Dossier | Poll-Vaulter

September 12, 2022

A federal judge in Florida has dismissed a sprawling lawsuit filed by former President Donald Trump earlier this year—calling the former president’s complaint a “political manifesto” rather than a viable lawsuit, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The suit had alleged that Hillary Clinton and other prominent Democrats illegally linked Trump to Russia.

In a written order issued late on Thursday, September 8, U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks in West Palm Beach, Florida, said Trump’s various legal theories in the case, including racketeering and conspiracy, “are not only unsupported by any legal authority but plainly foreclosed by binding precedent.”

“Mr. Trump “is not attempting to seek redress for any legal harm; instead, he is seeking to flaunt a two-hundred-page political manifesto outlining his grievances against those that have opposed him, and this Court is not the appropriate forum,” Judge Middlebrooks wrote.

Alina Habba, a lawyer for Trump, said the former president’s team would immediately appeal the decision.

“We vehemently disagree with the opinion issued by the Court today. Not only is it rife with erroneous applications of the law; it disregards the numerous independent governmental investigations which substantiate our claim that the defendants conspired to falsely implicate our client and undermine the 2016 Presidential election,” she said in a statement.

Trump’s lawsuit, originally filed in March, alleged that Democrats tried to rig the 2016 presidential election by accusing him of colluding with Russia. The lawsuit sought compensatory and punitive damages of at least $24 million, asserting that Trump was “forced to incur expenses” including “defense costs, legal fees, and related expenses.”

The defendants in Trump’s lawsuit included former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former FBI Director James Comey, Representative Adam Schiff (D-California), and former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, the author dossier leaked in early 2017 claiming that then-President-elect Trump had conspired with Russia to steer the U.S. election.

“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 complaint says. “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.”

Clinton’s lawyers called the lawsuit a fundraising ploy.

“Whatever the utility of Plaintiff’s Complaint as a fundraising tool, a press release, or a list of political grievances, it has no merit as a lawsuit, and should be dismissed with prejudice,” Clinton’s lawyers said in a May court filing.

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation found repeated contacts between Russia-linked entities and Trump campaign officials before the election, but did not establish that anyone affiliated with his campaign knowingly conspired with Russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential campaign.

Research contact: @WSJ

November 28, 2018

President Donald Trump’s former Campaign Manager Paul Manafort held secret talks with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he had sought asylum—and visited around the time he joined Trump’s campaign, The Guardian reported on November 27.

Manafort’s March 2016 visit to Assange lasted about 40 minutes, a source told the news outlet. Just two months later, in June 2016, WikiLeaks emailed Russian intelligence (the GRU) via an intermediary—seeking DNC materials. After failed attempts, Vladimir Putin’s spies sent the Democrats’ documents in mid-July to WikiLeaks as an encrypted attachment.

What’s more, this was not Manafort’s first visit to Assange. The Guardian’s “well-placed” source said that Manafort previously had visited Assanage at the embassy in 2013 and 2015.

Indeed, The Guardian reported, Manafort’s acquaintance with Assange goes back at least five years, to late 2012 or 2013, when the American was working in Ukraine and advising its Moscow-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych.

However, it is the 2016 encounter that is especially likely to come under scrutiny by Russia investigation Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Just this week, Mueller said that Manafort had “repeatedly lied to the FBI” after he promised to cooperate with the probe in mid-September. The former campaign manager now has been referred by Mueller to the court for sentencing. Whether the secret tête-à-tête in London already has been investigated Mueller’s team is unknown.

According to The Guardian’s report, Manafort, 69, denies involvement in the hack and says the claim is “100% false”. His lawyers declined to answer the Guardian’s questions about the visits.

His defense team says he believes what he has told Mueller to be truthful and has not violated his deal.

One key question is when the Trump campaign, itself, became aware of the Kremlin’s hacking operation—and what, if anything, it did to encourage it. President Trump repeatedly has denied collusion

One person familiar with WikiLeaks said Assange was motivated to damage the Democrats campaign because he believed a future Trump administration would be less likely to seek his extradition on possible charges of espionage. This fate had hung over Assange since 2010, when he released confidential U.S. State Department cables. It contributed to his decision to take refuge in the embassy.

According to the dossier written by the former MI6 Officer Christopher Steele, The Guardian reports, Manafort was at the center of a “well-developed conspiracy of cooperation” between the Trump campaign and Russia’s leadership. The two sides had a mutual interest in defeating Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Steele wrote, whom Putin “hated and feared.”

Research contact: @lukeharding1968

Posts tagged with "Dossier"

Judge dismisses Donald Trump’s lawsuit against Hillary Clinton

In 2016, Manafort held secret talks with Wikileaks’ Assange in Ecuadorian embassy