A defamation lawsuit brought by former Trump campaign aide Carter Page against the Democratic National Committee and powerhouse law firm Perkins Coie was dismissed by a federal judge on Monday.
Judge Harry Leinenweber of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois released a 10-page order tossing out the case, ruling that Page’s lawsuit in an Illinois federal court was not filed in the proper venue.
“Although Plaintiffs describe Perkins Coie LLC as an Illinois LLC, it is actually a Delaware LLC managed from Washington, D.C., and registered to do business in Illinois,” Leinenweber ruled, adding, “plaintiffs’ DNC arguments fare no better. Although Plaintiffs admit the DNC is a national committee incorporated and headquartered in Washington D.C., they argue that it is nevertheless ‘at home’ in Illinois … There is no general jurisdiction over Perkins Coie or the DNC.”
The judge added: “The only potentially helpful claim — that Defendants ‘orchestrated’ their relationship with Fusion GPS through Perkins Coie’s Chicago office — is baseless conjecture.”
The news that Page’s lawsuit was being thrown out came a few days after U.S. Attorney John Durham unveiled a false statements charge against former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who is expected to plead guilty for fraudulently altering an email from the CIA to claim that Page was “not a source” for the agency when the FBI pursued a third Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act renewal to continue wiretapping him. The FISA court ordered a review of all FISA filings handled by Clinesmith.
Another lawsuit brought by Page, this one against the Justice Department in late 2019, accusing the Justice Department of “Orwellian overreach” is still being considered by a district court judge in the nation’s capital.
In January, Page filed the lawsuit against the DNC, Perkins Coie, and its lawyers Marc Elias and Michael Sussmann, alleging they maliciously engaged in a defamatory conspiracy in 2016 that cast false impressions about his character and interfered with his ability to make a living.
The DNC legal team is comprised of former Obama deputy White House counsel Nicholas McQuaid and had included former Obama White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler until she left the case in April. They said that the “obvious lack of any meaningful nexus to Illinois forecloses the exercise of jurisdiction over the parties, and this Court can — and should — dismiss this action accordingly.”
When moving to dismiss the case in March, lawyers for the DNC pointed to Page’s unsuccessful lawsuits in New York in 2018 and Oklahoma in 2019, arguing that “this lawsuit marks Page’s third bite at the apple in as many years.”
“Defendants’ hackneyed metaphor alleging prior litigation of these claims is intentionally wrong and misleading,” Page’s lawyers retorted in July. “This case is not Dr. Page taking a ‘third bite at the apple.’ Rather, it is his first opportunity to hold accountable the culprits who planted the orchard.”
Page argued that Illinois was the proper venue for the lawsuit, claiming that the DNC “has conducted and maintained a significant, central operation in Chicago since 2008” and that Perkins Coie has a Chicago office “boasting 144 lawyers and officers operating out of it.”
Steele put his research together in 2016 at the behest of the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which was funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the DNC through Perkins Coie, which was paid more than $12 million between 2016 and 2017 for its work representing Clinton and the DNC. Fusion GPS was paid $50,000 per month from Perkins Coie, and Steele was paid $168,000 by Fusion GPS.
“The DNC, through Perkins Coie, Elias, and Sussman, hired Fusion GPS not to report the truth but to create dirt,” Page alleged.
The judge ultimately ruled on the narrow issue of jurisdiction in the DNC’s favor on Monday, saying that “the Court will not authorize a fishing expedition.”
Earlier this year, the DNC’s attorneys insisted “the allegedly defamatory statements” against Page “were substantially true.”
“The ‘gist’ of the complained-of statements — that Page coordinated with Russian government contacts as an adviser to the Trump campaign — aligns with Page’s own description of his conduct,” the DNC’s team said.
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a report in December that criticized the DOJ and the FBI for at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the FISA monitoring of Page and for its heavy reliance on Steele’s discredited dossier. Reports by special counsel Robert Mueller and Horowitz cast doubts on assertions made by Steele in his dossier.
Steele’s dossier claimed there was “a well-developed conspiracy of cooperation” between the Trump campaign and the Russians, which was “managed” by Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort by “using … Page and others as intermediaries” with the Russians. Page’s lawsuit stated he “did not and has not met with” the Russians mentioned in Steele’s dossier.
Elias heads Perkins Coie’s political law group and was the Clinton campaign’s former general counsel. Clinton’s former presidential campaign manager Robby Mook said he authorized Elias to hire an outside firm to dig up dirt on President Trump’s connections with Russia. Mook said Elias was receiving information from Fusion GPS and periodically briefed the Clinton campaign about the findings. Elias testified to Congress that he was aware of Steele’s plans to brief the media on the dossier during the 2016 election and met with Steele in 2016. Sussmann provided Steele with claims about Alfa Bank’s purported ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin during a July 2016 meeting.
Horowitz’s report noted the FBI found no evidence that Page had met with the Russians he was accused of meeting and criticized the bureau for concealing Page’s repeated denials from the FISA court. It was recently revealed that Steele’s dossier may have been compromised by Russian disinformation and that Steele’s primary subsource undercut the credibility of the dossier.
