Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez says the DNC is suing the Trump campaign, the Russian government, several Trump campaign associates, and WikiLeaks because the Trump administration has "not imposed sufficient costs on Russia for what they tried to do to the election." Perez says the reason is clear: the campaign and the Russians were working together.
The suit claims a wide-ranging “Russia-Trump conspiracy” and is based on the same anti-racketeering statutes that have been used against underworld criminals.
Stephanopoulos asked Perez if he is concerned that the suit might interfere with special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible ties to Trump associates.
The Democratic chairman responded, "No. I worked at the Justice Department for over a dozen years under Republican and Democratic administrations."
The criminal justice system, which Mueller is working within, operates separately from the civil justice side that handles lawsuits such as that filed by the DNC, Perez said.
Perez says the DNC has a strong case and feels justified in bringing it.
The Trump campaign disagrees, but various people named in the suit are echoing the same talking points.
CNBC:
A number of the stakeholders in the case are now threatening to use the lawsuit as leverage to glean undisclosed records from the Democrats.
In a letter responding to the suit, [Roger] Stone's attorney demanded that the DNC "immediately preserve the DNC's database servers and electronic equipment in both Washington, D.C., Virginia, and wherever else redundant servers and equipment exist," for "future review, discovery, and testing."
"We intend to test the basic underlying claims that 'Russians' hacked, stole, and disseminated DNC data," Stone's lawyer added, "Rather than the various other plausible scenarios, including internal theft."
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"My lawyers and I want to examine the DNC servers to settle this bogus claim of Russian hacking once and for all," Stone added in a follow-up email.
Wikileaks, in a brief statement on Twitter Friday, made the same point: "Discovery is going to be amazing fun," said the anti-secrecy group, which has been accused of acting as a cut-out for the Kremlin.
The statement was retweeted by Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, who is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
The Trump campaign also threatened to "leverage the discovery process and explore the DNC's now-secret records" if the lawsuit moves forward.
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"While this lawsuit is frivolous and will be dismissed, if the case goes forward, the DNC has created an opportunity for us to take aggressive discovery into their claims of 'damages' and uncover their acts of corruption for the American people," said Brad Parscale, Trump's campaign manager, in the Friday statement.