshit. It was inappropriate for Trump to make these requests and would only cause trouble to indulge them. He simply sat on the request. Comey referred Trump to tell McGahn to call Boente to figure that out. (no indication that happened).
Trump then makes an odd statement, “Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal, we had that thing, you know.” Comey is confused by what Trump meant with the words ‘that thing’. In my view, it meant that Trump felt like he could’ve fired Comey but was willing to keep him on as long as he saw a way to end the Russia investigation. That’s what the loyalty oath demand was all about. The job was conditional on loyalty. Loyalty needed to be demonstrated. The way Trump wanted loyalty demonstrated was in shutting down the Russia inquiry. In fact, that is/was Trump’s only criteria for a FBI director: end the Russia investigation, and protect Trump from inquiry.
In sum, these memos prove that Comey has been telling the truth and there are no inconsistencies about his recollection of his discussions with Trump. The memos themselves, however, provide a lot more context of Trump’s criminal intent. His entire purpose is to quash attempts to scrutinize his conduct. These memos show intentional behavior that is corrupt.I would think Mueller’s prosecutors would be able to make a case of this. I think the Grand Jury would want to indict Trump based on the profile drawn from these memos.
Good job GOP. This might end up being a bigger self own than the Nunes memo.