Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes is truly excited by a recent suit filed against the Trump campaign:
Last week, a group called United to Protect Democracy filed suit against the Trump campaign and Roger Stone on behalf of three people whose emails and personal information were among the material stolen by the Russians and disclosed to Wikileaks. The suit alleges that the campaign and Stone conspired with the Russians to release information about the plaintiffs—who are not public figures—in a fashion that violates their privacy rights under D.C. law. and intimidates them out of political advocacy.
And if the suit survives motions to dismiss …
… that means the plaintiffs will get discovery. The pleading is rich—very rich and intentionally so, I suspect—with allegations that will provide for plausible discovery requests against all kinds of actors and on all kinds of subjects. It makes reference to the President’s tax returns, for example. It names a large number of individuals, whose depositions plaintiffs might plausibly seek. One of the defendants is the campaign itself, meaning that the campaign’s agents, actors, employees, and documents, are all potentially subject to discovery. So if I’m right that the suit eventually survives that initial motion to dismiss, it will immediately become a gold mine for journalists and investigators. And it will present an intense set of headaches for the Trump forces both inside and outside of government. Think Paula Jones, but not about a single act of alleged harassment. Think Paula Jones—only about everything.
So watch this one closely. It’ll be a sleeper for a while, but If I were the Trump forces, I’d be very worried about it.
Sounds like someone has lined up a great big cannon at Trump.
From time to time I run across right-wing accusations of Obama having been this terrible person, engaged in this or that corruption involving campaign finance or the Iran Nuclear deal – yet nothing ever comes of it. You’d think if there was meat to those accusations, there’d have been credible suits, uproar, removal from office.
Nothing ever came of it.
And then this comes along for Trump. A credible, uninvolved lawyer thinks this could go places and even burn down the palace. If, indeed, it does, then this is a pivotal example of the difference between reality and fantasy – and should be studied by everyone who believed Obama was so terrible as a way to understand how they were wrong. It should be studied in the belief that one should be trying to improve oneself – not how to construct suits to destroy one’s opponents.
