Hillary Clinton 's lawyers filed a motion Wednesday to dismiss Trump's RICO lawsuit against her.- The filing described Trump's broad allegations as "fact-free" and "meritless."
Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's lawyers asked a judge to dismiss Donald Trump's RICO lawsuit against her.
In a scathing court filing, Clinton's lawyers skewered Trump's broad claims as "fact-free" and "meritless."
Trump sued Clinton last month, accusing her — and several other defendants linked to her 2016 campaign, the Democratic Party, the DOJ, and the FBI — of carrying out an "unthinkable plot" to tie his 2016 campaign to the Russian government.
The lawsuit went on to accuse the defendants of conspiring to fabricate evidence tying him to "a hostile foreign sovereignty." It dismissed any "contrived Trump-Russia link" and recycled false and misleading claims Trump has made about former special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the Trump campaign and the 2016 election.
Clinton's lawyers broke down Trump's claims in their Wednesday filing, writing that first, Trump "alleges that Defendants conspired in the creation of the Steele Dossier. Second, he alleges that Defendants conspired to obtain and reveal Domain Name System ... internet traffic information from various computers. Third, he alleges that Defendants conspired to provide false statements to law enforcement, which he asserts were single-handedly responsible for a variety of investigations into Plaintiff, his campaign and his associates."
"Finally," the filing said, "he alleges that Defendants 'orchestrated a malicious conspiracy to disseminate patently false and injurious information' — that is, public speech with which he disagrees."
However, "by the Complaint's own telling, these alleged events occurred long ago, and Plaintiff has been aware of his purported injuries for years," Clinton's lawyers argued.
They went on to point out Trump's myriad tweets about Clinton, the Steele dossier, and the FBI's Russia investigation.
"Indeed, all of Plaintiff's claims accrued no later than October 29, 2017, when Plaintiff publicly asserted that Clinton was responsible for the Steele Dossier, 'the Comey fix,' and 'phony' stories on his collusion with Russia, and claimed the facts of the alleged conspiracy were 'pouring out'..." the filing said.
"But notwithstanding his rousing, all-caps call to action, Plaintiff waited four years, four months, and twenty-four days before filing suit," Clinton's lawyers wrote. "His delay renders each of his claims untimely."
They added: "Even were Plaintiff's claims timely, they are still meritless. To be clear, Clinton vigorously disputes the allegations in the Complaint. But even taking those allegations as true, Plaintiff fails to plead any cognizable legal causes of action."
Trump's lawsuit sought a jury trial and compensatory damages, saying that as a result of the defendants' actions, Trump lost at least $24 million "and continuing to accrue, as well as the loss of existing and future business opportunities."
Clinton's lawyers laid out a slew of reasons in their Wednesday filing for why Trump's lawsuit should be dismissed.
Among other things, they noted that the statute of limitations ran out for the former president to lodge his RICO claims and that he has not alleged that Clinton "participated in any cognizable RICO enterprise."
Instead, Trump "alleges only an amalgamation of political grievances against twenty-eight named defendants and several unnamed entities," the filing said.
Clinton's attorneys also cited existing legal guidelines in saying that "Clinton's participation in the supposed enterprise is nothing more than a collection of 'labels and conclusions,' 'formulaic recitation[s] of the elements of a cause of action,' and 'naked assertion[s]' devoid of 'further factual enhancement.'"
Clinton's spokesperson previously told Insider in a statement that Trump's lawsuit was "nonsense."