© Associated Press
Carter Page
Former Trump campaign adviser
Carter Page filed a lawsuit Thursday in federal court
against the Democratic National Committee, law firm Perkins Coie and its partners tied to the funding of the unverified dossier that served as the basis for highly controversial
surveillance warrants against him.
The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Illinois' Eastern Division Thursday morning, and was described by his attorneys as the "first of multiple actions in the wake of historic" Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuse.
"This is a first step
to ensure that the full extent of the FISA abuse that has occurred during the last few years is exposed and remedied," attorney John Pierce said Thursday. "Defendants and those they worked with inside the federal government did not and will not succeed in making America a surveillance state."
He added: "This is only the first salvo. We will follow the evidence wherever it leads, no matter how high. ... The rule of law will prevail."
The DNC fired back Thursday night. "Carter Page's baseless claims are recycled from his previous lawsuit, which was dismissed last year," spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said.
Page first filed a defamation suit on his own against the parties in October 2018 in federal court in Oklahoma, but that suit was dismissed in January 2019 after the judge ruled
the court lacked jurisdiction over the case because neither Page nor the DNC had strong enough ties to the state.
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