Former US President Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against his Democratic Party challenger in the 2016 presidential polls, Hillary Clinton over her claim that he made attempts to collude with Russia to influence the election in his favour.
Also joined as a defendant in the suit filed before a federal court in Florida is Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer, who authored a damaging dossier alleging Russia worked to ensure Donald Trump beat Clinton at the polls.
The dossier circulated to the FBI and the media before the November 2016 polls claimed that Moscow was in possession of embarrassing information about Trump and some of his top campaign advisers which it could leverage to influence him should he win the election.
In a 108-page document filed before the court, Trump stated that by linking his campaign to Russia, Clinton and several other Democrats made claims they knew to be false in order to rig the election.
“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,” the document read in part.
In the lawsuit, Donald Trump is alleging “racketeering” and a “conspiracy to commit injurious falsehood,” among other claims.
The former president said he was “forced to incur expenses in an amount to be determined at trial, but known to be in excess of twenty-four million dollars ($24,000,000) and continuing to accrue, in the form of defense costs, legal fees, and related expenses” as a result of the claims.
Trump is seeking compensatory and punitive damages.
Clinton’s camp has yet to react to the lawsuit.
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