Conservative watchdog Judicial Watch said Tuesday it had filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Justice Department in an effort to obtain communications between FBI lawyers and attorneys for Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Judicial Watch wants any communications between former FBI general counsel James Baker and former Department of Justice attorney Michael Sussmann. Sussmann, a partner at law firm Perkins Coie, represented Clinton and the DNC during the 2016 election. It also wants any records related to any meetings between the two, as well as any records documenting the schedule of Baker.
The watchdog cited Baker telling investigators that he met with Sussmann in September 2016, a month before a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant was approved to surveil the Trump campaign, as reason it is interested in the communications.
The watchdog is particularly interested in any documents and communications between Jan. 1, 2016, and Dec. 31, 2016.
Perkins Coie has been linked to Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that conducted research on President Trump. Fusion GPS was originally paid by the conservative Washington Free Beacon to conduct the research on Trump and other candidates during the Republican presidential primaries. When the outlet’s interest in the research lapsed, Fusion GPS approached Perkins Coie and offered to continue its research.
That information was compiled by British former spy Christopher Steele into a 35-page dossier that contained salacious and unverified allegations about Trump.
“This lawsuit aims to fully expose the scandalous collusion between the Obama FBI and the Clinton-DNC political operation to target Hillary Clinton’s political opponent, Donald J. Trump,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “The corrupted FBI owes Americans total transparency on this scandal.”
