Democrats Slapped With Demand To Preserve Evidence As Roger Stone Goes After DNC Servers
The gloves are off in the multimillion-dollar lawsuit filed by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) against the Trump campaign, Wikileaks and several other parties including the Russian government, alleging an illegal conspiracy to disrupt the 2016 election in a "brazen attack on American Democracy."
Many have suggested the lawsuit is a tactical error by the DNC, as it may expose or confirm claims against the organization - such as whether they rigged the primary against Bernie Sanders, the level of coordination between the DNC and the Clinton Campaign, and the details surrounding the funding of the "Steele dossier," paid for in part by both the Clinton campaign and the DNC.
The defendants - from President Trump, to Wikileaks - and now Roger Stone - are excited at the prospect of examining the DNC servers which cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike determined were victims of Russian hacking in advance of the 2016 elections. Notably, the DNC would not allow the FBI or anyone else to inspect said servers.
To that end, Stone's attorneys have slapped the DNC with a notification to preserve evidence related to the case with a "standard pre-discovery notice." Discovery is a pre-trial process by which one party can obtain evidence from the opposing party relevant to the case.
My lawyers and I will demand to examine the DNC’s servers and expose them to real forensic analysis, not merely accepting the claims of the DNC’s paid contractor, to finally extinguish this bogus Russian hacking claim, once and for all. My lawyers have served the DNC with standard pre-discovery notice directing the DNC of their obligation under law to preserve all possible evidence, including their servers, for ultimate inspection and exposure to critical review. As Julian Assange wrote on Twitter, via the WikiLeaks feed, “Discovery is going to be fun.” -Roger Stone
Stone notes that "Former CIA experts like Bill Binney and Ray McGovern examined the basic data available about the copying of DNC data and concluded that there is more forensic evidence that the material was downloaded to a portable drive, meaning it had to be someone with physical access to DNC computers."
"Having made their computer systems the subject matter of multi-million dollar demands for judicial relief, the DNC has now exposed them to the discovery process," writes Stone.
In February, New Zealand entrepreneur Kim Dotcom responded to a tweet by President Trump, claiming that "the DNC hack wasn't even a hack. It was an insider with a memory stick." Dotcom says he knows "who did it and why," adding "Special Counsel Mueller is not interested in my evidence. My lawyers wrote to him twice. He never replied."
I never said Russia did not meddle in the election, I said “it may be Russia, or China or another country or group, or it may be a 400 pound genius sitting in bed and playing with his computer.” The Russian “hoax” was that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia - it never did!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
Let me assure you, the DNC hack wasn’t even a hack. It was an insider with a memory stick. I know this because I know who did it and why. Special Counsel Mueller is not interested in my evidence. My lawyers wrote to him twice. He never replied. 360 pounds!https://www.google.com/— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom)amp/s/amp.smh.com.au/world/us- election/dnchack-did-kim- dotcom-warn-the-world-about- the-democratic-party-hacking- 20160622-gpp15a.html … https://twitter.com/ realdonaldtrump/status/ 965202556204003328 …
Dotcom's assertion is backed up by an analysis done last year by a researcher who goes by the name Forensicator, who determined that the DNC files were copied at 22.6 MB/s - a speed virtually impossible to achieve from halfway around the world, much less over a local network - yet a speed typical of file transfers to a memory stick.
The local transfer theory of course blows the Russian hacking narrative out of the water, lending credibility to the theory that the DNC "hack" was in fact an inside job, potentially implicating late DNC IT staffer, Seth Rich.
President Trump and WikiLeaks are also looking forward to checking out the DNC servers:
In response to the DNC lawsuit, Trump tweeted that it could be good news that "we will now counter for the DNC Server that they refused to give to the FBI," along with the "Debbie Wasserman Schultz Servers and Documents."
Just heard the Campaign was sued by the Obstructionist Democrats. This can be good news in that we will now counter for the DNC Server that they refused to give to the FBI, the Debbie Wasserman Schultz Servers and Documents held by the Pakistani mystery man and Clinton Emails.— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
The Trump campaign also says the lawsuit will provide an opportunity to "explore the DNC's now-secret records."
And as we reported on Monday, WikiLeaks is counter-suing the DNC - setting up a donation fund and noting "We've never lost a publishing case and discovery is going to be amazing fun."
The Democrats are suing @WikiLeaks and @JulianAssange for revealing how the DNC rigged the Democratic primaries. Help us counter-sue. We've never lost a publishing case and discovery is going to be amazing fun:https://www.iamwikileaks.— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks)org/donate/
More options:https://shop.wikileaks.org/donate
Prominent Democrats have criticized the suit - such as Claire McCaskill (MO), Jackie Speier (CA) and former Obama White House adviser and CNN commentator David Axelrod - who suggested in a Friday tweet that the "ill-timed" combination of "Comey's flamboyant roll out" and the DNC lawsuit are playing into President Trump's strategy of portraying the investigation against him as a "partisan vendetta."
Stone writes that at the end of the day "Let’s not forget that at the heart of this Democrat lawsuit is their core claim that the exposure of genuine documents created by the hands of their own top officials, revealing to the American people the horrible truth about the how ruthless and cynical the Democrats, Hillary Clinton and her henchpeople really are, is considered BY THEM to be so damaging that it effectively torpedoed the Democrat party’s multi-billion-dollar efforts to install the single most sleazy corrupt brazen criminal to seek the presidency since Lyndon Baines Johnson."
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