DNC Suit Against Russia, WikiLeaks, Trump Campaign Dismissed

[PoliticAverse]

Last edited Tue Jul 30, 2019, 06:22 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: Bloomberg News

President Donald Trump scored a win Tuesday when a federal judge in New York dismissed a lawsuit by the Democratic National Committee against Russia, WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign claiming they conspired to hack its emails before the 2016 election.

The DNC said the defendants violated U.S. racketeering, computer fraud and other laws in a "brazen attack on American democracy."

U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl based his ruling about Russia largely on a single legal issue -- that while the "primary wrongdoer" in the alleged criminal enterprise was the Russian Federation, it can't be sued in the U.S. under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, just as the U.S. generally can't be sued abroad.

...

Koeltl said the Constitution’s First Amendment prevents the other defendants from being held liable for dissemination of the stolen materials “in the same way it would preclude liability for press outlets that publish materials of public interest despite defects in the way the materials were obtained so long as the disseminator did not participate in any wrongdoing in obtaining the materials in the first place.”



Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-30/dnc-suit-against-russia-wikileaks-and-trump-campaign-dismissed

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Link to the text of the decision: https://www.scribd.com/document/420269577/DNC-lawsuit-ORDER-Granting-Motion-to-Dismiss-073019

[dalton99a]

1. Very shortly: "BIG Victory! NO COLLUSION!"

"I know nothing"

[FBaggins]

11. Poor Trump

It probably was his largest victory in some time... and nobody is noticing because the debates are sucking up all the coverage.

[AJT]

2. Any lawyer opinions would be welcome.

[Calista241]

7. Check out the Law & Crime article.

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/judge-dismisses-dnc-suit-against-trump-campaign-permanently-the-facts-only-showed-that-russia-stole-docs/

Judge Koeltl is a Bill Clinton appointee, and he dismissed the case with prejudice. I'll list one quote from this article below:

Then there was the racketeering (RICO) allegation in connection with the theft of the DNC’s information. While the DNC alleged that the Trump Campaign and an association-in-fact (AIF) enterprise unlawfully coordinated to do so, the judge said that DNC “failed to allege adequately the existence of an AIF enterprise.”

The features an AIF enterprise structure “must have” include a “purpose,” and Judge Koeltl said the DNC did not “plausibly” allege a “common purpose or sufficient relationships to assert an AIF enterprise.”

...

“A plaintiff may not simply ‘string[] together … various defendants and label[] them an enterprise,'” the judge continued. “That is what the DNC attempts to do here. Therefore, the DNC has failed to allege the existence of an AIF enterprise.”

[triron]

9. This ruling is just fucked up. I don't care if this dude is a Clinton appointee.

The judge did not want to go where he should have.

[Crazyleftie]

3. The dnc should have known they can't sue Russia

Can they refile the suit without
Russia?

[FBaggins]

8. No

First of all... it was dismissed with prejudice

But more importantly... there isn't anything left if Russia isn't part of it. They're the ones accused of the initial criminal act. The judge made clear that once the materials were stolen, it was a first amendment issue to use them.

[jvill]

4. Sometimes the DNC...

... really seems to think that doing something is better than nothing.

But when those somethings turn into long, time-consuming nothings, you're just wasting a lot of time and money.

Meanwhile, Trump has appointed 24% of the appellate judges in the appeals courts in 3 years, and our congresscritters STILL can figure out how to get the Trumpites to be compelled by a lawful subpoena.

They can't really be this disorganized and out of sorts, can they?

[yaesu]

5. Koeltl was nominated by President Bill Clinton nt

[mr_lebowski]

6. Well that sucks (nt)

[2naSalit]

10. +1