WILL IT BE GROUNDS FOR ITS CONCLUSION?
by Sharon Rondeau
(Apr. 21, 2018) — On Saturday afternoon, President Donald Trump tweeted responses augmenting those of Friday about the newly-filed DNC lawsuit accusing his campaign, the Russian government, and WikiLeaks of “conspiring” to ensure that 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was defeated.
“So funny, the Democrats have sued the Republicans for Winning. Now he [sic] R’s counter and force them to turn over a treasure trove of material, including Servers and Emails!” Trump wrote.
Approximately 14 minutes earlier, he claimed that former FBI director James Comey “broke the law” by releasing “classified” information from memos he wrote following his encounters with Trump before he was fired last May.
As Trump has before, he opined that Comey “is already a proven liar and leaker.” He then asked rhetorically if Comey created memos memorializing similar meetings he might have had with Hillary Clinton, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch ‘& and others.'”
On Friday, Trump responded to the DNC lawsuit by stating that the campaign would “counter,” possibly meaning “counter-sue,” “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.”
In remarks made on Thursday during a joint press conference with Japanese prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Trump noted that the “DNC server,” from which thousands of campaign-related emails were taken and transferred to WikiLeaks, had never been examined by the FBI, a claim reiterated by Comey in sworn testimony.
Instead, the DNC chose to have a private firm, Crowdstrike, examine the server, after which Crowdstrike reported that Russian-government operatives were found to have breached the server using various programs to obtain the emails.
The communications released by WikiLeaks beginning in July 2016 revealed denigrating remarks about certain groups of Americans; coordination between the DNC and certain members of the mainstream media; and a clear purpose on the part of then-DNC chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz to ensure that Clinton received the Democratic nomination over primary challenger Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has repeatedly said that the DNC emails were not delivered by a “state party” or the Russians, although the mainstream media has repeatedly claimed that Russian “hackers” were responsible, citing the U.S. intelligence community.
Later, in an apparent reference to Comey’s own claim in sworn testimony last June that he leaked at least one memo to a friend to provide to The New York Times with the specific purpose of initiating the opening of a Special Counsel investigation, Trump tweeted, “James Comey illegally leaked classified documents to the press in order to generate a Special Council? Therefore, the Special Council was established based on an illegal act?”
He ended his questioning with, “Really, does everybody know what that means?”
On Thursday, Fox News reported that former federal prosecutor and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani would be joining Trump’s legal team with the intention of urging Mueller to quickly finish his probe of Trump-campaign “collusion” allegations and alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. Although claiming to have “great respect” for Mueller and a lengthy acquaintance with him, Giuliani said that the Special Counsel’s work should be completed within “a week or two,” according to The New York Post.