WASHINGTON – *Shortly after the Democratic National Committee filed amultimillion-dollar lawsuit Friday against the Russian government, theTrump campaign and the WikiLeaks organization alleging a far-reachingconspiracy to disrupt the 2016 campaign and tilt the election to DonaldTrump, the US president took to Twitter to respond.*
“Just heard the Campaign was sued by the Obstructionist Democrats. This canbe good news in that we will now counter for the DNC Server that theyrefused to give to the FBI, the Debbie Wasserman Schultz Servers andDocuments held by the Pakistani mystery man and Clinton Emails,” he said.
It was not immediately clear what Trump meant by his comment or who he wasreferring to.
The Democratic Party sued the Russian government, US President DonaldTrump’s campaign and WikiLeaks on Friday, charging that they carried out awide-ranging conspiracy to influence the 2016 US presidential election.
In its federal lawsuit in Manhattan, the Democratic National Committee saidthat top officials in Trump’s campaign conspired with the Russiangovernment and its military spy agency to hurt Democratic presidentialnominee Hillary Clinton and tilt the election to Trump by hackingDemocratic Party computers.
The lawsuit alleged that Trump’s campaign “gleefully welcomed Russia’shelp” in the 2016 election and accuses it of being a “racketeeringenterprise” that worked in tandem with Moscow.
“During the 2016 presidential campaign, Russia launched an all-out assaulton our democracy and it found a willing and active partner in DonaldTrump’s campaign,” said Tom Perez, chair of the DNC. “This constituted anact of unprecedented treachery.”
The suit prompted Trump to send a Friday evening tweet that called theDemocrats “obstructionist” and promised a counterattack based on hislongstanding assertion that Clinton committed a crime with her personalemail server.
“This can be good news in that we will now counter for the DNC Server thatthey refused to give to the FBI, the Wendy Wasserman Schultz Servers andDocuments held by the Pakistani mystery man and Clinton Emails,” Trump, aRepublican, wrote.
Trump appeared to refer to Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whochaired the DNC during the election when its servers were hacked, and aPakistan-born information technology worker found by the House ofRepresentatives inspector general to have inappropriately accessedcongressional data.
The campaign operation Trump has already set up ahead of the 2020 presidentelection called the lawsuit frivolous and characterized it as a fundraisingeffort.
“This is a sham lawsuit about a bogus Russian collusion claim filed by adesperate, dysfunctional, and nearly insolvent Democratic Party,” thecampaign’s manager, Brad Parscale, said in a statement.
Defendants in the lawsuit include three people who have been indicted as aresult of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russianmeddling: former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Manafort associate RickGates and former campaign aide George Papadopoulos.
Also named as defendants were Donald Trump Jr., Trump associate Roger Stoneand Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Trump has repeatedly denied his campaign colluded with Russia and Moscowhas denied meddling in the election.
Four US intelligence agencies reported last year that Russia sponsored thehacking of Democratic Party groups and other actions during the 2016campaign. Part of the effort was to benefit Trump over Clinton, theagencies said.
The DNC blames Russia for breaches of its computer systems in 2015 and thefirst half of 2016.
Hackers disseminated internal communications of party officials as theDemocratic nominating convention began and WikiLeaks released thousands ofemails, some of which were embarrassing for the Clinton campaign and wereintended to stoke conflicts among the party’s supporters.
Most of the accusations appeared to be based on news reports and publiclyavailable legal documents and offered little new information about allegedcollusion with Moscow.