Former United States president Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and several other democrats, claiming that they tried to rig the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday, also claims they falsely accused Trump of colluding with Russia. Trump defeated Clinton in the 2016 election to become president.
“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 former president alleged in the lawsuit filed in a federal court in Florida.
Trump also alleged “racketeering” and a “conspiracy to commit injurious falsehood,” among other claims.
The move comes amid Trump’s endless claims that his 2020 election defeat by Democratic President Joe Biden was the result of widespread fraud. The lawsuit outlines a long list of grievances laid out by the former president — ones that were repeatedly aired during his four-year tenure at the White House.
Trump’s allegations in the lawsuit are undermined by a 966-page report issued by a Republican-led U.S. Senate committee in August 2020. That report concluded that Russia used Republican political operative Paul Manafort and the WikiLeaks website to try to help Trump win the 2016 election.
Trump has sought compensatory and punitive damages in the lawsuit.
He 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.”
None of Trump’s allegations in the lawsuit have been proven in court.
— with files from Reuters