A conservative watchdog group announced Monday that it is suing the Justice Department in an effort to obtain documents related to all 2016 meetings between former FBI general counsel James Baker and lawyers who had been hired by the Democratic National Committee and retained an opposition research group that was behind the so-called “Trump dossier.”
Judicial Watch said it filed a lawsuit after the DOJ failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request.
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment.
In a press release, Judicial Watch pointed to a Fox News report from October, which cited anonymous sources and asserted that Baker had met with attorney Michael Sussmann of Perkins Coie, who had reportedly provided Baker with information about Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election. Their meeting reportedly took place as federal investigators laid the groundwork for a surveillance warrant against Carter Page, a Trump campaign aide.
Perkins Coie attorney Marc Elias, who represented the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC, took up funding anti-Trump research from firm Fusion GPS after the conservative publication the Washington Free Beacon withdrew its funding.
Fusion GPS then hired former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to conduct research, which led to the dossier containing damaging and unverified claims connecting Trump to Russia. The FBI has come under fire for partially depending on the Trump dossier to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to spy on Page.
“The real collusion scandal is the hand-in-hand effort by the Clinton campaign and the Obama DOJ/FBI to spy upon and destroy Donald J. Trump,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement.
He also accused the FBI of becoming “an arm of the Clinton campaign” and said “our new lawsuit aims to get to the bottom of the massive scandal.”
Perkins Coie denied that Sussmann’s meeting with Baker was related to the Clinton campaign or the DNC.
“When Sussmann met with Mr. Baker on behalf of a client, it was not connected to the firm’s representation of the Hillary Clinton Campaign, the DNC or any Political Law Group client,” a Perkins Coie spokesperson told Fox News in October.
According to Fox News, Baker admitted he and Sussmann had met congressional investigators examining Russian meddling in the 2016 election in October. Sources familiar with the investigation told the outlet that Baker described the interactions as strange and noted it was the “only time it happened.”
