Case: 1:17-cv-1370 As of: 10/25/2018 01:02 PM EDT 1 of 14
CLOSED,JURY,TYPE−L
U.S. District Court District of Columbia (Washington, DC) CIVIL DOCKET FOR CASE #: 1:17−cv−01370−ESH

COCKRUM et al v. DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC. et al Assigned to: Judge Ellen S. Huvelle Cause: 48:1985 Conspiracy/Deprivation Civil Rights
Plaintiff

Date Filed: 07/12/2017 Date Terminated: 07/03/2018 Jury Demand: Plaintiff Nature of Suit: 440 Civil Rights: Other Jurisdiction: Federal Question

ROY COCKRUM

represented by Anne Harden Tindall PROTECT DEMOCRACY PROJECT 2020 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW #163 Washington, DC 20006 (202) 856−9191 Fax: (929) 777−8428 Email: anne.tindall@protectdemocracy.org LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Barbara J. Chisholm ALTSHULER BERZON LLP 177 Post Street Suite 300 San Francisco, CA 94108 (415) 421−7151 Email: bchisholm@altber.com LEAD ATTORNEY PRO HAC VICE ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Danielle E. Leonard ALTSHULER BERZON LLP 177 Post Street Suite 300 San Francisco, CA 94108 (415) 421−7151 Email: dleonard@altber.com LEAD ATTORNEY PRO HAC VICE ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Ian M. Bassin UNITED TO PROTECT DEMOCRACY 222 Broadway New York, NY 10038 (202) 856−9191 LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Justin G. Florence PROTECT DEMOCRACY PROJECT 2020 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW #163 Washington, DC 20006 (202) 599−0466 Fax: (929) 777−8428 Email: justin.florence@protectdemocracy.org LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

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Plaintiff SCOTT COMER

Richard Primus THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LAW SCHOOL 625 S. State Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109 (734) 647−5543 LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Stephen P. Berzon ALTSHULER BERZON LLP 177 Post Street Suite 300 San Francisco, CA 94108 (415) 421−7151 Email: sberzon@altber.com LEAD ATTORNEY PRO HAC VICE ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Steven A. Hirsch KEKER, VAN NEST & PETERS LLP 633 Battery Street San Franisco, CA 94111 (415) 391−5400 LEAD ATTORNEY PRO HAC VICE ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Benjamin Leon Berwick PROTECT DEMOCRACY PROJECT, INC. 10 Ware Street Cambridge, MA 02138 (202) 599−0466 Fax: (929) 777−8428 Email: ben.berwick@protectdemocracy.org ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
represented by Anne Harden Tindall (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Barbara J. Chisholm (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY PRO HAC VICE ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Danielle E. Leonard (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY PRO HAC VICE ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Ian M. Bassin (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED
Justin G. Florence

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(See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Richard Primus (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Stephen P. Berzon (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY PRO HAC VICE ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Steven A. Hirsch (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY PRO HAC VICE ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Benjamin Leon Berwick (See above for address) ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Plaintiff ERIC SCHOENBERG

represented by Anne Harden Tindall (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Ian M. Bassin (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Justin G. Florence (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Richard Primus (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Steven A. Hirsch (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY PRO HAC VICE ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Benjamin Leon Berwick (See above for address) ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

V.
Defendant
DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC.

represented by Jeffrey Baltruzak JONES DAY One Mellon Bank Center 500 Grant Street

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Suite 4500 Pittsburgh, PA 15219 (412) 394−7909 Fax: (412) 394−7959 Email: jbaltruzak@jonesday.com LEAD ATTORNEY PRO HAC VICE ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Michael Anthony Carvin JONES DAY 51 Louisiana Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20001 (202) 879−7643 Fax: (202) 626−1700 Email: macarvin@jonesday.com LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Vivek Suri Jones Day 51 Louisiana Ave, NW Washington, DC 20001 202−879−3808 Email: vsuri@jonesday.com ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Defendant ROGER STONE

represented by Grant J. Smith STRATEGYSMITH, PA 401 East Las Olas Boulevard Suite 130−120 Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301 954−325−9064 Email: gsmith@strategysmith.com LEAD ATTORNEY PRO HAC VICE ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

L. Peter Farkas HALLORAN FARKAS & KITTILA LLP 1101 30th Street, NW Suite 500 Washington, DC 20007 (202) 559−1700 Email: pf@hfk.law LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Robert C. Buschel BUSCHEL GIBBONS, PA One Financial Plaza 100 SE Third Ave. Suite 1300 Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33394 (954) 530−5301 Email: buschel@bglaw−pa.com LEAD ATTORNEY PRO HAC VICE ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Movant
DAVID A. GOLDEN TERMINATED: 03/28/2018

represented by DAVID A. GOLDEN 11826 N Mayfair Road

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Spokane, WA 99218 (360) 915−2612 PRO SE

Amicus CAMPAIGN LEGAL CENTER

represented by Paul March Smith CAMPAIGN LEGAL CENTER 1411 K St. NW Suite 1400 Washington, DC 20005 (202) 856−7901 Fax: (202) 736−2222 Email: psmith@campaignlegalcenter.org LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Ruth Merewyn Greenwood CAMPAIGN LEGAL CENTER 73 W. Monroe Street Suite 302 Chicago, IL 60603 (312) 561−5508 Fax: (202) 736−2222 Email: rgreenwood@campaignlegalcenter.org LEAD ATTORNEY PRO HAC VICE ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Amicus THEODORE M. SHAW

represented by Paul March Smith (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Ruth Merewyn Greenwood (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY PRO HAC VICE ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Amicus
FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY OFFICIALS

represented by Phillip Michael Spector MESSING & SPECTOR LLP Office of the President 1200 Steuart Street Suite 2112 Baltimore, MD 21230 (202) 277−8173 Email: ps@messingspector.com LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Amicus MARK SALTER

represented by Katherine Ruth Atkinson WILKENFELD HERENDEEN & ATKINSON 1731 Connecticut Avenue, NW 3rd Floor Washington, DC 20009 (202) 765−2253 Fax: (202) 600−2792 Email: katherine@wilkenfeldlaw.com

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LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Michael Patrick Moore , Jr. HEMENWAY & BARNES, LLP 75 State Street, 16th Floor Boston, MA 02109 (617) 557−9715 LEAD ATTORNEY PRO HAC VICE ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Amicus BEN LABOLT

represented by Katherine Ruth Atkinson (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Michael Patrick Moore , Jr. (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY PRO HAC VICE ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Amicus HOWARD OPINKSKY

represented by Katherine Ruth Atkinson (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Michael Patrick Moore , Jr. (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY PRO HAC VICE ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Amicus MINDY FINN

represented by Katherine Ruth Atkinson (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Michael Patrick Moore , Jr. (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY PRO HAC VICE ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Amicus HARI SEVUGAN

represented by Katherine Ruth Atkinson (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Michael Patrick Moore , Jr. (See above for address) LEAD ATTORNEY PRO HAC VICE ATTORNEY TO BE NOTICED

Date Filed # Docket Text

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07/12/2017 07/13/2017 07/14/2017 07/18/2017 07/24/2017 07/31/2017 07/31/2017 08/01/2017
08/01/2017 08/22/2017
08/22/2017
08/31/2017 08/31/2017

1 COMPLAINT against DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC., ROGER STONE with Jury Demand ( Filing fee $ 400 receipt number 0090−5029062) filed by ROY COCKRUM, ERIC SCHOENBERG, SCOTT COMER. (Attachments: # 1 Civil Cover Sheet, # 2 Summons, # 3 Summons)(Berwick, Benjamin) (Entered: 07/12/2017)
Case Assigned to Judge Amit P. Mehta. (sb) (Entered: 07/13/2017)
2 Case randomly reassigned to Judge Ellen S. Huvelle. Judge Amit P. Mehta is no longer assigned to the case. (ztnr) (Entered: 07/14/2017)
3 SUMMONS (2) Issued Electronically as to DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC., ROGER STONE. (Attachment: # 1 Consent Form)(zsb) (Entered: 07/18/2017)
4 RETURN OF SERVICE/AFFIDAVIT of Summons and Complaint Executed. DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC. served on 7/19/2017, answer due 8/9/2017 (Berwick, Benjamin) (Entered: 07/24/2017)
5 WAIVER OF SERVICE by ROY COCKRUM, ERIC SCHOENBERG, SCOTT COMER. ROGER STONE waiver sent on 7/20/2017, answer due 9/18/2017. (Berwick, Benjamin) (Entered: 07/31/2017)
6 Joint MOTION for Extension of Time to File Answer re 1 Complaint, , Joint MOTION for Briefing Schedule by ROY COCKRUM, SCOTT COMER, ERIC SCHOENBERG (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(Berwick, Benjamin) (Entered: 07/31/2017)
MINUTE ORDER granting 6 Joint Motion for Extension of Time to Answer and to set Briefing Schedule: Upon consideration of the parties' Joint Motion for Extension of Time for Defendants to Respond to the Complaint and for Entry of Briefing Schedule, it is hereby ORDERED that the motion is GRANTED; it is further ORDERED that Defendants shall respond to the Complaint on or before September 18, 2017; it is further ORDERED that if Defendants move to dismiss the Complaint, Plaintiffs shall file their response to such motion(s) on or before October 27, 2017, and Defendants shall reply on or before November 10, 2017; and it is further ORDERED that if Plaintiffs amend the Complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a)(1)(B), the parties shall attempt to reach an agreement on a revised schedule and shall submit a joint status report to the Court on or before the date that is seven days after the filing of the amended complaint. Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on August 1, 2017. (AG) (Entered: 08/01/2017)
Set/Reset Deadlines: Responses due by 10/27/2017. Reply due by 11/10/2017. (gdf) (Entered: 08/01/2017)
7 MOTION for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice :Attorney Name− Robert C. Buschel, :Firm− Buschel Gibbons, PA, :Address− One Financial Plaza, Suite 1300, 100 SE Third Ave, Ft Lauderdale, FL 33394. Phone No. − 9545305301. Filing fee $ 100, receipt number 0090−5084911. Fee Status: Fee Paid. by DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC. (Attachments: # 1 Declaration, # 2 Text of Proposed Order)(Carvin, Michael) Modified text on 8/22/2017 (td). (Entered: 08/22/2017)
MINUTE ORDER granting 7 Motion for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice: Upon consideration of the above−referenced motion for leave to appear pro hac vice, it is hereby ORDERED that the motion is GRANTED insofar as Robert C. Buschel is granted leave to participate in court proceedings, as provided for by Local Civil Rule 83.2(d), on behalf of Defendant Roger Stone. Counsel is reminded that pursuant to Local Civil Rule 83.2(c)(1) "an attorney who is not a member of the Bar of this Court may file papers only if such attorney joins of record a member in good standing of the Bar of this Court. All papers submitted by non−members of the Bar of this Court must be signed by such counsel and by a member of the Bar of this Court is compliance with this Rule." Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on August 22, 2017. (AG) (Entered: 08/22/2017)
8 NOTICE of Appearance by Robert C. Buschel on behalf of ROGER STONE (Buschel, Robert) (Entered: 08/31/2017)
9 NOTICE of Appearance by L. Peter Farkas on behalf of ROGER STONE (Farkas, L.) (Main Document 9 replaced on 9/1/2017) (znmw). (Entered: 08/31/2017)

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09/01/2017 09/01/2017
09/05/2017 09/05/2017
09/05/2017 09/05/2017 09/05/2017 09/07/2017 09/11/2017
09/11/2017 09/26/2017 09/27/2017 09/27/2017

10 MOTION for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice :Attorney Name− Grant J. Smith, :Firm− StrategySmith PA, :Address− 401 Eat Olas Blvd, Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301. Phone No. − 954.328.9064. Fee Status: No Fee Paid. by ROGER STONE (Attachments: # 1 Declaration, # 2 Text of Proposed Order)(Farkas, L.) (Entered: 09/01/2017)
MINUTE ORDER granting 10 Motion for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice: Upon consideration of the motion for leave to appear pro hac vice, filed on behalf of Grant J. Smith, it is hereby ORDERED that the motion is GRANTED; and it is further ORDERED that Grant J. Smith be granted leave to appear pro hac vice in the above−captioned case on behalf of Defendant Roger Stone. Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on September 1, 2017. (AG) (Entered: 09/01/2017)
11 Corporate Disclosure Statement by DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC.. (Carvin, Michael) (Entered: 09/05/2017)
12 MOTION to Dismiss for Lack of Jurisdiction by DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Ex. 1 − May 5, 2016 email, # 2 Exhibit Ex. 2 − May 21, 2016 email, # 3 Exhibit Ex. 3 − Washington Post article, # 4 Exhibit Ex. 4 − April 24, 2016 email, # 5 Exhibit Ex. 5 − New York Times article, # 6 Exhibit Ex. 6 − Huffington Post article, # 7 Exhibit Ex. 7 − April 28, 2016 email, # 8 Exhibit Ex. 8 − May 22, 2016 email, # 9 Exhibit Ex. 9 − May 6, 2016 email, # 10 Exhibit Ex. 10 − April 25, 2016 email, # 11 Exhibit Ex. 11 − May 24, 2016 email, # 12 Exhibit Ex. 12 − May 10, 2016 email, # 13 Exhibit Ex. 13 − May 17, 2016 email, # 14 Text of Proposed Order)(Carvin, Michael) (Entered: 09/05/2017)
13 MOTION to Dismiss under the D.C. Anti−SLAPP Act by DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC. (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(Carvin, Michael) (Entered: 09/05/2017)
14 MOTION to Dismiss for Lack of Jurisdiction by ROGER STONE (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(Buschel, Robert) (Entered: 09/05/2017)
15 MOTION to Dismiss under the D.C. Anti−SLAPP by ROGER STONE (Attachments: # 1 Declaration, # 2 recent unpublished opinion, # 3 Text of Proposed Order)(Buschel, Robert) (Entered: 09/05/2017)
Filing fee Paid: $ 100.00, receipt number 4616086977 pursuant to 10 Motion for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice regarding Attorney Name Grant J. Smith. (md) (Entered: 09/07/2017)
16 MOTION for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice :Attorney Name− Jeffrey Baltruzak, :Firm− Jones Day, :Address− 500 Grant Street, Pittsburgh PA 15219. Phone No. − 412−394−7909. Fax No. − 412−394−7959 Filing fee $ 100, receipt number 0090−5109872. Fee Status: Fee Paid. by DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC. (Attachments: # 1 Declaration, # 2 Text of Proposed Order)(Carvin, Michael) (Entered: 09/11/2017)
MINUTE ORDER granting 16 Motion for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice: It is ordered that the above−referenced motion is GRANTED; and it is further ORDERED that Jeffrey Baltruzak is granted leave to appear pro hac vice on behalf of Defendant Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on September 11, 2017. (AG) (Entered: 09/11/2017)
17 AMENDED COMPLAINT against DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC., ROGER STONE with Jury Demand filed by ROY COCKRUM, ERIC SCHOENBERG, SCOTT COMER.(Berwick, Benjamin) (Entered: 09/26/2017)
MINUTE ORDER finding as moot 12 13 14 15 defendants' motions to dismiss in light of plaintiffs' filing of an 17 Amended Complaint in accordance with Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)1)(B). Defendants' responses to the Amended Complaint are due by October 11, 2017. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(3). Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on September 27, 2017. (AG) (Entered: 09/27/2017)
Set/Reset Deadlines: Defendants' responses to the Amended Complaint are due by 10/11/2017. (jl) (Entered: 09/27/2017)

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09/28/2017 10/02/2017 10/02/2017
10/02/2017 10/25/2017
10/25/2017 10/25/2017 10/25/2017 11/20/2017 11/21/2017 12/01/2017 12/01/2017 12/07/2017
12/07/2017

18 NOTICE of Appearance by Vivek Suri on behalf of DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC. (Suri, Vivek) (Entered: 09/28/2017)
19 Joint MOTION for Extension of Time to File Answer re 17 Amended Complaint , Joint MOTION for Briefing Schedule by ROY COCKRUM, SCOTT COMER, ERIC SCHOENBERG (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(Berwick, Benjamin) (Entered: 10/02/2017)
MINUTE ORDER granting 19 Motion for Extension of Time to Answer: All Defendants; granting 19 Motion for Briefing Schedule; Set/Reset Deadlines: The Court hereby GRANTS the parties' Joint Motion for Extension of Time for defendants' to Respond to the Amended Complaint and for Entry of Briefing Schedule. It is hereby ORDERED that: defendants shall respond to the Amended Complaint on or before October 25, 2017. If defendants move to dismiss the Amended Complaint (including by filing anti−SLAPP motions), plaintiffs shall file their response to such motion(s) on or before December 1, 2017, and defendants shall reply on or before December 18, 2017. Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on October 2, 2017. (lcesh1) Modified event title on 10/3/2017 (znmw). (Entered: 10/02/2017)
Set/Reset Deadlines: Response due by 12/1/2017. Reply due by 12/18/2017. (gdf) (Entered: 10/02/2017)
20 MOTION to Dismiss by DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Ex. 1 − May 5, 2016 email, # 2 Exhibit Ex. 2 − May 21, 2016 email, # 3 Exhibit Ex. 3 − Washington Post article, # 4 Exhibit Ex. 4 − April 24, 2016 email, # 5 Exhibit Ex. 5 − New York Times article, # 6 Exhibit Ex. 6 − Huffington Post article, # 7 Exhibit Ex. 7 − April 28, 2016 email, # 8 Exhibit Ex. 8 − May 22, 2016 email, # 9 Exhibit Ex. 9 − May 6, 2016 email, # 10 Exhibit Ex. 10 − April 25, 2016 email, # 11 Exhibit Ex. 11 − May 24, 2016 email, # 12 Exhibit Ex. 12 − May 10, 2016 email, # 13 Exhibit Ex. 13 − May 17, 2016 email, # 14 Text of Proposed Order)(Carvin, Michael) Modified event title on 10/26/2017 (znmw). (Entered: 10/25/2017)
21 MOTION to Dismiss under the D.C. Anti−SLAPP Act by DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC. (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(Carvin, Michael) (Entered: 10/25/2017)
22 MOTION to Dismiss Amended Complaint by ROGER STONE (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(Buschel, Robert) (Entered: 10/25/2017)
23 MOTION to Dismiss under the D.C. Anti−SLAPP Act by ROGER STONE (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(Buschel, Robert) (Entered: 10/25/2017)
24 Consent MOTION for Leave to File Excess Pages by ROY COCKRUM, SCOTT COMER, ERIC SCHOENBERG (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(Berwick, Benjamin) (Entered: 11/20/2017)
MINUTE ORDER: granting 24 Motion for Leave to File Excess Pages. Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on November 21, 2017. (lcesh1) (Entered: 11/21/2017)
25 Memorandum in opposition to re 20 MOTION to Dismiss , 22 MOTION to Dismiss Amended Complaint filed by ROY COCKRUM, SCOTT COMER, ERIC SCHOENBERG. (Berwick, Benjamin) (Entered: 12/01/2017)
26 Memorandum in opposition to re 23 MOTION to Dismiss under the D.C. Anti−SLAPP Act, 21 MOTION to Dismiss under the D.C. Anti−SLAPP Act filed by ROY COCKRUM, SCOTT COMER, ERIC SCHOENBERG. (Berwick, Benjamin) (Entered: 12/01/2017)
27 Unopposed MOTION for Extension of Time to File Response/Reply as to 20 MOTION to Dismiss , 23 MOTION to Dismiss under the D.C. Anti−SLAPP Act, 22 MOTION to Dismiss Amended Complaint, 21 MOTION to Dismiss under the D.C. Anti−SLAPP Act , Consent MOTION for Leave to File Excess Pages by DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC., ROGER STONE (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(Carvin, Michael) (Entered: 12/07/2017)
28 NOTICE of Appearance by Justin G. Florence on behalf of ROY COCKRUM, SCOTT COMER, ERIC SCHOENBERG (Florence, Justin) (Entered: 12/07/2017)

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12/07/2017 12/08/2017 12/08/2017 12/08/2017 12/08/2017 12/08/2017 12/08/2017
12/08/2017 12/08/2017 12/08/2017

29 MOTION for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice :Attorney Name− Steven A. Hirsch, :Firm− Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP, :Address− 633 Battery Street, San Francisco, CA 94111−1809. Phone No. − (415) 391−5400. Filing fee $ 100, receipt number 0090−5238732. Fee Status: Fee Paid. by ROY COCKRUM, SCOTT COMER, ERIC SCHOENBERG (Attachments: # 1 Declaration, # 2 Text of Proposed Order)(Berwick, Benjamin) (Entered: 12/07/2017)
MINUTE ORDER granting 29 Motion for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice: Upon consideration of Plaintiffs' motion for admission of attorney Steven A. Hirsch pro hac vice, it is hereby ORDERED that the motion is GRANTED; and it is further ORDERED that attorney Steven A. Hirsch is admitted pro hac vice for the purpose of appearing in the above−captioned case. Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on December 8, 2017. (AG) (Entered: 12/08/2017)
30 MOTION for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice :Attorney Name− Richard Primus, :Address− 625 S. State Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109. Phone No. − (734) 647−5543. Filing fee $ 100, receipt number 0090−5239095. Fee Status: Fee Paid. by ROY COCKRUM, SCOTT COMER, ERIC SCHOENBERG (Attachments: # 1 Declaration, # 2 Text of Proposed Order)(Berwick, Benjamin) (Entered: 12/08/2017)
MINUTE ORDER granting 30 Motion for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice: Upon consideration of Plaintiffs' motion for admission of attorney Richard Primus pro hac vice, it is hereby ORDERED that the motion is GRANTED; and it is further ORDERED that attorney Richard Primus is admitted pro hac vice for the purpose of appearing in the above−captioned case. Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on December 8, 2017. (AG) (Entered: 12/08/2017)
31 MOTION for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice :Attorney Name− Ian M. Bassin, :Firm− United to Protect Democracy, :Address− 222 Broadway, New York, NY 10038. Phone No. − (202) 856−9191. Filing fee $ 100, receipt number 0090−5240417. Fee Status: Fee Paid. by ROY COCKRUM, SCOTT COMER, ERIC SCHOENBERG (Attachments: # 1 Declaration, # 2 Text of Proposed Order)(Berwick, Benjamin) (Entered: 12/08/2017)
MINUTE ORDER granting 31 Motion for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice: Upon consideration of Plaintiffs' motion for admission of attorney Ian M. Bassin pro hac vice, it is hereby ORDERED that the motion is GRANTED; and it is further ORDERED that attorney Ian M. Bassin is admitted pro hac vice for the purpose of appearing in the above−captioned case. Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on December 8, 2017. (AG) (Entered: 12/08/2017)
32 MOTION for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice :Attorney Name− M. Patrick Moore, :Firm− Hemenway & Barnes, :Address− 75 State Street Boston, MA 02109. Phone No. − 617−227−7940. Filing fee $ 100, receipt number 0090−5240695. Fee Status: Fee Paid. by MARK SALTER, BEN LABOLT,HOWARD OPINKSKY, MINDY FINN, HARI SEVUGAN (Attachments: # 1 Declaration, # 2 Text of Proposed Order)(Atkinson, Katherine) Modified filers on 12/12/2017 (znmw). (Entered: 12/08/2017)
33 MOTION for Leave to File Brief of Amicus Curiae by MARK SALTER, BEN LABOLT,HOWARD OPINKSKY, MINDY FINN,HARI SEVUGAN (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Exhibit A: Brief of Amici Curiae)(Atkinson, Katherine) Modified on 12/11/2017 to correct filer(s)(jf). (Entered: 12/08/2017)
MINUTE ORDER: granting 33 Motion for Leave to File. Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on December 8, 2017. (lcesh1) (Entered: 12/08/2017)
MINUTE ORDER granting 27 Motion for Extension of Time to File Response/Reply ; granting 27 Motion for Leave to File Excess Pages: The Court GRANTS defendants' joint motion for extension of time to file reply briefs and for leave to file excess pages. Defendants may file their reply briefs in support of the motions to dismiss and anti−SLAPP motions on or before December 29, 2017. In addition, the Court extends the page limit for each reply brief in support of the motion to dismiss to 30 pages. Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on December 8, 2017. (lcesh1) (Entered: 12/08/2017)

Case: 1:17-cv-1370 As of: 10/25/2018 01:02 PM EDT 11 of 14

12/08/2017 12/08/2017
12/08/2017
12/08/2017 12/09/2017 12/09/2017
12/09/2017 12/09/2017 12/09/2017 12/09/2017 12/09/2017 12/20/2017 12/29/2017 12/29/2017 12/29/2017

34 Unopposed MOTION for Leave to File Brief of Amici Curiae by CAMPAIGN LEGAL CENTER, Theodore M. Shaw (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Brief of Amici Curiae, # 2 Text of Proposed Order, # 3 Exhibit LCvR 7.1 Certificate)(Smith, Paul) (Entered: 12/08/2017)
MINUTE ORDER granting 32 Motion for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice: It is hereby ORDERED that M. Patrick Moore Jr. be granted leave to appear pro hac vice on behalf of amici Mark Salter, Ben LaBolt, Howard Opinsky, Mindy Finn, and Hari Sevugan. Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on December 8, 2017. (AG) (Entered: 12/08/2017)
35 MOTION for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice :Attorney Name− Ruth Merewyn Greenwood, :Firm− Campaign Legal Center, :Address− 73 W Monroe St., Ste. 322, Chicago, IL 60603. Phone No. − 312−561−5508. Filing fee $ 100, receipt number 0090−5240813. Fee Status: Fee Paid. by CAMPAIGN LEGAL CENTER, Theodore M. Shaw (Attachments: # 1 Declaration Declaration of Ruth M. Greenwood, # 2 Text of Proposed Order)(Smith, Paul) (Entered: 12/08/2017)
36 MOTION for Leave to File Amicus Curiae Brief by FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY OFFICIALS (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Amicus Curiae Brief, # 2 Text of Proposed Order)(Spector, Phillip) (Entered: 12/08/2017)
MINUTE ORDER granting 35 Motion for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice: It is hereby ORDERED that Ruth Merewyn Greenwood is admitted pro hac vice, on behalf of Amici Curiae, Campaign Legal Center and Professor Theodore M. Shaw. Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on December 9, 2017. (lcesh1) (Entered: 12/09/2017)
MINUTE ORDER granting 34 Motion for Leave to File: It is hereby ORDERED that the motion of Campaign Legal Center and Professor Theodore M. Shaw for leave to file as amici curiae in opposition to defendants' Motions to Dismiss the Amended Complaint, which they filed with this Court on October 25, 2017, is GRANTED; and it is further ORDERED that the Brief of Amici Curiae Campaign Legal Center and Professor Theodore M. Shaw is deemed filed. Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on December 9, 2017. (lcesh1) (Entered: 12/09/2017)
MINUTE ORDER granting 36 Motion for Leave to File: It is hereby ORDERED that the Motion of Former National Security Officials for leave to file amicus curiae brief in support of Plaintiffs is GRANTED. Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on December 9, 2017. (lcesh1) (Entered: 12/09/2017)
37 AMICUS BRIEF by FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY OFFICIALS. (znmw) (Entered: 12/12/2017)
38 AMICUS BRIEF by CAMPAIGN LEGAL CENTER, THEODORE M. SHAW. (znmw) (Entered: 12/12/2017)
39 Corporate Disclosure Statement by CAMPAIGN LEGAL CENTER. (znmw) (Entered: 12/12/2017)
40 AMICUS BRIEF by MINDY FINN, BEN LABOLT, HOWARD OPINKSKY, MARK SALTER, HARI SEVUGAN. (znmw) (Entered: 12/12/2017)
41 NOTICE of Appearance by Anne Harden Tindall on behalf of ROY COCKRUM, SCOTT COMER, ERIC SCHOENBERG (Tindall, Anne) (Entered: 12/20/2017)
42 REPLY to opposition to motion re 20 MOTION to Dismiss filed by DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC.. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Ex 1 − WikiLeaks accuracy policy, # 2 Exhibit Ex 2 − Washington Post article)(Carvin, Michael) (Entered: 12/29/2017)
43 REPLY to opposition to motion re 21 MOTION to Dismiss under the D.C. Anti−SLAPP Act filed by DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC.. (Carvin, Michael) (Entered: 12/29/2017)
44 REPLY to opposition to motion re 22 MOTION to Dismiss Amended Complaint filed by ROGER STONE. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Graphic timeline)(Buschel, Robert) (Entered: 12/29/2017)

Case: 1:17-cv-1370 As of: 10/25/2018 01:02 PM EDT 12 of 14

12/29/2017 01/19/2018 01/22/2018 01/22/2018 01/22/2018 01/22/2018 02/07/2018
02/07/2018 02/26/2018 03/08/2018 03/22/2018 03/28/2018 04/04/2018 04/05/2018 04/05/2018 04/09/2018
04/10/2018 05/09/2018
05/10/2018

45 REPLY to opposition to motion re 23 MOTION to Dismiss under the D.C. Anti−SLAPP Act filed by ROGER STONE. (Buschel, Robert) (Entered: 12/29/2017)
46 MOTION for Leave to File Surreply by ROY COCKRUM, SCOTT COMER, ERIC SCHOENBERG (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Proposed Surreply, # 2 Text of Proposed Order)(Berwick, Benjamin) (Entered: 01/19/2018)
47 Memorandum in opposition to re 46 MOTION for Leave to File Surreply filed by DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC.. (Carvin, Michael) (Entered: 01/22/2018)
48 ENTERED IN ERROR.....RESPONSE re 46 MOTION for Leave to File Surreply filed by ROGER STONE. (Buschel, Robert) Modified on 1/22/2018 (jf). (Entered: 01/22/2018)
49 RESPONSE re 46 MOTION for Leave to File Surreply filed by ROGER STONE. (Buschel, Robert) (Entered: 01/22/2018)
NOTICE OF CORRECTED DOCKET ENTRY: Document No. re 48 Response to motion was entered in error at the request of counsel and refiled. (See Docket Entry 49 to view document) (jf) (Entered: 01/22/2018)
MINUTE ORDER granting 46 Motion for Leave to File: it is hereby ORDERED that plaintiffs' Surreply in Opposition to defendants' Motion to Dismiss, which plaintiffs filed with this Court on January 19, 2018 as an attachment to their Motion for Leave to File Surreply, is deemed filed. Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on February 7, 2018. (lcesh1) (Entered: 02/07/2018)
50 SURREPLY re 20 MOTION to Dismiss filed by ROY COCKRUM, SCOTT COMER, ERIC SCHOENBERG. (jf) (Entered: 02/08/2018)
51 MOTION to Intervene by DAVID A. GOLDEN (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit)(jf) (Entered: 02/28/2018)
52 RESPONSE re 51 MOTION to Intervene (on behalf of all parties) filed by DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC.. (Carvin, Michael) (Entered: 03/08/2018)
53 REPLY to opposition to re 51 MOTION to Intervene filed by DAVID A. GOLDEN. (jf) (Entered: 03/27/2018)
54 MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER denying 51 Motion to Intervene: See OPINION AND ORDER for details. Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on March 28, 2018. (lcesh1) (Entered: 03/28/2018)
MINUTE ORDER: It is hereby ORDERED that the Court will hold a hearing on defendants' motions to dismiss on April 23, 2018 at 10:30 AM in Courtroom 23A. Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on April 4, 2018. (lcesh1) (Entered: 04/04/2018)
55 Unopposed MOTION to Reschedule Hearing by ROY COCKRUM, SCOTT COMER, ERIC SCHOENBERG (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(Berwick, Benjamin) (Entered: 04/05/2018)
Set/Reset Hearings: Motion Hearing set for 4/23/2018 at 10:30 AM in Courtroom 23A before Judge Ellen S. Huvelle. (gdf) (Entered: 04/05/2018)
MINUTE ORDER finding as moot 55 Motion: It is hereby ORDERED that the Court will hold a hearing on defendants' motions to dismiss on May 17, 2018 at 2:30 PM in Courtroom 23A. Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on April 9, 2018. (lcesh1) (Entered: 04/09/2018)
Set/Reset Hearings: Motion Hearing set for 5/17/2018 at 2:30 PM in Courtroom 23A before Judge Ellen S. Huvelle. (gdf) (Entered: 04/10/2018)
MINUTE ORDER: It is hereby ORDERED that the Court will hold a hearing on defendants' motions to dismiss on May 17, 2018 at 1:30 PM in Courtroom 23A, as opposed to the previously set time of 2:30 PM. Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on May 9, 2018. (lcesh1) (Entered: 05/09/2018)
Set/Reset Hearings: Motion Hearing set for 5/17/2018 at 1:30 PM in Courtroom 23A before Judge Ellen S. Huvelle. (gdf) (Entered: 05/10/2018)

Case: 1:17-cv-1370 As of: 10/25/2018 01:02 PM EDT 13 of 14

05/15/2018 05/15/2018 05/17/2018 05/18/2018 05/18/2018 05/21/2018 05/21/2018 05/24/2018 05/24/2018 05/24/2018 05/24/2018 05/25/2018
05/25/2018
05/25/2018

56 MOTION to Permit permission to bring in computer equipment for hearing by ROGER STONE (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(Buschel, Robert) Modified event title on 5/17/2018 (znmw). (Entered: 05/15/2018)
MINUTE ORDER granting 56 Motion: It is hereby ORDERED that defendant's motion for permission to bring in computer equipment is GRANTED. Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on May 15, 2018. (lcesh1) (Entered: 05/15/2018)
Minute Entry for proceedings held before Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on 5/17/18 : Motion Hearing held on Defendants' Motions to Dismiss 20 , 21 , 22 and 23 . Motions taken under advisement. Plaintiffs' supporting e−mails and supplemental submissions to be filed with the Court by 5/18/18. (Court Reporter: Lisa Griffith) (kk) (Entered: 05/17/2018)
57 NOTICE of Filing by ROY COCKRUM, SCOTT COMER, ERIC SCHOENBERG (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Arizona Democratic Party v Arizona Republican Party, # 2 Exhibit North Carolina Democratic Party v North Carolina Republican Party, # 3 Exhibit Daschle v Thune)(Berwick, Benjamin) (Entered: 05/18/2018)
58 SEALED MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE DOCUMENT UNDER SEAL filed by ROY COCKRUM, SCOTT COMER, ERIC SCHOENBERG (This document is SEALED and only available to authorized persons.) (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Emails, # 2 Text of Proposed Order)(Berwick, Benjamin) (Entered: 05/18/2018)
59 RESPONSE re 58 SEALED MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE DOCUMENT UNDER SEAL filed by ROY COCKRUM, SCOTT COMER, ERIC SCHOENBERG (This document is SEALED and only available to authorized persons.) filed by ROGER STONE. (Buschel, Robert) (Entered: 05/21/2018)
60 RESPONSE re 58 SEALED MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE DOCUMENT UNDER SEAL filed by ROY COCKRUM, SCOTT COMER, ERIC SCHOENBERG (This document is SEALED and only available to authorized persons.) filed by DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC.. (Carvin, Michael) (Entered: 05/21/2018)
61 Unopposed MOTION for Leave to File Supplemental Memorandum by DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit Proposed Supplemental Memorandum, # 2 Text of Proposed Order)(Carvin, Michael) (Entered: 05/24/2018)
MINUTE ORDER granting 61 Motion for Leave to File: Defendant's unopposed motion is hereby GRANTED and the supplement briefing is deemed filed as of May 24, 2018. Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on May 24, 2018. (lcesh1) (Entered: 05/24/2018)
62 MOTION for Discovery by ROY COCKRUM, SCOTT COMER, ERIC SCHOENBERG (Attachments: # 1 Text of Proposed Order)(Berwick, Benjamin) (Entered: 05/24/2018)
66 SUPPLEMENTAL MEMORANDUM re 20 MOTION to Dismiss filed by DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC.. (jf) (Entered: 05/29/2018)
MINUTE ORDER re 62 MOTION for Discovery filed by ERIC SCHOENBERG, ROY COCKRUM, SCOTT COMER: It is hereby ORDERED that defendants shall file a response to plaintiffs' motion for leave to conduct limited jurisdictional discovery, ECF No. 62 , on or before May 31, 2018 at 12:00 PM (limited to 15 pages for each defendant), and plaintiffs shall file any reply on or before June 4, 2018 at 12:00 PM (limited to 8 pages). Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on May 25, 2018. (lcesh1) (Entered: 05/25/2018)
MINUTE ORDER re Order, 62 MOTION for Discovery filed by ERIC SCHOENBERG, ROY COCKRUM, SCOTT COMER: The Court hereby AMENDS the prior minute order re 62 MOTION for Discovery filed by ERIC SCHOENBERG, ROY COCKRUM, SCOTT COMER to clarify that defendants should specifically address, as part of their opposition, plaintiffs' entitlement to jurisdictional discovery and the propriety of the specific discovery on pages 16−18 of plaintiffs' brief. Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on May 25, 2018. (lcesh1) (Entered: 05/25/2018)
Set/Reset Deadlines: Response due by 5/31/2018. Reply due by 6/4/2018. (gdf) (Entered: 05/25/2018)

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05/25/2018 05/25/2018 05/25/2018 05/30/2018
05/31/2018 05/31/2018 06/04/2018 06/07/2018
07/03/2018 07/03/2018

63 MOTION for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice :Attorney Name− Barbara J. Chisholm, :Firm− Altshuler Berzon LLP, :Address− 177 Post St., Suite 300, San Francisco, CA 94108. Phone No. − 415−421−7151. Filing fee $ 100, receipt number 0090−5502726. Fee Status: Fee Paid. by ROY COCKRUM, SCOTT COMER, ERIC SCHOENBERG (Attachments: # 1 Declaration, # 2 Text of Proposed Order)(Berwick, Benjamin) (Entered: 05/25/2018)
64 MOTION for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice :Attorney Name− Danielle E. Leonard, :Firm− Altshuler Berzon LLP, :Address− 177 Post St., Suite 300, San Francisco, CA 94108. Phone No. − 415−421−7151. Filing fee $ 100, receipt number 0090−5502741. Fee Status: Fee Paid. by ROY COCKRUM, SCOTT COMER, ERIC SCHOENBERG (Attachments: # 1 Declaration, # 2 Text of Proposed Order)(Berwick, Benjamin) (Attachment 1 replaced on 5/30/2018) (zjf). (Entered: 05/25/2018)
65 MOTION for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice :Attorney Name− Stephen P. Berzon, :Firm− Altshuler Berzon LLP, :Address− 177 Post St., Suite 300, San Francisco, CA 94108. Phone No. − 415−421−7151. Filing fee $ 100, receipt number 0090−5502745. Fee Status: Fee Paid. by ROY COCKRUM, SCOTT COMER, ERIC SCHOENBERG (Attachments: # 1 Declaration, # 2 Text of Proposed Order)(Berwick, Benjamin) (Entered: 05/25/2018)
MINUTE ORDER granting 63 Motion for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice; granting 64 Motion for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice; and granting 65 Motion for Leave to Appear Pro Hac Vice: Upon consideration of the above−referenced motions for leave to appear pro hac vice, it is hereby ORDERED that the motions are GRANTED; and it is further ORDERED that attorneys Barbara J. Chisholm, Danielle E. Leonard, and Stephen P. Berzon are admitted pro hac vice for the purpose of appearing in the above−captioned case. Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on May 30, 2018. (AG) (Entered: 05/30/2018)
67 Memorandum in opposition to re 62 MOTION for Discovery filed by DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC.. (Carvin, Michael) (Entered: 05/31/2018)
68 RESPONSE re 62 MOTION for Discovery filed by ROGER STONE. (Buschel, Robert) (Entered: 05/31/2018)
69 REPLY to opposition to motion re 62 MOTION for Discovery filed by ROY COCKRUM, SCOTT COMER, ERIC SCHOENBERG. (Berwick, Benjamin) (Entered: 06/04/2018)
70 TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS before Judge Ellen S. Huvelle held on 5−17−18; Page Numbers: 1−140. Date of Issuance:6−7−18. Court Reporter/Transcriber Lisa Griffith, Telephone number (202) 354−3247, Transcripts may be ordered by submitting the <a href="http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/node/110">Transcript Order Form</a><P></P><P></P>For the first 90 days after this filing date, the transcript may be viewed at the courthouse at a public terminal or purchased from the court reporter referenced above. After 90 days, the transcript may be accessed via PACER. Other transcript formats, (multi−page, condensed, CD or ASCII) may be purchased from the court reporter.<P>NOTICE RE REDACTION OF TRANSCRIPTS: The parties have twenty−one days to file with the court and the court reporter any request to redact personal identifiers from this transcript. If no such requests are filed, the transcript will be made available to the public via PACER without redaction after 90 days. The policy, which includes the five personal identifiers specifically covered, is located on our website at www.dcd.uscourts.gov.<P></P> Redaction Request due 6/28/2018. Redacted Transcript Deadline set for 7/8/2018. Release of Transcript Restriction set for 9/5/2018.(Griffith, Lisa) (Entered: 06/07/2018)
71 ORDER granting 22 Motion to Dismiss; denying 23 Motion to Dismiss; denying 62 Motion for Discovery; granting 20 Motion to Dismiss; denying 21 Motion to Dismiss: See ORDER for details. Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on July 3, 2018. (lcesh1) (Entered: 07/03/2018)
72 MEMORANDUM AND OPINION: in support of ORDER, ECF No. 71 . See OPINION for details. Signed by Judge Ellen S. Huvelle on July 3, 2018. (lcesh1) (Entered: 07/03/2018)

 
 Case 1:17-cv-01370-ESH Document 17 Filed 09/26/17 Page 1 of 59

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

ROY COCKRUM; SCOTT COMER; and ERIC SCHOENBERG,
Plaintiffs,
v.
DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC.; and ROGER STONE,
Defendants.

) ) ) ) ) ) ) Civil Action No. 1:17-cv-1370-ESH ) ) ) ) ) )

FIRST AMENDED COMPLAINT INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 1. Plaintiffs bring this suit to recover for injuries that they suffered when their stolen private information was published to the entire world during the 2016 presidential campaign. 2. Plaintiffs are all private American citizens. Until last year, Plaintiffs were unknown to the general American public. At the time that their private information was published, none was a public official or public figure. None was a candidate for public office. None was a high-ranking campaign official or close personal advisor of a presidential candidate. None expected that his private information would be shared with the world. 3. Roy Cockrum is a former Episcopal monk. He left the brotherhood in 2007 to care for his ailing parents. In 2014, he won the Tennessee Powerball lottery and decided to give away the bulk of his winnings. In 2016, his belief in maintaining an open and inclusive society led him to donate to multiple candidates for public office and state Democratic parties, as well as to the Democratic National Committee (“DNC”).

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4. Eric Schoenberg is a successful businessman who served as a Foreign Service Officer during the Reagan Administration. At different times, he has been registered to vote as a Republican and as a Democrat. In the 2016 election cycle, he contributed to the DNC.
5. Scott Comer is a former mid-level staffer on the finance team of the DNC. A childhood trip to Washington, D.C. left him in awe of American democracy in action and led him to attend college in D.C. and, eventually, to work for political candidates and causes he believed in. In 2011, Mr. Comer came out as gay to his mother and close friends. He came out to his father a couple years later. But he did not tell most of his family, including his siblings and his grandparents. He knew that his grandparents viewed homosexuality as inconsistent with their deeply held religious beliefs. For the next five years, Mr. Comer kept his sexual orientation from his grandparents (as well as certain other close friends and relatives) so as not to upset them or disrupt his relationship with them, which he cherished.
6. Defendants are Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. (the “Trump Campaign”) and Roger Stone, an individual who was at various times employed by the Trump Campaign, or otherwise acting as its agent, but who was at all relevant times engaged in supporting its objectives.
7. On one or more occasions before the summer of 2016, computer hackers working on behalf of the Russian government hacked into the email systems of the DNC in the District of Columbia and obtained voluminous amounts of data, including emails and other documents sent to and from thousands of individuals. Some of those individuals were staff members of the DNC; some were donors; and some were other supporters, members of the media, or other private citizens.
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8. Among the materials obtained by the hackers were Mr. Comer’s emails; Mr. Schoenberg’s and his wife’s social security numbers, dates of birth, home address, phone number, and banking relationships; and Mr. Cockrum’s social security number, date of birth, address, and phone number.
9. As the United States government has reported, the Russian government sought to use the information it had stolen from the DNC as part of a deliberate campaign to interfere in the U.S. election and tilt its outcome in favor of Donald Trump.
10. On information and belief, to increase the utility of its hacking activity, Russia typically consults domestic political actors who act as Russia’s partners to decide which extracted information to publish, how to time the release of the stolen information, and how to disseminate it in a way that would maximize the political impact.
11. Multiple agents and associates of the Trump Campaign have long-standing financial connections and relationships with Russian individuals and entities, including several close to the Russian President and government. On information and belief, trading on those connections and seeking to maximize the impact of the hacked materials, those in control of the hacked materials consulted with Defendants to better understand how the hacked materials could be used to greatest political effect.
12. Agents of the Trump Campaign, acting on behalf of the Campaign, met with— and were otherwise in contact with—Russian officials or their agents on numerous occasions during the spring and summer of 2016. On at least one occasion, senior Trump Campaign officials met with a Kremlin-connected lawyer after being informed in an email that the meeting concerned information gathered as part of a Russian government effort to aid the Trump Campaign. According to email correspondence regarding the meeting made public on Donald
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Trump Jr.’s Twitter account, rather than avoiding coordination with a foreign government that was attempting to interfere in a U.S. election, Mr. Trump Jr. responded over email: “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”
13. On information and belief, and consistent with Defendants’ apparent willingness to coordinate with Russian operatives to benefit their campaign, an agreement arose out of those meetings and contacts. Defendants entered into an agreement with other parties, including agents of Russia and WikiLeaks, to have information stolen from the DNC publicly disseminated in a strategic way that would benefit the campaign to elect Mr. Trump as President (the “conspiracy”).
14. On information and belief, Defendants, in turn, provided benefits to the Russian government by making certain concessions important to Russia’s national interests, including intervening in the drafting of the Republican Party platform to protect Russian interests.
15. Defendants have provided other benefits to Russia, including a shift in Republican Party and U.S. priorities regarding NATO, efforts to lift or weaken U.S. sanctions on Russia, and a generally positive communications posture toward Russia to improve its image among Americans.
16. On information and belief, in furtherance of this conspiracy, Defendants and those they conspired with arranged for the hacked information to be provided to WikiLeaks, which published it on July 22, 2016 and thereafter. In particular, the DNC finance team’s emails, which contained correspondence with donors as well as donors’ personal information, were singled out for publication—of the seven email accounts whose contents were released, six were finance team members. Defendants’ targeting of the finance team and release of the finance team’s emails had several intended, direct, and foreseeable effects: First, it intimidated and
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deterred existing donors from further supporting the DNC’s financial efforts. Second, it intimidated and deterred existing or potential donors from communicating with Mr. Comer or others at the DNC to support the Democratic Party’s candidate for President. Third, it intimidated and deterred individuals, including Mr. Comer, from using email to advocate the election of their preferred candidate for the Presidency, for fear that their communications would be publicly disclosed. As a result of the conspiracy, all of the Plaintiffs suffered substantial harm—set forth in detail below—on account of their support for a particular candidate for President.
17. As a result of the publication of hacked information pursuant to the conspiracy, Mr. Cockrum’s social security number, address, and phone number were published to the world and remain permanently available to anyone with access to the Internet. As a result, Mr. Cockrum has seen multiple strangers attempt to obtain credit in his name, and at least one of these attempts was successful. Each new attempt requires a new round of extensive communications with creditors and credit agencies in an effort to prevent substantial financial loss. These circumstances have led to significant distress and anxiety and will require lifelong vigilance and expense. In addition, Mr. Cockrum has been chilled in the extent to which he supports and contributes to the DNC and political campaigns.
18. Mr. Schoenberg’s and his wife’s social security numbers, address, phone number, and banking relationships were published to the world and remain permanently available to anyone with access to the Internet. As a result, Mr. Schoenberg’s identity was stolen and his information used in fraudulent attempts to get credit cards. In one instance, two new credit cards arrived together at his home—one in his wife’s name, and the other in the name of an unknown woman. To this day, Mr. Schoenberg remains concerned that his and his family’s credit and
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financial information are permanently in jeopardy. These circumstances led to significant distress and anxiety and will require lifelong vigilance and expense.
19. Thousands of Mr. Comer’s emails were published to the world and remain available to anyone with access to the Internet. These emails included information about conflicts with coworkers and collaborators, frank statements about certain individuals, health information, and details from which his grandparents deduced his sexual orientation. These revelations strained relationships with coworkers, family, and friends, and ended some of Mr. Comer’s relationships altogether. Publication of private statements about other individuals caused damage to his personal and professional reputation. Because his emails were disclosed, Mr. Comer received phone calls threatening violence, some calling him “faggot.” These circumstances led to severe emotional distress, anxiety, and depression. He found himself unable to sleep, haunted by nightmares, and unable to focus. He recognized the severity of the injury to his mental health and sought treatment, generating significant costs for medication and frequent visits with physicians and therapists.
20. In addition, Mr. Comer has felt intimidated regarding how he communicates with others in his advocacy for candidates for federal office out of a fear that his communications will be publicly disclosed.
21. None of the private information about Plaintiffs described above that was disclosed was newsworthy or involved any public policy matter at issue in the campaign. While a handful of the released emails unrelated to Plaintiffs received a significant amount of news coverage, the vast majority of the tens of thousands of emails and attachments indiscriminately dumped on the Internet in furtherance of the conspiracy were not of public interest.
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22. The publication of Plaintiffs’ private information caused each of them concrete and tangible injuries.
23. On information and belief, ever since and in furtherance of the conspiracy, Defendants and their coconspirators have taken efforts to hide evidence of their coordination. Associates of the Defendants have repeatedly shifted their explanations of the reasons and process for revising a proposed amendment to the Republican Party platform in a Russia-friendly direction. Agents of the Trump Campaign, including close advisor and then-Senator Jeff Sessions and Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, have failed to disclose on security clearance forms and in sworn testimony a series of meetings one or both held with top Russian officials during the campaign and the transition. Mr. Trump Jr. has provided inconsistent accounts of his meeting with a Russian government-linked attorney, whom he agreed to meet on the understanding that she would cooperate with his efforts to damage the Clinton campaign; he participated in the meeting knowing (according to emails released on his Twitter account) that the meeting was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” Campaign advisor Michael Flynn failed to properly report contractual arrangements and interactions with Russian entities in both the U.S. and Russia.
24. In furtherance of the conspiracy, Defendants have publicly denied or dismissed Russia’s role in the hacking, seeking to absolve Russia of any accountability for its actions to harm Plaintiffs and interfere in the U.S. election. Mr. Trump himself, who benefitted the most from this conspiracy, has repeatedly denied personal relationships with Russia that he had previously admitted, and has sought to discredit reporting on the underlying events discussed in this Complaint and to block attempts to investigate those events, including by firing the lead investigator looking into the affair, former FBI Director James Comey. On July 7, 2017, Mr.
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Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and reportedly accepted Mr. Putin’s assertion that Russia did not interfere in the U.S. election and agreed with Mr. Putin that any remaining focus on allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election was a hindrance and that the two countries should move on from the issue.
25. Defendants’ conduct violated Plaintiffs’ privacy rights under D.C. law. Defendants aided and assisted each other in violation of these rights and conspired with one another and with others known and unknown to commit this violation. While one of the objects of the conspiracy was to harm the Democratic Party’s candidate for President of the United States and improve the Trump Campaign’s likelihood of success, the direct victims included Mr. Cockrum, Mr. Schoenberg, and Mr. Comer.
26. In addition, Defendants’ conspiratorial conduct intimidated eligible voters, including Plaintiffs, in a manner designed to prevent them “from giving [their] support or advocacy in a legal manner, toward or in favor of the election of [a] lawfully qualified person as an elector for President,” and injured Plaintiffs’ person and property “on account of such support or advocacy,” all in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3).
27. Plaintiffs bring this suit to seek accountability and redress for the harms that they suffered from the release of their personal information, and to help prevent such harms from ever befalling anyone else.
JURISDICTION AND VENUE 28. This Court has jurisdiction over this matter pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1331. 29. This Court also has jurisdiction over this matter pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1332. Plaintiffs and Defendants are citizens of different states. There is complete diversity between the parties and the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000.
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30. This Court also has supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ state-law claims pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367.
31. Venue in this case is proper under 28 U.S.C. § 1391. This forum is a proper venue because, among other reasons described in this Complaint, conduct in furtherance of the conspiracy was planned, directed, and/or carried out in the District; Defendants met with their co-conspirators in the District; Mr. Comer was employed by the DNC in the District, which is also where the DNC is headquartered; all of the published emails were sent to or from and resided on the DNC’s servers, and were hacked from those servers, and those servers were physically in the District both when the published emails were sent and received, and when the Defendants agreed to participate in the conspiracy alleged in this Complaint; the hacked and published emails included those containing the social security number and other private information Mr. Cockrum sent to those servers in the District in order to attend an event in the District; Plaintiffs’ private information was published across the world, including in this District; Plaintiffs suffered injury in this District as a result of their activities in and directed towards this District; and one of the goals of the conspiracy was to convince voters, including the more than 400,000 registered voters in the District, to cast their ballot for Mr. Trump, whose campaign had successfully petitioned for him to appear on the ballot in the District in order for him to stand for election in the District.
PARTIES 32. Mr. Cockrum contributed to the DNC during the 2016 campaign. Mr. Cockrum joined The Society of St. John the Evangelist, an Episcopal monastery, after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. He left the monastery several years later to care for his elderly parents in Tennessee, where he won the Tennessee Powerball lottery and began a new career as a
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philanthropist. Mr. Cockrum has lived in Tennessee since 2009; he has a driver’s license issued by the State of Tennessee; he owns his home, through a revocable living trust, in Tennessee; his family is in Tennessee; he intends to remain in Tennessee indefinitely; and he has no other home. He is a domiciliary and citizen of the State of Tennessee.
33. Mr. Schoenberg contributed to the DNC during the 2016 campaign. Mr. Schoenberg has served as a Foreign Service Officer, held executive positions with an investment banking firm, and is now Chairman of a technology services firm. Mr. Schoenberg has lived in New Jersey for the last 24 consecutive years and for a total of 42 years; he has a driver’s license issued by the State of New Jersey; he owns his home in New Jersey; his family is in New Jersey; he intends to remain in New Jersey indefinitely; and he has no other home. He is a domiciliary and citizen of the State of New Jersey.
34. Mr. Comer is a former employee of the DNC, where he worked in the District of Columbia as the Finance Office’s Chief of Staff between April 2015 and October 2016. In June of 2016, he was given the additional title of LGBT Finance Chair, which he kept until he left in October 2016. Mr. Comer grew up in Tennessee, attended college at George Washington University and the University of Maryland, and has been working for Democratic candidates and advocacy organizations ever since in fulfillment of career goals formulated when his father took him to visit the nation’s capital as an 11-year-old boy. Mr. Comer has lived in Maryland since 2011; he has a driver’s license issued by the State of Maryland; he rents his home in Maryland; he intends to remain in Maryland indefinitely; and he has no other home. He is a domiciliary and citizen of the State of Maryland.
35. Defendant Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. (the “Trump Campaign”), is a Virginia corporation with its permanent headquarters in New York, New York. Its purpose
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during the times relevant to this complaint was to elect Donald J. Trump to the presidency. Paul Manafort, previously a lobbyist for Russian-linked entities, joined the Campaign on March 29, 2016; he became campaign Chairman on April 20, 2016 and served in that capacity until his resignation on August 19, 2016. Michael Flynn and Carter Page served as foreign policy advisors to the Campaign during the relevant period. Mr. Flynn has lived and worked in the Washington, D.C. area for many years, and spent a substantial amount of time in the District during and after the campaign. Jeff Sessions was a U.S. Senator and the chair of the Campaign’s national security advisory committee. He worked in D.C. and maintained a residence in the District. Jared Kushner is Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and was a close advisor to Mr. Trump during the Campaign. Donald Trump Jr. is Mr. Trump’s son and was also an agent of the Campaign.
36. Much of the work of the Campaign and its agents and associates took place in the District. Although the Campaign opened its official D.C.-area office in Alexandria, Virginia, near where Mr. Manafort has a home, the Campaign referred to this as its “Washington, DC based office.” The work of this office, by the Campaign’s own admission, was focused on D.C. and involved extensive work in the District, including recruiting delegates for the Republican National Convention, coordinating with the Republican National Committee in D.C., and working with lawmakers in Congress. Barry Bennett, a Trump Campaign senior advisor, stated that having an office in D.C. would help Campaign staff develop relationships with lawmakers on Capitol Hill: “Having an office here in Washington and working with them every day will make it a lot easier to do that.” Furthermore, several members of the Campaign’s national security and foreign policy team, which was central to the conspiracy, were based in the District. The Campaign’s national security advisory committee, which included Mr. Page, was organized by the D.C.-area office. J.D. Gordon, a national security advisor to the Trump Campaign who
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was the Campaign’s national security policy representative at the Republican National Convention, worked out of the D.C.-area office. And, as noted, Mr. Sessions, who worked in the District of Columbia and maintained a residence in the District, chaired the Trump Campaign’s national security advisory committee and handled foreign policy and national security matters for the Campaign.
37. On information and belief, prior to and after the opening of the Campaign’s D.C.area office, agents and associates of the Campaign frequently conducted Campaign-related business in D.C., including at the Trump International Hotel in the District (even before it opened for business in September 2016) and on Capitol Hill. Many of the Campaign’s agents and associates were based in or near D.C. and spent a substantial amount of time in D.C. working on behalf of the Campaign. Meetings and other conduct relevant to the conspiracy occurred in D.C.
38. The Campaign took steps to ensure that Mr. Trump appeared on the ballot in D.C. for both the Republican primary and the general election, and to try to convince the residents of the District to vote for him and to not support the Democratic presidential campaign.
39. Mr. Trump himself made repeated trips to D.C. during the campaign and immediately after the election, including on March 21, 2016; March 31, 2016; April 27, 2016; May 12, 2016; June 10, 2016; July 7, 2016; September 9, 2016; October 26, 2016; and November 10, 2016.
40. The day after the election, Mr. Trump’s transition team office opened in Washington, D.C. On January 20, 2017, Mr. Trump took up residency in the White House. Since January 20, 2017, when Mr. Trump was inaugurated as President of the United States, the Trump Campaign’s operations have been directed from Washington, D.C., where Mr. Trump, the
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person who directs the Campaign and the person whose reelection it exists to forward, resides. Since January 20, 2017, the Trump Campaign has organized at least eight full-scale events across the country, with substantial planning for these events being directed out of Washington, D.C. On June 28, 2017, the Trump Campaign held its first 2020 reelection fundraiser at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. The Campaign raised approximately $10 million at this fundraiser.
41. Defendant Roger Stone is a lobbyist and political strategist who has referred to himself proudly as “a brand name when it comes to dirty tricks.” In 1979, Mr. Stone met Mr. Trump through the lawyer Roy Cohn, who mentored both men. Mr. Stone and Mr. Trump have been friends and business associates ever since. Mr. Stone began urging Mr. Trump to run for President in 1987 and helped lead Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign on the Reform Party ticket in 1999. He again urged Mr. Trump to run for President in 2016 and was intimately involved as an advisor to Mr. Trump and the Trump Campaign during that election campaign. He left official employment with the Trump Campaign in August 2015. Mr. Stone continued to play an important role in the Trump Campaign as an advisor even after his departure, and he remained in regular contact with Mr. Trump throughout the campaign. In early 2016, Mr. Stone helped arrange for his longtime friend and former business partner Mr. Manafort to become Chairman of the Trump Campaign. He has consulted on political strategy around the world, including in Ukraine. The New York Times has reported that “[h]is ties to Russia are now under scrutiny by the F.B.I.” Mr. Stone lived and worked in D.C. for approximately 20 years, until 2000. He made at least two trips to D.C. during the campaign—on or about November 9, 2015 and on or about October 30, 2016—during which, on information and belief, he interacted with other agents and associates of the Campaign. Although he rents an apartment in New York, Mr.
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Stone’s primary residence is in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; in 2013, Mr. Stone publicly considered running for Governor of Florida in the 2014 election; Mr. Stone’s family is in Florida; Mr. Stone directs his professional activities from an office in Florida. Mr. Stone is a domiciliary and citizen of the State of Florida.
FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS I. Plaintiffs’ Private Information Was Shared With the World, Causing Plaintiffs
Substantial Harms A. Emails Containing Plaintiffs’ Private Information Were Disseminated on the
Internet 42. On July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks posted thousands of private emails on the Internet. These emails were made available to anybody in the world with access to a web browser. According to the WikiLeaks website: Starting on Friday 22 July 2016 at 10:30am EDT, WikiLeaks released over 2 publications 44,053 emails and 17,761 attachments from the top of the US Democratic National Committee—part one of our new Hillary Leaks series. The leaks come from the accounts of seven key figures in the DNC: Communications Director Luis Miranda (10520 emails), National Finance Director Jordon [sic] Kaplan (3799 emails), Finance Chief of Staff Scott Comer (3095 emails), Finance Director of Data & Strategic Initiatives Daniel Parrish (1742 emails), Finance Director Allen Zachary (1611 emails), Senior Advisor Andrew Wright (938 emails) and Northern California Finance Director Robert (Erik) Stowe (751 emails). The emails cover the period from January last year until 25 May this year. 43. Emails containing private information belonging to each of the Plaintiffs—and many others—were included in the information published by WikiLeaks beginning on July 22, 2016. These private details revealed personally identifying information, such as social security numbers, dates of birth, home addresses, cell phone numbers, and bank account details; personal health information ranging from doctor’s appointments to life-threatening illnesses; information about conflicts with co-workers, collaborators, friends, and family members; sexual orientation
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and/or information about romantic relationships; and myriad private details about day-to-day experiences that were never intended for publication to the Internet for the whole world to see.
44. The emails containing Plaintiffs’ private information remain on the Internet to this day. They are publicly searchable through the WikiLeaks site, allowing anybody to type an individual’s name in order to browse emails to, from, or about that person. Plaintiffs’ social security numbers, and those of dozens of other potential identity theft victims, are available to the world.
45. Plaintiffs are illustrative of dozens of American citizens whose lives were directly affected when this information was hacked and published on the Internet. Because so many of the published emails came from the DNC’s finance team, countless donors and prospective donors to the DNC had their private information, financial information, and communications published.
46. Before their publication beginning on July 22, 2016, none of the Plaintiffs’ private emails had been posted on the Internet or made available to the public. Before the publication beginning on July 22, 2016, none of the Plaintiffs’ social security numbers had been posted on the Internet.
47. The published emails were not curated or redacted to remove private facts about Plaintiffs or any other victims of the release.
48. The published emails contained detailed private factual information concerning dozens of DNC donors and employees, including each Plaintiff, such as the following:
49. Mr. Cockrum’s social security number, date of birth, address, and other personally identifying information appeared in the leaked emails. Mr. Cockrum was required to provide most of this information to the DNC in order to obtain Secret Service clearance to attend
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an event with President Obama, which took place in the District of Columbia. Mr. Cockrum’s private information remains on the Internet to this day.
50. Mr. Schoenberg’s and his wife’s social security number, dates of birth, address, banking relationships, and other personally identifying information appeared in the leaked emails. Mr. Schoenberg was required to provide this information to the DNC in order to obtain Secret Service clearance to attend an event with President Obama. Mr. Schoenberg’s private information remains on the Internet to this day.
51. The publication of DNC emails in general received coverage in Mr. Comer’s hometown newspaper, and his family members—including his grandparents—searched for and read emails to, from, and about him, including emails suggesting that Mr. Comer is gay. Until publication of his emails on WikiLeaks, Mr. Comer was not openly gay with his grandparents and several other friends and members of his close-knit family. These emails revealed his sexuality to family members with whom he had decided not to share this facet of his life and in a manner he never would have chosen. Realizing that his grandparents would learn that he was gay caused instantaneous and intense distress, and knowing that they learned in this way continues to cause great sadness. This revelation and discussion of other private details about his life and work caused immediate and lasting strain on family relations.
52. Mr. Comer also had private medical information disseminated. A May 17, 2016 email from Mr. Comer to his boss, with whom he was close, describes his bodily functions during a virus, a topic that Mr. Comer, like most people, would never raise in public communications.
53. Mr. Comer’s emails also included frank and private discussions about other individuals. Those emails sometimes reflected frustration or conflict—unsurprising in a tight-
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knit office under a great deal of stress—or the kind of offhand remarks or gossip that many of us make in private but are never intended for sharing with the entire world.
B. The Private Information Disseminated About Plaintiffs Was of No Legitimate Concern to the Public
54. Plaintiffs were private Americans who did not hold and have not sought political office.
55. Some information dumped by WikiLeaks was the subject of news reporting and some political controversy. But most of the information published, including sensitive private facts related to the Plaintiffs, was not the subject of news reporting or public interest but was nevertheless made available for the whole world to see.
56. The published information about Plaintiffs on topics such as sexual orientation, medical conditions, private relationships, social security numbers, and personal financial information was not of any relevance to the political campaign or at all newsworthy.
57. There is no legitimate public concern in these intimate details about private individuals’ personal relationships with family and friends.
58. There is no legitimate public concern in Plaintiffs’ medical information. 59. There is no legitimate public concern in Plaintiffs’ personally identifying information such as banking information, social security numbers, and home addresses. C. Plaintiffs Suffered Concrete and Tangible Harms From the Publication of Their
Private Information, Including Injuries to Their Person and Property 60. The publication of the private facts caused the Plaintiffs to suffer greatly, as would any reasonable person who had such private details about their personal life published with fanfare on the Internet.
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61. Shortly after the DNC emails were published on WikiLeaks, Mr. Cockrum learned that his social security number and other personally identifying information were available online for the world to see.
62. Immediately thereafter, and ever since, Mr. Cockrum has received notices of strangers attempting to obtain credit in his name, some successfully.
63. After his personal information was published, Mr. Cockrum feared identity theft—and worse—so he directed his personal assistant to take extra precautions when admitting visitors to his office and speaking with strangers on the phone.
64. He continues to experience anxiety over actual and potential future identity theft, and especially the ability of sophisticated hackers to gain access to his personal or business financial accounts. He feels that protecting himself, his family, and his philanthropy will require extreme vigilance with no end in sight.
65. Shortly after emails hacked from the DNC servers were published on WikiLeaks, Mr. Schoenberg learned that his and his wife’s social security numbers, dates of birth, home address, phone numbers, banking relationships, and other personally identifying information had been broadcast to the world.
66. As a result of the mass publication of this private information, Mr. Schoenberg began getting phone calls and letters about fraudulent applications for credit in his and his wife’s name. One such application resulted in issuance of a credit card on a new account shared between his wife and a stranger.
67. He has been required to spend countless hours speaking with creditors and other financial and reporting institutions to rectify the problems caused by the disclosure of his social security number.
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68. He continues to experience anxiety and fear over potential future identity theft, and especially the ability of sophisticated hackers to gain access to his financial accounts using personally identifying information that is now readily available online. Even if his social security number is removed from the WikiLeaks archive available online, he will forever be concerned that it has now been substantially disseminated among criminal enterprises. He fears that these risks to his and his family’s financial security will never go away.
69. Mr. Comer’s sexual orientation was disclosed to family members—most painfully, his grandparents, for whom he cares deeply, but with whom he was not prepared to discuss this aspect of his life. He had grown up visiting his grandparents often and continued to have a close relationship with them into adulthood; but he feared that being open with them about his homosexuality would threaten whatever years he has left with them. This relationship is now tested by a tension Mr. Comer had worked hard to prevent.
70. Mr. Comer’s decision to be open about his sexuality with some friends and colleagues, but not with other family and friends, was both an acutely private decision and one based in understanding of the threat that being openly gay would pose to relationships in his hometown. When Mr. Comer was in ninth grade, the parent of a classmate raised questions about his sexuality with Mr. Comer’s mother, and his parents responded by removing him from his college preparatory high school and enrolling him in a fundamentalist Christian institution without explanation. He waited to share his sexuality with his parents until he could support himself outside of their home, as he feared they would subject him to traumatizing “conversion” therapy if he came out while he was dependent on them. Even after he came out to his mother, she asked that he not share this part of his life with his sister. Navigating these close but complicated relationships required careful attention, but the publication of Mr. Comer’s sexuality
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to the world robbed him of the ability to exercise that care. The impact of the WikiLeaks release on his closest relationships caused immediate and continued mental anguish.
71. The emotional toll caused by publication of his private emails also brought an end to a long-term romantic relationship that Mr. Comer believes would have remained strong today, but for the publication of his private information.
72. Mr. Comer’s working environment deteriorated rapidly after his emails’ release. He perceived that his counterparts in the Hillary Clinton campaign viewed him as damaged goods; they did not want him or others on the finance team to appear on behalf of the campaign publicly. He was marginalized and isolated by his colleagues and saw a major event that he eagerly anticipated leading taken away from him and given to other staff in the wake of the WikiLeaks posting.
73. Not only did Mr. Comer see his working relationships and professional reputation suffer, but he suffered broader reputational harm as well. Emails taken out of context in which he made colloquial references about other gay individuals to friends who understood that those references were made without animus or disrespect generated press reports labeling Mr. Comer as homophobic and racist. Mr. Comer’s deep commitment to civil rights made these allegations predictably and particularly painful, and they also risked damage to his reputation in the advocacy community.
74. After being marginalized at work as a result of the publication of his hacked emails, Mr. Comer determined that he was required to leave his job, leading to lost wages.
75. Mr. Comer received constant harassing phone calls while at home and while at work in D.C.—as many as 20 per day—for several weeks in the aftermath of the publication of his emails. While the quantity of hostile messages tapered over time, they did not stop for
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months, and this experience still impacts his comfort in communicating over the phone. Many of the callers threatened violence and used vile language, calling him “a faggot,” wishing he would “fucking die,” or saying “the world would be better off if [he] were dead.” This barrage of insults and threats made him feel like a pariah.
76. Mr. Comer suffered damage to his professional reputation as a result of the publication of his emails. Discord created by the public airing of his private communications continues to impact Mr. Comer’s attempt to maintain a career in the political finance industry. This harm has occurred principally in D.C., where Mr. Comer worked and which is the leading location for work in Mr. Comer’s chosen field of political finance. During interviews for positions at several political organizations, including positions based in D.C., potential employers have questioned Mr. Comer about the release and content of his emails and/or consequences arising from their release. A potential employer has asked Mr. Comer to provide paper copies of the emails posted to WikiLeaks for the potential employer to review. To date, Mr. Comer has not been offered a position with any of the above-mentioned potential employers.
77. Mr. Comer also experienced significant emotional distress, including anxiety and depression. He has incurred and continues to incur substantial medical expenses for treatment for distress caused by the Defendants and their co-conspirators.
78. The injuries suffered by all three Plaintiffs were the result of their having taken steps to advocate for and support candidates running for federal office—advocacy that was centered on, occurred in, and was directed toward D.C. As a result of the conduct of this conspiracy, they were punished for their advocacy.
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II. The Injuries Suffered by Plaintiffs Were Caused by a Conspiracy Involving the Defendants and Others 79. On information and belief, the publication of Plaintiffs’ private information and
the injuries described above resulted from a conspiracy between Defendants, Russian government agents, and other parties to disseminate information hacked from the DNC.
80. Public reporting from U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials, and other sources, establishes all of the hallmarks of a conspiracy between Defendants and other coconspirators, including Russian actors. Each party had motive to act together, there was ample opportunity to reach agreement, each party took actions that would be illogical absent a conspiracy, each party benefited from these actions, and each party took steps to conceal what had occurred.
81. U.S. government officials have opened a series of law enforcement and bipartisan congressional investigations into Russian interference in the election and links to the Trump Campaign. In particular, on March 20, 2017, in public testimony to the House Intelligence Committee, then-FBI Director James Comey stated that the FBI investigation into Russian interference with the election includes the “nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.” On May 3, 2017, in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Comey again confirmed the existence of an ongoing investigation into possible collusion between the Trump Campaign and Russia to interfere with the 2016 election. According to news reports based on information from U.S. officials, “[t]he FBI has information that indicates associates of President Donald Trump communicated with suspected Russian operatives to possibly coordinate the release of information damaging to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.”
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82. Plaintiffs seek accountability and redress for the harms they suffered from their fellow Americans who were participants in this conspiracy.
A. The Russian Government Engaged in a Campaign to Interfere in the U.S. Election and Tilt the Outcome to Mr. Trump
83. According to an unclassified public report released by the U.S. Intelligence Community (hereinafter “the U.S. Intelligence Community Report”):
Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow’s longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order, but these activities demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort compared to previous operations.
We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We have high confidence in these judgments. 84. According to former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, the U.S. intelligence community has “concluded first that President Putin directed an influence campaign to erode the faith and confidence of the American people in our presidential election process. Second, that he did so to demean Secretary Clinton, and third, that he sought to advantage Mr. Trump.” 85. On information and belief, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has empaneled a grand jury in Washington, D.C. to investigate Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and collusion by the Trump Campaign and its associates. B. As Part of That Campaign, Russian Operatives Hacked the Servers of U.S.
Political Entities, Including the DNC
86. In order to defeat Hillary Clinton and help elect Mr. Trump, hackers working on behalf of the Russian government broke into computer networks of U.S. political actors involved
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in the 2016 election, including the DNC and the Clinton campaign. Elements of Russian intelligence gained unauthorized access to DNC networks in July 2015, and maintained that access until at least June 2016. By March 2016, the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate (“GRU”) gained unauthorized access to DNC networks, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (“DCCC”) networks, and the personal email accounts of Democratic party officials and political figures. During the entire period that Russian intelligence had access to DNC accounts—from July 2015 until at least mid-June 2016—those accounts were hosted on servers physically located in the District of Columbia.
87. By May 2016, the GRU had copied large volumes of data from DNC networks, including email accounts of DNC staffers.
C. On Information and Belief, Through a Series of Secret Meetings in the Spring and Summer of 2016, Defendants and Their Co-conspirators Agreed to Disseminate Certain Hacked DNC Emails, and Russia Sought to Obtain Policy Concessions a. Defendants engaged in a series of meetings with Russian operatives throughout 2016
88. On information and belief, Russian actors and agents of the Trump Campaign who were acting on behalf of the Campaign held multiple secret meetings in D.C., New York, Cleveland, and elsewhere throughout the campaign, including around the time that Russian operatives were stealing material from the DNC servers and in the days and weeks leading up to the publication of Plaintiffs’ private information.
89. The Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), a British intelligence agency, first became aware of suspicious interactions between members of the Trump Campaign and Russian intelligence operatives in late 2015. German, Estonian, and Polish agencies— among others—also detected such interactions between late 2015 and early 2016.
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90. In the summer of 2016, U.S. intelligence officials collected information that senior Russian intelligence operatives and political figures were discussing exerting influence over the Trump Campaign. They considered this intelligence to be sufficiently credible that they passed it on to the FBI, which opened a counterintelligence investigation that continues to this day into whether the Trump Campaign aided Russian interference in the 2016 election.
91. On information and belief, federal law enforcement obtained a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to conduct electronic surveillance of Mr. Manafort during the campaign based on intercepted conversations among Russians and between Mr. Manafort and Russian individuals about the campaign. This was the second such warrant federal law enforcement officials had obtained to surveil Mr. Manafort’s interactions with Russia-linked entities since 2014.
92. On information and belief, Trump Campaign associates exchanged at least 18 undisclosed calls and emails with Russian officials and agents between April and November 2016, including at least six with Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak, whose U.S. office and residence is in Washington, D.C.
93. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov has acknowledged contacts between Russian officials and Mr. Trump’s “immediate entourage” during the campaign.
94. On information and belief, on March 24, 2016, George Papadopoulos, a member of Mr. Trump’s national security advisory committee, sent an email to several high-ranking Campaign officials and other members of the national security advisory committee, including Mr. Page, offering to set up a meeting with Russian leadership, including Mr. Putin, “to discuss US-Russia ties under President Trump.” Mr. Papadopoulos represented that he was acting as an intermediary of the Russian government and that his “Russian contacts welcomed the
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opportunity.” Mr. Papadopoulos sent several similar emails over the next several months, proposing that Mr. Trump or a member of his team meet with Russian officials.
95. A week after Mr. Papadopoulos sent his initial email, on March 31, 2016, Mr. Trump met with his national security advisory committee at the not-yet-opened Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. That meeting was attended by Mr. Papadopoulos (who had a week earlier revealed himself to be an intermediary for the Kremlin), Mr. Sessions (the chair of the committee), and Mr. Gordon, among others. (Mr. Gordon later stated that, because of the views that Mr. Trump expressed at this meeting, during the Republican National Convention, he pushed for the adoption of language more favorable to Russia in the Republican Party platform.)
96. Less than one month later, on April 27, 2016, at the Mayflower Hotel in D.C., Mr. Trump gave his first major foreign policy speech, which included language that was quite favorable to Russia and Russian interests. Mr. Kislyak attended the speech. On information and belief, Mr. Trump, Mr. Kushner, Mr. Sessions, and Mr. Kislyak held a private conversation during that event.
97. On information and belief, around the time Mr. Manafort took over as Campaign Chairman in May of 2016, he met in New York with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian-Ukrainian operative with suspected ties to Russian intelligence who traveled from the Ukraine to the U.S. for that meeting. Mr. Manafort met with Mr. Kilimnik again in Cleveland in August of 2016. Mr. Manafort discussed the hacking of DNC emails with Mr. Kilimnik, and Mr. Kilimnik has claimed that he played a role in preventing adoption of a version of an amendment to the Republican Party platform regarding military aid to Ukraine. While he was Campaign Chairman, Mr. Manafort also sent emails from his Campaign account to Mr. Kilimnik in which
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Mr. Manafort emphasized his influence in the Trump Campaign, sought repayment of debts, and discussed potential new business opportunities in Ukraine.
98. On June 9, 2016, Mr. Trump Jr., Mr. Manafort, and Mr. Kushner attended a meeting at Trump Tower in New York with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer. The meeting was reportedly arranged at the request of Emin Agalarov, the son of Aras Agalarov, an oligarch connected with Mr. Putin.
99. On July 7, 2016, while in Washington, D.C., Mr. Manafort sent an email through an intermediary to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire with close ties to Mr. Putin, offering to brief him about the campaign. The email stated: “If he needs private briefings we can accommodate.”
100. On information and belief, on or about July 7, 2016, as Mr. Manafort was offering to provide a private briefing to a close Putin ally, Mr. Page visited Moscow and met with Putin confidants Igor Sechin and Igor Diveykin. On information and belief, despite denials by the Campaign and Mr. Page, who claimed that he took the trip as a “private citizen,” the trip was approved by Mr. Lewandowski while he was the campaign manager for the Trump Campaign.
101. On information and belief, on or about July 18, 2016, during the Republican National Convention and four days before Plaintiffs’ private data was dumped to the world, representatives of the Trump Campaign, including Mr. Sessions, Mr. Page, and Mr. Gordon, met with Mr. Kislyak.
b. Long-standing relationships between agents of the Trump Campaign and Russia provided a critical foundation for these meetings, which otherwise would have been anathema to a U.S. presidential campaign
102. The Trump Campaign employed a series of top advisors with longstanding and extensive financial and personal ties to Russia.
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103. Mr. Trump and the Trump businesses themselves have deep financial ties to Russia that date back to at least the mid-1990s. As early as 1987, Mr. Trump traveled to Russia to explore building properties there.
104. Throughout the 2000s, Mr. Trump tried, ultimately unsuccessfully, to develop real estate ventures in Russia. In 2007, he declared with respect to his building plans, “we will be in Moscow at some point.”
105. Russian investors have played a key role in financing many of Mr. Trump’s real estate projects. Members of the Russian elite have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Trump properties in the United States, including nearly $100 million in properties in Florida alone. When Trump World Tower in Manhattan was completed in 2001, approximately onethird of the most expensive units were purchased by Russian buyers.
106. In the mid-2000s, Mr. Trump also partnered with two development companies— the Bayrock Group LLC and the Sapir Organization—with deep ties to Russian oligarchs to develop the Trump International Hotel and Tower in SoHo (known as “Trump SoHo”), in lower Manhattan.
107. In September 2008, at a real estate conference in New York, Mr. Trump Jr., an official and agent of the Trump businesses, stated, “[I]n terms of high-end product influx into the United States, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets; say in Dubai, and certainly with our project in SoHo and anywhere in New York. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”
108. In 2013, Mr. Trump concluded an agreement to hold the Miss Universe pageant in Russia. The deal was financed in part by Aras Agalarov. (Mr. Agalarov subsequently signed a preliminary deal with Mr. Trump to build a tower with Mr. Trump’s name on it in Moscow.)
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During an interview in Moscow at the time of the pageant, Mr. Trump stated: “I do have a relationship [with Putin] and I can tell you that he’s very interested in what we’re doing here today. . . . I do have a relationship with him. . . . He’s done a very brilliant job in terms of what he represents and who he’s represented.” While in Moscow, Mr. Trump also met with several other oligarchs with close ties to Mr. Putin. After that meeting, Mr. Trump stated: “I have a great relationship with many Russians, and almost all of the oligarchs were in the room.”
109. On September 21, 2015, Mr. Trump told the radio host Hugh Hewitt on his program: “The oligarchs are under [Putin’s] control, to a large extent. I mean, he can destroy them, and he has destroyed some of them. . . . Two years ago, I was in Moscow . . . with the toplevel people, both oligarchs and generals, and top-of-the-government people. I can’t go further than that, but I will tell you that I met the top people, and the relationship was extraordinary.”
110. On November 10, 2015, during a Republican primary debate, Mr. Trump stated: “I got to know [Putin] very well because we were both on 60 Minutes. We were stablemates, and we did very well that night.”
111. Mr. Trump’s business relationships in Russia continued through the 2016 presidential campaign. The Trump Organization—with Mr. Trump’s knowledge and approval— was actively pursuing plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow in late 2015 and early 2016, during the campaign. Between April and December of 2016, the Russian patent office granted 10-year extensions to six Trump trademarks that were set to expire in 2016.
112. Beyond Mr. Trump himself, Mr. Manafort, Mr. Page, Mr. Flynn, and Mr. Kushner all also had long-standing interests in and ties to Russia that, on information and belief, made them similarly receptive to Russian entreaties.
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113. On information and belief, in 2005, Mr. Manafort proposed to Mr. Deripaska a plan for Mr. Manafort to influence politics inside the United States to benefit Mr. Putin’s government. Mr. Manafort eventually signed a $10 million annual contract with Mr. Deripaska beginning in 2006. Mr. Manafort later advised Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and his pro-Russian political party and helped him win several elections until Mr. Yanukovych was ousted from power in 2014. After Mr. Yanukovych was forced to flee, a discovered ledger indicated millions in undisclosed cash payments from Mr. Yanukovych and his pro-Russian political party to Mr. Manafort between 2007 and 2012.
114. In 2008, Mr. Manafort partnered with Mr. Deripaska and a Ukrainian billionaire to explore the possibility of purchasing the Drake Hotel in New York.
115. In March 2016, Mr. Trump identified Carter Page as one of his campaign’s foreign policy advisors. Mr. Page was an investment banker with Merrill Lynch in Moscow from 2004 to 2007. In that capacity, he was an adviser to Gazprom, a Russian state-owned energy company.
116. On information and belief, in the summer of 2016, the FBI obtained a FISA warrant for Mr. Page, on the basis that there was probable cause to believe that he was acting as an agent of a foreign power. The application for that warrant cited Mr. Page meeting with Russian intelligence operatives as early as 2013 (although the FBI concluded that Mr. Page did not know he was in contact with a spy). The application also cited reports alleging that an agreement had been made between the Trump Campaign and Russian operatives to trade the dissemination of hacked emails for changes in the Republican platform regarding Ukraine.
117. Michael Flynn also served as an adviser to the Trump Campaign and was considered as a possible running mate for Mr. Trump. Following the election, he briefly served
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as Mr. Trump’s National Security Advisor. In 2015, Mr. Flynn was paid $11,250 by the U.S. subsidiary of a Russian cybersecurity firm and the same amount by a U.S. air cargo company affiliated with the Russian-owned Volga-Dnepr Group. On December 10, 2015, Mr. Flynn was paid $45,000 to speak at an RT (formerly Russia Today) anniversary gala in Moscow, where he sat at the same table as Mr. Putin and his chief of staff, Sergei Ivanov. The U.S. Intelligence Community Report describes RT as “[t]he Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet” and also notes that RT “has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks.”
118. Jared Kushner is Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and was one of the most senior advisors within the Trump Campaign. On information and belief, Mr. Kushner and his family have financial and personal ties with Russian investors, including Lev Leviev and Roman Abramovich, two Russian oligarchs who are close Putin confidants.
c. Defendants and their co-conspirators each had interests in coordinating on the dissemination of the hacked DNC emails
119. On information and belief, Russia’s practice when it engages in cyber-attacks related to an election in another country is to partner with aligned parties who are on the ground in that country. While Russia has extensive experience entering into and extracting information from computer networks, its modus operandi for interfering in elections like the 2016 U.S. election is to seek out domestic political operatives who can provide political expertise.
120. On information and belief, Russia had an interest in coordinating with Defendants and their agents to disseminate the hacked emails in a way that would maximize their political impact.
121. On information and belief, Russia also had an interest in extracting concessions from and obtaining leverage over Defendants and their agents in exchange for the dissemination of the information it had hacked from the DNC servers.
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122. As former CIA Director John Brennan has put it, “I know what the Russians try to do. They try to suborn individuals and try to get individuals, including U.S. individuals, to act on their behalf, wittingly or unwittingly.”
123. On information and belief, Defendants also had an interest in coordinating with their co-conspirators to disseminate the information that Russian operatives had stolen from the DNC.
124. In the spring of 2016, as it became apparent that Mr. Trump would face Secretary Clinton in the general election, polls showed his campaign trailing by a wide margin.
125. The Trump Campaign faced difficulty in bringing together Republican supporters. It trailed far behind its opponent in resources. To have a chance of winning, the Trump Campaign needed to discredit its opponent, depress her support, and create tensions and internal battles within the Democratic Party.
126. On information and belief, this need provided the Trump Campaign with a powerful motive to work with Russian operatives to cause the dissemination of the hacked materials.
127. On information and belief, the Chairman of the Campaign, Mr. Manafort, also had an incentive to coordinate with Russia. According to financial records, Mr. Manafort was in debt to Russian interests by as much as $17 million just months before he joined the Trump Campaign. Mr. Manafort offered to work for the Trump Campaign for free.
d. Defendants’ conduct further demonstrates that they were receptive to coordinating with Russia during the campaign
128. Not only did Defendants have a motive to coordinate with their co-conspirators to disseminate the hacked DNC emails, but recently revealed information makes clear that they were aware of Russia’s effort to interfere in the election to benefit Mr. Trump and had no
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hesitation about coordinating with Russia to benefit the Trump Campaign and harm Mr. Trump’s opponent.
129. As set forth above, on June 9, 2016, Mr. Trump Jr., Mr. Kushner, and Mr. Manafort met with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer who was described in emails as a “Russian government attorney who is flying over from Moscow.” According to reports, Mr. Trump Jr. agreed to attend this meeting after being promised damaging material about his father’s opponent. The Trump Campaign participants in the meeting expected that the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, would produce such material. Mr. Trump Jr. attended the meeting after receiving an email indicating that the material was part of a Russian government effort to aid the Trump Campaign. That email (released on July 11, 2017 on Mr. Trump Jr.’s Twitter account) stated, “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” Rather than refuse to be part of an effort by Russia to interfere in the election through the release of Russian-obtained information, Mr. Trump Jr. expressed enthusiasm for the idea in a responsive email, in which he stated: “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.” According to reports, the formatting of the email chain suggests that it was forwarded to Mr. Manafort and Mr. Kushner before the meeting, meaning that they went to the meeting fully aware that it was part of Russian efforts to interfere with the election. Mr. Trump Jr. acknowledged in a tweet issued on July 10, 2017 that he took the “meeting to hear info about” Mr. Trump’s opponent. Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-American lobbyist with suspected ties to Russian intelligence and the Kremlin who has previously been accused of involvement with computer hacking schemes, also attended the June 9 meeting. According to his account of the meeting, Ms. Veselnitskaya produced documents that she claimed would show illegal payments to the DNC.
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130. At the time of the June 9 meeting, Russian intelligence had already stolen large volumes of material from the DNC, including material that would soon be published on WikiLeaks.
131. Hours after a June 7 email exchange setting the time and place for the June 9 meeting, Mr. Trump gave a speech in which he stated: “I am going to give a major speech on probably Monday of next week, and we’re going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons.”
132. Just 40 minutes after the June 9 meeting was scheduled to begin, Mr. Trump said on Twitter, in a tweet about Hillary Clinton: “[W]here are your 33,000 emails that you deleted?”
133. Days after the meeting, Guccifer 2.0, a hacker working as an agent of Russian military intelligence, began posting and offering to reporters documents stolen from the DNC servers.
134. Although the Trump Campaign officials who attended the meeting were put on notice that the meeting was part of Russian attempts to interfere in the U.S. election, none of them reported the meeting to law enforcement authorities.
135. This was not the only meeting that Trump Campaign officials are known to have had with Russian-linked officials or agents seeking information that could undermine Mr. Trump’s opponent. Around the time that WikiLeaks published the information hacked from the DNC, a British security consultant named Matt Tait was approached by a Republican political operative named Peter Smith with links to the Trump Campaign about an operation to obtain emails allegedly taken from Clinton’s private server.
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136. According to Tait’s public representation, he warned Mr. Smith that if such emails existed, they had likely been obtained by Russian agents as part of wider efforts to interfere with the U.S. election. According to Mr. Tait:
Smith . . . didn’t seem to care. From his perspective it didn’t matter who had taken the emails, or their motives for doing so. He never expressed to me any discomfort with the possibility that the emails he was seeking were potentially from a Russian front, a likelihood he was happy to acknowledge. If they were genuine, they would hurt Clinton’s chances, and therefore help Trump. . . . Given the amount of media attention given at the time to the likely involvement of the Russian government in the DNC hack, it seemed mind-boggling for the Trump campaign—or for this offshoot of it—to be actively seeking those emails.
137. According to Mr. Tait, Mr. Smith appeared to be closely connected to the Trump Campaign and its agents:
[I]t was immediately apparent that Smith was both well connected within the top echelons of the campaign and he seemed to know both Lt. Gen. Flynn and his son well. Smith routinely talked about the goings on at the top of the Trump team, offering deep insights into the bizarre world at the top of the Trump campaign. In September 2016, Mr. Smith sent Mr. Tait a document entitled “A Demonstrative Pedagogical Summary to be Developed and Released Prior to November 8, 2016.” The document “detailed a company Smith and his colleagues had set up as a vehicle to conduct the research: ‘KLS Research’, set up as a Delaware LLC ‘to avoid campaign reporting,’ and listing four groups who were involved in one way or another. The first group, entitled ‘Trump Campaign (in coordination to the extent permitted as an independent expenditure)’ listed a number of senior campaign officials: Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, Sam Clovis, Lt. Gen. Flynn and Lisa Nelson.” According to Tait, “this document was about establishing a company to conduct opposition research on behalf of the campaign, but operating at a distance so as to avoid campaign reporting. Indeed, the document says as much in black and white.” On information
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and belief, this entity was established and Mr. Smith’s activities were conducted in coordination with the Trump Campaign. On information and belief, the willingness Mr. Smith showed to coordinate with potential Russian agents to obtain and disclose hacked data reflects Defendants’ general approach to such coordination.
e. On information and belief, Defendants and their co-conspirators reached an agreement to disseminate the hacked DNC emails
138. As described above, Defendants and their co-conspirators had a long history of financial and personal entanglements, extensive contact during the time period relevant to the dissemination of the hacked DNC emails, ample motive to coordinate regarding such dissemination, and a demonstrated inclination to coordinate to benefit Mr. Trump’s campaign and undermine support for his opponent.
139. On information and belief, during contacts between Russian officials and agents for Defendants, the parties did in fact reach an agreement regarding the publication of hacked DNC material—in particular, emails involving the DNC finance staff and operations (which included Plaintiffs’ private information). On information and belief, this agreement included policy concessions to Russian interests by Defendants. On information and belief, meetings that led to this agreement—and other conduct in furtherance of the agreement—occurred in the District of Columbia. U.S. intelligence officials deemed reports describing the contours of the agreement between Defendants and Russian officials to be important enough to brief both the outgoing and incoming Presidents about it.
D. The Trump Campaign Provided a Series of Beneficial Concessions to Russia 140. In the midst of the extensive contacts between Russian officials and Defendants during the relevant time period, not only was Plaintiffs’ hacked information disclosed, but the
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Republican Party, now under the control of the Trump Campaign, at the Campaign’s direction reversed its long-standing position vis-à-vis Russia to adopt a more pro-Russia approach.
141. For many years, the Republican party has taken strong positions opposed to Russia and the government of Mr. Putin.
142. During the 2008 presidential campaign, for example, the Republican nominee John McCain made opposition to Russian aggression a centerpiece of his platform. In particular, the Republican Party firmly opposed Russian actions against neighboring states.
143. In his speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention, Mr. McCain criticized Russian aggression: “Russia’s leaders, rich with oil wealth and corrupt with power, have rejected democratic ideals and the obligations of a responsible power. They invaded a small, democratic neighbor to gain more control over the world’s oil supply, intimidate other neighbors, and further their ambitions of re-assembling the Russian empire.” Mr. McCain added: “[W]e can’t turn a blind eye to aggression and international lawlessness that threatens the peace and stability of the world and the security of the American people.”
144. During the 2012 presidential campaign, Republican nominee Mitt Romney called Russia “our number one geopolitical foe.” During a presidential debate, Mr. Romney stated: “I have clear eyes on this. I’m not going to wear rose-colored glasses when it comes to Russia, or Mr. Putin.”
145. During his acceptance speech at the 2012 Republican National Convention, Mr. Romney again challenged Mr. Putin. Mr. Romney promised: “Under my administration, our friends will see more loyalty, and Mr. Putin will see a little less flexibility and more backbone.”
146. The Trump Campaign took a dramatically different approach to Russia, marking a stark departure from its party’s traditional platform.
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147. On information and belief, on or about July 18, 2016—four days before DNC emails containing Plaintiffs’ private information were dumped publicly, and the same day that Mr. Sessions, Mr. Page, and Mr. Gordon met with Mr. Kislyak near the site of the Republican National Convention—the Trump Campaign worked to remove strong language about Russia’s action in Ukraine from the Republican platform.
148. Specifically, at a Republican platform meeting, one member proposed an amendment stating: “Today, the post-Cold War ideal of a ‘Europe whole and free’ is being severely tested by Russia’s ongoing military aggression in Ukraine.” The proposed amendment continued: “The Ukrainian people deserve our admiration and support in their struggle.” Accordingly, the amendment called for maintaining or increasing sanctions against Russia, increasing aid for Ukraine, and “providing lethal defensive weapons” to Ukraine. But, according to reporting, Trump Campaign staffers in the room “intervened” and “were able to get the issue tabled while they devised a method to roll back the language.” The Campaign staffers wrote an alternate amendment “with softer language,” which was ultimately adopted.
149. Mr. Gordon initially denied any involvement in shaping this part of the platform. He later would admit that he was personally involved in softening the language on Ukraine in order to align it with Mr. Trump’s views as expressed in the March 31, 2016 meeting of the Campaign’s national security advisory committee in D.C. According to reports, Mr. Gordon stated that “this was the language Donald Trump himself wanted and advocated for back in March.”
150. Despite Russia’s recent aggression in Ukraine, and in contrast to the convention speeches of Senator McCain and Governor Romney in 2008 and 2012, Mr. Trump did not mention Russia at all during his convention speech.
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151. The Trump Campaign took other steps to benefit Russia. The Trump Campaign advanced a significant Russian foreign policy interest by casting doubt on the U.S.’s commitment to its NATO allies. Mr. Trump repeatedly declined to support NATO’s historical commitment to defend members who are under attack, refused to offer support to Baltic countries if they were attacked by Russia, and instead criticized NATO members. In response to Mr. Trump’s comments regarding NATO, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham stated: “The Republican nominee for President is essentially telling the Russians and other bad actors that the United States is not fully committed to supporting the NATO alliance.”
152. Mr. Trump and his associates also have undertaken efforts to lift sanctions imposed on Russia in response to its interference with the 2016 election. On December 29, 2016, the Obama administration imposed economic sanctions on Russian actors in response to such interference. The United States also expelled certain Russian diplomats and seized Russian-owned facilities in New York and Maryland.
153. On information and belief, on that same day, in a phone conversation with Russian ambassador Kislyak, Mr. Flynn urged Russia not to respond to the recent U.S.-imposed sanctions. Mr. Flynn subsequently lied about the substance of the conversation.
154. Mr. Flynn’s December 29 conversation with Mr. Kislyak was one of several contacts between the two in late December 2016. On information and belief, those conversations took place while Mr. Flynn, Mr. Kislyak, or both were in Washington, D.C.
155. Immediately upon taking office, the Trump administration undertook efforts to lift economic sanctions imposed on Russia. And Mr. Trump opposed a bill sanctioning Russia that was eventually passed in Congress with more than enough bipartisan support to override any veto, thus forcing Mr. Trump to sign the bill to avoid having his first ever veto overridden.
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156. Another of Russia’s foreign policy goals has been to improve Russia’s and Mr. Putin’s image within the United States. Mr. Trump made a series of comments supportive of Mr. Putin, all consistent with this Russian policy desire. For example, in December 2015, Mr. Trump said of Mr. Putin: “It is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond.” Mr. Trump elsewhere during the campaign described Mr. Putin as “very much of a leader” with “very strong control over his country,” adding that “he’s been a leader, far more than our president has been a leader.”
157. This public relations campaign was effective. According to a February 2017 Gallup poll, “Americans see Russian President Vladimir Putin in a better light than two years ago.” That image has declined only in more recent months, as national news has focused on Russia’s attempts to interfere in our election.
158. Mr. Trump also sought to minimize Mr. Putin’s negative human rights record. In response to questions about Mr. Putin arranging the deaths of opponents, Mr. Trump responded, “I haven’t seen any evidence that he killed anybody.”
159. These actions and other statements from the Trump Campaign helped to further Russia’s foreign policy objectives.
E. Pursuant to the Conspiracy, Certain Hacked DNC Emails, Containing Plaintiffs’ Private Information, Were Published to the World on WikiLeaks
160. On July 22, 2016, four days after the change to the Republican Party platform and in furtherance of the conspiracy, actors in control of the stolen materials obtained by Russia caused WikiLeaks to post thousands of private emails hacked from the DNC on the Internet. As set forth above, the emails published on WikiLeaks included private information about each of the Plaintiffs—and about dozens of other private Americans. The information about Plaintiffs was not newsworthy and its release caused them substantial injuries.
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161. On information and belief, Defendants conspired with their co-conspirators to select the materials to be released and time the release of the hacked DNC emails to obtain maximum political benefit for the Trump Campaign. The conspirators focused on DNC finance staff emails for their potential to deter eligible voters (including Plaintiffs) from donating to, attending events in support of, and otherwise supporting their candidate for the White House. Although Russian agents had possessed large volumes of DNC data for some time, the DNC emails were not published on WikiLeaks until the timing was politically optimal to benefit the Trump Campaign. As Mr. Trump Jr. indicated in an email (later published on his Twitter account), the release of information would be helpful to the Trump Campaign “especially later in the summer.”
162. Shortly after the DNC emails were published, Mr. Stone, who was still in close contact with Mr. Trump and Mr. Manafort, admitted in an interview that he had communicated with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange but that he was “not at liberty” to discuss aspects of those communications. On October 12, 2016, Mr. Stone admitted that he had “backchannel communications” with Mr. Assange “through an intermediary—somebody who is a mutual friend.” He added that “[t]hat friend travels back and forth from the United States to London and we talk.”
163. At around the time the DNC emails were published, Mr. Stone engaged in public and private Twitter conversations with the hacker Guccifer 2.0, who several weeks earlier had claimed credit for the DNC hack.
164. According to the U.S. Intelligence Community Report, Guccifer 2.0 was working as an agent of Russian military intelligence. The report states that GRU (Russian intelligence) “used the Guccifer 2.0 persona, DCLeaks.com, and WikiLeaks to release US victim data
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obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets.” The “GRU relayed material it acquired from the DNC and senior Democratic officials to WikiLeaks. Moscow most likely chose WikiLeaks because of its self-proclaimed reputation for authenticity.”
165. The strategic timing and content of the publication of DNC emails right before the Democratic National Convention aggravated tensions and internal disagreements within the Democratic Party, as intended. Headlines from around the time of the Convention demonstrated the effect of the publication. The New York Times reported that “the publication of 20,000 Democratic National Committee emails by WikiLeaks this weekend provided a disastrous prelude to the convention.” A National Review article entitled “WikiLeaks blows up the party’s hopes for a smooth convention week” explained: “This week, the Democrats begin their convention with the resignation of their national committee chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, after nearly 20,000 of the committee’s e-mails were published by WikiLeaks.”
F. Throughout the Remainder of the Campaign, Defendants Amplified and Drew Attention to Hacked Emails that Had Been Published
166. The Trump Campaign sought to maximize its advantage from the release of the hacked emails by further publicizing and amplifying the released information. In the last months of the campaign, Mr. Trump mentioned WikiLeaks over 160 times during his campaign appearances, drawing increased attention to the released Russian-hacked emails.
167. For example, on July 23, the day after the release of the DNC emails, Mr. Trump sought to amplify and gain further political benefit from the timing of the release of the emails. “The Wikileaks e-mail release today was so bad to Sanders that it will make it impossible for him to support [Hillary Clinton], unless he is a fraud,” Mr. Trump tweeted to his followers.
168. On October 27, 2016, during an appearance on Good Morning America from the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., Mr. Trump said that the media should be
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“talking about . . . WikiLeaks and the horrible things that have come out about Hillary Clinton, the horrible things.”
169. Defendants also continued to communicate with Russia and others regarding the hacking and release of emails that could harm Secretary Clinton. On July 27, 2016, during the Democratic National Convention, Mr. Trump held a press conference in Florida. During his remarks, Mr. Trump called on Russia to continue its cyberattacks, stating, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 [Hillary Clinton] emails that are missing.” Although the Trump Campaign—and later, then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer— claimed that Mr. Trump was “joking,” when Mr. Trump was asked at the time to clarify his remark and whether he was serious, Mr. Trump stated: “If Russia or China or any other country has those emails, I mean, to be honest with you, I’d love to see them.”
170. Following that statement, Defendant Stone engaged in a series of exchanges with one of the Russian hackers culminating in the release of a second tranche of emails, this time from the DCCC and Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta’s account.
171. In August and September 2016, Defendant Stone and Guccifer 2.0 engaged in an exchange of direct messages over Twitter.
172. On August 12, 2016, Guccifer 2.0 released documents obtained from the DCCC and tweeted: “@RogerJStoneJr thanks that u believe in the real #Guccifer2.” Guccifer 2.0 subsequently tweeted “paying u back,” in reply to a tweet from Defendant Stone.
173. On August 18, 2016, Defendant Stone stated in a C-SPAN interview that he was in touch with Assange “through an intermediary.”
174. On August 21, 2016, Defendant Stone tweeted: “Trust me, it will soon the [sic] Podesta’s time in the barrel. #CrookedHillary.”
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175. In mid-September, Stone said on a radio interview that he expected “Julian Assange and the Wikileaks people to drop a payload of new documents on a weekly basis fairly soon.”
176. On October 1, 2016, Defendant Stone tweeted: “Wednesday @HillaryClinton is done.”
177. Two days later, on October 3, 2016, Defendant Stone tweeted: “I have total confidence that @wikileaks and my hero Julian Assange will educate the American people soon #LockHerUp.”
178. Then, on October 4, 2016, Defendant Stone tweeted: “Payload coming. #Lockthemup.”
179. Just two days later, on October 7, 2016, WikiLeaks published the first batch of emails hacked from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, one hour after an Access Hollywood video surfaced on which Mr. Trump made lewd remarks about sexually assaulting women.
180. Later, Mr. Trump himself previewed disclosures that would be coming, in order to elevate attention to them. For example, on November 2, he declared: “So today, I guess WikiLeaks, it sounds like, is going to be dropping some more.”
181. As set forth above, the release of Plaintiffs’ private information, as well as the subsequent amplification by Defendants, caused them real and substantial harm as a result of their participation in the political process and their support and advocacy for a particular presidential candidate. This harm to Plaintiffs was a direct and foreseeable consequence of the dissemination of the hacked emails. The publication of the emails also served to intimidate eligible voters who were potential donors and supporters of Mr. Trump’s opponent, including
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Plaintiffs, as it put them on notice that their support and advocacy could expose them to the release of their private information.
G. Defendants Then Sought to Deny and Conceal Any Evidence of Their Interactions
182. Defendants and their associates have repeatedly tried to deny or conceal all aspects of this conspiracy. First, they have denied or attempted to conceal their contacts during the campaign with Russian actors. Second, they have failed to disclose contacts with Russian actors even when such failure violates or circumvents the law. Third, they have sought to conceal the nature of their personal and business relationships with Russia. Fourth, they have sought to dismiss the unanimous conclusions of the U.S. government that Russia interfered with the 2016 election, doing nothing to hold Russia accountable for this attack on the election and the privacy of Plaintiffs and others like them. Fifth, they have concealed their involvement in softening the Republican Party platform change to Russia’s benefit. And sixth, since the election Mr. Trump has taken actions to block the law enforcement investigation into any involvement by his Campaign and associates in Russian attempts to interfere with the 2016 election.
a. Defendants attempted to conceal contacts with Russian actors 183. Defendants and other Trump associates have repeatedly denied or attempted to conceal contacts during the campaign with Russian actors. 184. For example, Defendants concealed the June 9, 2016 meeting between Mr. Trump Jr., Mr. Manafort, Mr. Kushner, and a Russian lawyer. On July 24, 2016, during a CNN interview, Mr. Trump Jr. said that reports that Russia was trying to help the Trump Campaign by damaging his opponent were “disgusting” and “so phony” despite having attended a meeting with Russian agents for precisely that purpose. When news of the meeting came to light, Mr. Trump Jr. offered differing and incomplete explanations of the origins and purpose of the
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meeting. In his initial account of the meeting, Mr. Trump Jr. stated that he “was asked to attend the meeting by an acquaintance, but was not told the name of the person I would be meeting with beforehand,” and that “[w]e primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at the time and there was no follow up.” On information and belief, that initial statement was personally dictated by Mr. Trump. Only later did Mr. Trump Jr. acknowledge that the purpose of the meeting was to discuss information about Mr. Trump’s opponent to benefit his campaign.
185. The initial denial of the June 9 meeting is just one example of repeated denials by Defendants and their associates of contacts between the Trump Campaign and Russian agents that have later proven false.
186. For example, on July 24, 2016—the same day that Mr. Trump Jr. issued his denial—Mr. Manafort stated that allegations of links between the Trump Campaign and Russia were “absurd” and that “there’s no basis to it.”
187. On September 25, 2016, in response to a question about Mr. Page’s contacts with Russian agents, Kellyanne Conway, a senior advisor to Mr. Trump, stated: “If he’s doing that, he’s certainly not doing it with the permission or knowledge of the campaign . . . . He is certainly not authorized to do that.”
188. On November 10, 2016, in Washington, D.C., Campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks stated that contacts between the Campaign and Russian actors “never happened.” She added: “There was no communication between the Campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign.”
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189. On December 18, 2016, Ms. Conway was asked whether “anyone involved in the Trump Campaign [had] any contact with Russians trying to meddle with the election.” She replied: “Absolutely not. And I discussed that with the president-elect just last night. Those conversations never happened.”
190. On January 11, 2017, Mr. Trump denied that anyone in his campaign or any of his associates had contact with Russia leading up to or during the campaign.
191. On January 15, 2017, Mike Pence denied any contacts between the Trump Campaign or its associates and Russian operatives.
192. On February 20, 2017, in Washington, D.C., deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that allegations about contacts between Trump associates and Russia are “a non-story because to the best of our knowledge, no contacts took place, so it’s hard to make a comment on something that never happened.”
193. In March 2017, Mr. Trump Jr. stated: “Did I meet with people that were Russian? I’m sure, I’m sure I did. But none that were set up. None that I can think of at the moment. And certainly none that I was representing the campaign in any way, shape, or form.”
b. Defendants and their associates failed to disclose contacts with Russian actors even when such failure violated or circumvented the law
194. Not only have Defendants and their associates sought to conceal their contact with Russian individuals, but they have done so even where their failure to disclose such contacts violated or circumvented the law.
195. Mr. Kushner failed to disclose his meetings with Russian agents, and others with foreign government officials, in security clearance forms, as required by law. On information and belief, in December 2016, Jared Kushner and Michael Flynn discussed with Russian Ambassador Kislyak the establishment of a communication back channel with Russia, which
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would use Russian diplomatic facilities in an apparent attempt to avoid detection by American intelligence agencies. Also in December 2016, on information and belief, Mr. Kushner met in New York with Sergey Gorkov, the chairman of Vnesheconombank, a Russian state-owned bank that is subject to U.S. sanctions. These meetings were not disclosed.
196. Trump Campaign advisor and now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions also failed to disclose during his Senate confirmation hearing and in security clearance forms at least two meetings during the campaign with Mr. Kislyak—at least one that took place in D.C. On information and belief, those meetings included discussions of campaign-related matters, including Mr. Trump’s position on issues important to Russia, which Mr. Sessions has previously denied.
197. Mr. Flynn failed to disclose payments from foreign sources, including Russian sources, as required by law.
198. Mr. Manafort failed to register with the Department of Justice as a foreign agent while working for Mr. Yanukovych. In June 2017, Mr. Manafort retroactively filed foreign agent registration forms showing that his firm had been paid over $17 million from Yanukovych’s pro-Russian Ukrainian political party over a two-year period.
c. Defendants and their associates concealed aspects of their personal and business relationships with Russian actors
199. Defendants and their associates have also concealed the nature of their personal and business relationships with Russian actors. For example, during the campaign, Mr. Trump walked back his repeated boasts about his Russia connections. On July 27, 2016, the same day that he called on Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails, Mr. Trump insisted that “I never met Putin. I’ve never spoken to him.” In a television interview, he reiterated: “But I have nothing to do with Russia, nothing to do, I never met Putin, I have nothing to do with Russia whatsoever.”
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He further stated: “I have nothing to do with Russia. I don’t have any jobs in Russia. I’m all over the world but we’re not involved in Russia.”
200. On October 24, 2016, at a campaign rally in Florida, Mr. Trump stated: “I have nothing to do with Russia, folks, I’ll give you a written statement.”
201. On October 26, 2016, at a rally in Kinston, North Carolina, Mr. Trump declared, “First of all, I . . . have no business whatsoever with Russia, have nothing to do with Russia.”
202. On January 11, 2017, Mr. Trump tweeted: “Russia has never tried to use leverage over me. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA—NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!”
203. On February 7, 2017, Mr. Trump posted a tweet from D.C. that claimed, in part, “I don’t know Putin, have no deals in Russia, and the haters are going crazy.”
204. On February 16, 2017, during a press conference in the White House, Mr. Trump claimed, when asked about contacts with Russia: “I had nothing to do with it. I have nothing to do with Russia. I told you, I have no deals there. I have no anything.” He went on to state that he was “okay with” the publication of stolen emails by WikiLeaks.
205. To date, despite questions about his business relationships and financial ties to Russia, Mr. Trump—in a stark break from precedent and in the face of extreme political pressure—has refused to disclose the past ten years of his tax returns. He has done this notwithstanding the obvious opportunity to put to rest some of the damaging speculation about Russian dealings that may or may not be indicated on these returns. On information and belief, these tax returns could reveal the nature and extent of his business entanglements with Russian interests.
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d. Defendants and their associates have sought to deny any Russian interference with the 2016 election
206. Mr. Trump and his associates have repeatedly questioned or denied Russia’s involvement in the hacking of the DNC emails and interference with the 2016 election, despite the overwhelming consensus of the U.S. Intelligence Community and others that Russia was responsible.
207. For example, on June 15, 2016, shortly after the hacking of the DNC became public, Mr. Trump suggested that the DNC hacked itself to get attention.
208. On July 26, 2016, Mr. Trump tweeted that Democrats were blaming Russia to “deflect the horror and stupidity of the WikiLeaks disaster.”
209. On September 8, 2016, in an interview on the Russian-controlled media outlet RT, Mr. Trump stated that it is “probably unlikely” that Russia interfered with the election. He further stated: “I think maybe the Democrats are putting that out. Who knows? But I think that it’s pretty unlikely.”
210. On September 26, 2016, during the first presidential debate, Mr. Trump dismissed accusations that Russia was behind the DNC hacks and stated: “It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, okay?”
211. On October 9, 2016, during the second presidential debate, Mr. Trump claimed that “[Clinton] doesn’t know if it’s the Russians doing the hacking. Maybe there is no hacking.”
212. On November 28, 2016, in an interview with Time magazine after the election, Mr. Trump stated: “I don’t believe [Russia] interfered. That became a laughing point, not a talking point, a laughing point.”
213. On July 6, 2017, in remarks to reporters while traveling in Poland, Mr. Trump stated, “I think it very well could be Russia but I think it could very well have been other
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countries,” continuing, “no one really knows for sure.” In fact, U.S. intelligence agencies are unanimous in the view that it was indeed Russia.
214. On July 7, 2017, Mr. Trump met personally with Mr. Putin and reportedly accepted Mr. Putin’s denial of involvement in trying to disrupt the U.S. election. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson indicated that the two agreed that continued focus on this issue would be a hindrance and thus agreed to move on.
215. Mr. Trump’s unsupported denials continue to this day. On September 22, 2017, he tweeted: “The Russia hoax continues, now it’s ads on Facebook. What about the totally biased and dishonest Media coverage in favor of Crooked Hillary?”
216. Mr. Stone has also denied Russian involvement in the hacking of the DNC servers. For example, on July 11, 2017, during a speech in Washington, D.C., Mr. Stone stated, incorrectly, that there is no evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 election. He also dismissed allegations of collusion with Russia as a “fairy tale,” argued that it was a false narrative invented to distract from the fact that Secretary Clinton was the presidential candidate “in bed” with the Russians, and dismissed the significance of the June 9 meeting at Trump Tower.
e. Defendants have concealed their involvement in the platform change to benefit Russia
217. On information and belief, Defendants and their co-conspirators have also attempted to conceal their involvement in the change in the Republican Party’s platform language about Ukraine. Mr. Trump and Mr. Manafort initially denied any campaign involvement in the platform language. In January 2017, Mr. Gordon, the Trump Campaign’s national security policy representative at the Republican National Convention, also denied
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involvement. But in March 2017, Mr. Gordon admitted that he was personally involved in softening the language on Ukraine.
f. Mr. Trump took actions to block the law enforcement investigation into involvement by his Campaign and associates in Russian attempts to interfere with the 2016 election
218. After assuming the Presidency, Mr. Trump made repeated efforts to ingratiate himself with FBI Director Comey, who was overseeing an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible Trump Campaign involvement. On information and belief, at a dinner in Washington, D.C., Mr. Trump asked for Mr. Comey’s personal loyalty. In a later meeting in the White House, Mr. Trump requested that Mr. Comey let go of his investigation into wrongdoing by Mr. Flynn. Mr. Trump and his staff also made several efforts to have members of the U.S. law enforcement and intelligence communities publicly rebut claims of such coordination.
219. On May 9, 2017, Mr. Trump fired Director Comey. On information and belief, the next day, at a meeting in the Oval Office, he told Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Kislyak that he “faced great pressure because of Russia,” and that as a result of firing Mr. Comey, “That’s taken off.”
* * * * * 220. In sum, as set forth above, Russia adopted at its highest levels of government a strategy to interfere with the 2016 U.S. election and successfully executed that strategy by, among other things, stealing and conspiring with others to disseminate DNC emails. On November 8, 2016, Mr. Trump won the election to become President of the United States. Russia achieved a major foreign policy goal with the election of Mr. Trump and defeat of Secretary Clinton.
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221. In the process, Plaintiffs paid a personal price merely for seeking to participate in the democratic process. And the threat that actors like the Defendants and their co-conspirators might seek to disseminate hacked employee and supporter information again in the future hangs over our democratic process, imposing a chilling effect on the rights of Americans to support and advocate for candidates for office.
222. Defendants and their co-conspirators have engaged in extensive efforts to deny Russia’s involvement in the hacked information, to undermine efforts to hold Russia accountable for its cyberattack on the DNC and release of Plaintiffs’ personal information, and to conceal their contacts with Russian actors in order to conceal their own involvement in the conspiracy.
COUNT I Public Disclosure of Private Facts in Violation of D.C. Law (Co-Conspirator and Aiding
and Abetting Liability) 223. Plaintiffs incorporate by reference the preceding paragraphs as if fully set forth herein. 224. Defendants agreed with each other and with other parties, including Russian government officials and WikiLeaks, to publicly disclose on the Internet private email communications that were stolen, or hacked, from the DNC for the purpose of influencing the 2016 presidential election. 225. Defendants also aided and abetted the above-described public disclosure. 226. Defendants and their co-conspirators knew that the hacked DNC emails were private and intended to publicly disclose the private emails. 227. Defendants and their co-conspirators knew, were plainly indifferent to the fact, or consciously disregarded the foreseeable risk that the hacked DNC emails contained private facts, in which the public has no legitimate concern, about Plaintiffs and other individuals similarly
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situated, and that publication of such information would cause suffering, shame, or humiliation to a person of ordinary sensibilities.
228. In furtherance of the conspiracy, one or more conspirators published on the Internet hacked DNC emails containing private facts about Plaintiffs and others, including information regarding sexual orientation, personal health matters, social security numbers, credit cards, personal and professional relationships, banking relationships, home addresses, and telephone numbers.
229. As a direct and proximate result of the conduct of Defendants and their coconspirators, Plaintiffs have sustained significant harm, entitling them to damages in an amount to be proven at trial.
230. The outrageous, malicious, and willful misconduct of the Defendants—conspiring with a hostile foreign government to publish Plaintiffs’ stolen and private information to the world as part of a conspiracy to influence a presidential election—also entitles the Plaintiffs to punitive damages so that the Defendants themselves and others in their position are deterred from repeating their outrageous actions in the future.
COUNT II Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress in Violation of D.C. Law (Co-Conspirator and
Aiding and Abetting Liability) 231. Plaintiffs incorporate by reference the preceding paragraphs as if fully set forth herein. 232. Defendants agreed with each other and with other parties, including Russian government officials and WikiLeaks, to publicly disclose on the Internet private email communications that were stolen, or hacked, from the DNC for the purpose of influencing the 2016 presidential election.
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233. Defendants also aided and abetted the above-described public disclosure. 234. Defendants and their co-conspirators knew that the hacked DNC emails were private and intended to publicly disclose the private emails. 235. Defendants and their co-conspirators knew, were plainly indifferent to the fact, or consciously disregarded the foreseeable risk that the hacked DNC emails contained private facts about Plaintiffs and other individuals similarly situated, and that publication of the emails would cause Plaintiffs and others severe or extreme emotional distress. 236. In furtherance of the conspiracy, one or more conspirators published on the Internet hacked DNC emails containing private facts about Plaintiffs and others, including information regarding sexual orientation, personal health matters, social security numbers, credit cards, personal and professional relationships, banking relationships, home addresses, and telephone numbers. 237. The conduct of Defendants and their co-conspirators was extreme, outrageous, and beyond the bounds of decency. 238. As a direct and proximate result of the conduct of Defendants and their coconspirators, Plaintiffs have suffered severe or extreme emotional distress, entitling them to damages in an amount to be proven at trial. 239. The outrageous, malicious, and willful misconduct of the Defendants—conspiring with a hostile foreign government to publish Plaintiffs’ stolen and private information to the world as part of a conspiracy to influence a presidential election—also entitles the Plaintiffs to receive punitive damages so that the Defendants themselves and others in their position are deterred from repeating their outrageous actions in the future.
COUNT III
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(Conspiracy to Intimidate Lawful Voters from Giving Support or Advocacy to Electors for President and to Injure Citizens in Person or Property on Account of Such Support or Advocacy in Violation of 42 U.S.C. 1985(3)) 240. Plaintiffs incorporate by reference the preceding paragraphs as if fully set forth
herein. 241. Plaintiffs are U.S. citizens who are lawfully entitled to vote. 242. Plaintiffs communicated with each other and with others at the DNC, and made
and solicited contributions to the DNC, for the purpose of giving support and advocacy in a legal manner in favor of the election of candidates for federal office in D.C., including for President of the United States.
243. Defendants agreed with each other and with other parties, including Russian government officials and WikiLeaks, to publicly disclose on the Internet private email communications that were stolen, or hacked, from the DNC for the purpose of influencing the 2016 presidential election.
244. Defendants and their co-conspirators knew that the hacked DNC emails were private and intended to publicly disclose the private emails.
245. Defendants and their co-conspirators knew, were plainly indifferent to the fact, or consciously disregarded the foreseeable risk that the hacked DNC emails contained private facts about Plaintiffs and other individuals similarly situated.
246. In furtherance of the scheme, one or more conspirators published on the Internet hacked DNC emails containing private facts about Plaintiffs and others, including information regarding sexual orientation, personal health matters, social security numbers, credit cards, personal relationships, banking relationships, home addresses, and telephone numbers, as well as information about eligible voters’, including Plaintiffs’, lawful support and advocacy for a
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candidate for President. Defendants further conspired with other parties to draw attention to the disseminated DNC emails containing eligible voters’, including Plaintiffs’, private information.
247. In so doing, and by exposing Plaintiffs to significant harm as a result of their prior activities in support of a candidate for President, Defendants conspired to prevent by intimidation Plaintiffs and other eligible voters like them from giving their support or advocacy in a legal manner for a candidate for President of the United States.
248. In so doing, Defendants conspired to injure Plaintiffs and others like them in their persons and property on account of their support or advocacy in a legal manner for a candidate for President of the United States.
249. As a natural and foreseeable result of the conspiracy, Plaintiffs, among other eligible voters, were injured in their persons and property.
250. As a direct and proximate result of the conduct of Defendants and their coconspirators, Plaintiffs have sustained significant harm, entitling them to damages in an amount to be proven at trial.
251. The outrageous, malicious, and willful misconduct of the Defendants—conspiring with a hostile foreign government to publish Plaintiffs’ stolen and private information to the world as part of a conspiracy to influence a presidential election—also entitles the Plaintiffs to receive punitive damages so that the Defendants themselves and others in their position are deterred from repeating their outrageous actions in the future.
PRAYER FOR RELIEF Wherefore, Plaintiffs respectfully pray that this Court:
a) Issue judgment in favor of Plaintiffs.
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b) Award compensatory and consequential damages as proven at trial, and in an amount over $75,000, to compensate Plaintiffs for the injuries they suffered.
c) Award punitive damages as just and proper in light of Defendants’ outrageous and malicious conduct and to deter such egregious conduct from being committed in the future.
d) Require Defendants to disgorge any profits they obtained through their involvement in the conspiracy, including gains from their financial relationships with Russian actors and financial benefits accruing to them from Russia’s intervention in the election.
e) Award Plaintiffs costs and reasonable attorneys’ fees. f) Provide such other relief as the Court deems just and proper.
JURY DEMAND Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 38, Plaintiffs demand a jury trial of all issues so triable.

Date: September 26, 2017

/s/ Benjamin L. Berwick BENJAMIN L. BERWICK (D.D.C. Bar No. MA0004) United to Protect Democracy 10 Ware St. Cambridge, MA 02138 (909) 326-2911 Ben.Berwick@protectdemocracy.org
IAN BASSIN (NY Attorney Registration No. 4683439) United to Protect Democracy 147 Prince St. Brooklyn, NY 11201 (202) 856-9191 Ian.Bassin@protectdemocracy.org
JUSTIN FLORENCE (D.C. Bar No. 988953) Justin.Florence@protectdemocracy.org ANNE TINDALL (D.C. Bar. No. 494607)

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Anne.Tindall@protectdemocracy.org United to Protect Democracy 2020 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, #163 Washington, DC 20006 (202) 856-9191 NANCY GERTNER (MA Bar No. 190140) Fick & Marx 100 Franklin Street, 7th floor Boston, MA 02110 (857) 321-8360 ngertner@fickmarx.com RICHARD PRIMUS (D.C. Bar No. 472223) The University of Michigan Law School* 625 S. State Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109 (734) 647-5543 PrimusLaw1859@gmail.com STEVEN A. HIRSCH (CA Bar No. 171825) shirsch@keker.com STEVEN P. RAGLAND (CA Bar No. 221076) sragland@keker.com Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP 633 Battery Street San Francisco, CA 94111-1809 (415) 391-5400 * For identification purposes.
Counsel for Plaintiffs
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 Case 1:17-cv-01370-ESH Document 72 Filed 07/03/18 Page 1 of 45

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

ROY COCKRUM; SCOTT COMER; and ERIC SCHOENBERG,
Plaintiffs,
v.
DONALD J. TRUMP FOR PRESIDENT, INC.; and ROGER STONE,
Defendants.

Civil Action No. 17-1370 (ESH)

MEMORANDUM OPINION Before the Court are defendants’ motions to dismiss and plaintiffs’ motion for jurisdictional discovery. Plaintiffs are two Democratic National Committee (“DNC”) donors (Cockrum and Schoenberg) and a former DNC employee (Comer). Defendants are Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. (“the Trump Campaign”), and Roger Stone, who was employed by the Trump Campaign until November 9, 2015, and allegedly continued thereafter to advise the Trump Campaign informally. Plaintiffs assert that defendants engaged in a conspiracy with unidentified Russian agents and WikiLeaks to publish hacked emails. They bring two tort claims under D.C. law, one alleging a conspiracy to violate plaintiffs’ privacy rights by publicly disclosing private facts and the other alleging a conspiracy to subject plaintiffs to intentional infliction of emotional distress. They also bring a federal claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3), alleging a conspiracy to violate plaintiffs’ right to give support or advocacy to their chosen

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political candidate. (Pls.’ Am. Compl., ECF No. 17, (“Compl.”) ¶¶ 25–26.)1
For the reasons stated below, the Court concludes that it lacks personal jurisdiction over
defendants and, alternatively, that Washington D.C. is not the proper venue for plaintiffs’ suit.
The Court will grant defendants’ motions to dismiss, deny plaintiffs’ motion, and dismiss plaintiffs’ suit without prejudice.2 Given this ruling, the Court does not address defendants’
arguments that the complaint fails to allege sufficient facts to sustain a claim for tortious civil conspiracies or a conspiracy under 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3).3 Although the Court will explain the
distinction between personal jurisdiction and the merits in detail below, it bears emphasizing that
this Court’s ruling is not based on a finding that there was no collusion between defendants and
Russia during the 2016 presidential election.
BACKGROUND
I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND
A. Plaintiffs
Plaintiffs are two donors to the DNC and one former DNC employee. (Compl. ¶¶ 2–5,
1 The three conspiracies alleged in the complaint involved the same set of facts, although the legal theories differ. For convenience, the Court refers to them herein as “the conspiracies.” 2 The Court denies defendants’ motions to dismiss under the D.C. Anti-SLAPP Act. The Court continues to adhere to its view that controlling precedent precludes the application of D.C.’s Anti-SLAPP Act in federal court. Democracy Partners v. Project Veritas Action Fund, 285 F. Supp. 3d 109, 127–28 (D.D.C. 2018) (citing Abbas v. Foreign Policy Grp., LLC, 783 F.3d 1328 (D.C. Cir. 2015)); see also Deripaska v. Associated Press, No. 17-cv-913, 2017 WL 8896059, at *1 (D.D.C. Oct. 17, 2017), appeal dismissed, No. 17-7164, 2017 WL 6553388 (D.C. Cir. Dec. 8, 2017). 3 Nor does the Court address defendants’ arguments regarding subject matter jurisdiction and standing. “While courts normally address subject-matter jurisdiction before turning to personal jurisdiction, this is not an absolute requirement.” Capel v. Capel, 272 F. Supp. 3d 33, 38 (D.D.C. 2017) (citing Ruhrgas AG v. Marathon Oil Co., 526 U.S. 574, 577–78 (1999)); see also Forras v. Rauf, 812 F.3d 1102, 1105–06 & n.4 (D.C. Cir. 2016).
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32–34.) Plaintiff Roy Cockrum is a domiciliary of Tennessee who donated to the DNC and multiple candidates for public office in 2016. (Id. ¶¶ 3, 32.) Plaintiff Eric Schoenberg is a domiciliary of New Jersey who also contributed to the DNC in the 2016 election cycle. (Id. ¶¶ 4, 33.) Plaintiff Scott Comer is a domiciliary of Maryland and worked as the DNC Finance Office’s Chief of Staff from April 2015 to October 2016, and as the DNC’s LGBT Finance Chair from June 2016 to October 2016. (Id. ¶¶ 5, 34.)
B. Hack of the DNC’s Email Systems Plaintiffs allege that [o]n one or more occasions before the summer of 2016, computer hackers working on behalf of the Russian government hacked into the email systems of the DNC in the District of Columbia and obtained voluminous amounts of data, including emails and other documents sent to and from thousands of individuals. Some of those individuals were staff members of the DNC; some were donors; and some were other supporters, members of the media, or other private citizens. (Compl. ¶ 7.) The Russian hackers allegedly had access to DNC accounts “from July 2015 until at least mid-June 2016.” (Id. ¶ 86.) The voluminous material that the hackers obtained included thousands of Comer’s emails; the social security numbers, dates of birth, home address, phone number, and banking relationships of Schoenberg and his wife; and the social security number, date of birth, address, and phone number of Cockrum. (Id. ¶ 8.) C. Conspiracies with Russian Agents Plaintiffs allege that Russian agents gained access to “DNC networks, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (‘DCCC’) networks, and the personal email accounts of Democratic party officials and political figures” (Compl. ¶ 86), and did so “as part of a deliberate campaign to interfere in the U.S. election and tilt its outcome in favor of Donald Trump.” (Id. ¶ 9; see also id. ¶¶ 83–85.) Plaintiffs attribute the hack to Russian agents and do not allege that defendants were involved in the hack. (Id. ¶¶ 86–87.) Importantly, plaintiffs’ claims concern
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only the dissemination of emails hacked from the DNC and published by WikiLeaks on July 22,
2016. (Id. ¶¶ 16, 42.) Plaintiffs do not seek to impose liability on defendants for the publication
of emails from the DCCC or John Podesta, Chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential
campaign.4
Plaintiffs allege, on information and belief, that Russia “typically consults domestic
political actors who act as Russia’s partners to decide which extracted information to publish,
how to time the release of the stolen information, and how to disseminate it in a way that would
maximize the political impact.” (Id. ¶ 10.) As relevant to defendants, plaintiffs allege that
[a]gents of the Trump Campaign, acting on behalf of the Campaign, met with— and were otherwise in contact with—Russian officials or their agents on numerous occasions during the spring and summer of 2016. On at least one occasion, senior Trump Campaign officials met with a Kremlin-connected lawyer after being informed in an email that the meeting concerned information gathered as part of a Russian government effort to aid the Trump Campaign.
(Id. ¶ 12; see also id. ¶ 79.) This meeting took place on June 9, 2016, at Trump Tower in New
York. (Id. ¶ 98.) At this meeting,
Mr. Trump Jr., Mr. Kushner, and Mr. Manafort met with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer who was described in emails as a “Russian government attorney who is flying over from Moscow.” According to reports, Mr. Trump Jr. agreed to attend this meeting after being promised damaging material about his father’s opponent. The Trump Campaign participants in the meeting expected that the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, would produce such material. Mr. Trump Jr. attended the meeting after receiving an email indicating that the material was part of a Russian government effort to aid the Trump Campaign. That email (released on July 11, 2017 on Mr. Trump Jr.’s Twitter account) stated, “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” Rather than refuse to be part of an effort by Russia to interfere in the election through the release of Russian-obtained information, Mr. Trump Jr. expressed enthusiasm for the idea in a responsive email, in which he stated: “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the
4 According to the complaint, the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence obtained access to the DCCC and Podesta emails by March 2016. (Compl. ¶ 86.) Hacker Guccifer 2.0 began releasing documents from the DCCC on August 12, 2016. (Id. ¶ 172.) WikiLeaks began publishing the Podesta emails on October 7, 2016. (Id. ¶ 179.)
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summer.” According to reports, the formatting of the email chain suggests that it was forwarded to Mr. Manafort and Mr. Kushner before the meeting, meaning that they went to the meeting fully aware that it was part of Russian efforts to interfere with the election. Mr. Trump Jr. acknowledged in a tweet issued on July 10, 2017 that he took the “meeting to hear info about” Mr. Trump’s opponent. Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-American lobbyist with suspected ties to Russian intelligence and the Kremlin who has previously been accused of involvement with computer hacking schemes, also attended the June 9 meeting. According to his account of the meeting, Ms. Veselnitskaya produced documents that she claimed would show illegal payments to the DNC. (Id. ¶ 129.) By June 9, 2016, Russian agents already had access to the emails that concerned plaintiffs. (See id. ¶ 130.) Although plaintiffs provide a detailed account about what happened at the June 9th meeting, there is no allegation that DNC emails were discussed. Besides the June 9th meeting at Trump Tower in New York, plaintiffs largely rely on conclusory allegations, based on information and belief, that defendants entered into an agreement with agents of Russia and WikiLeaks “to have information stolen from the DNC publicly disseminated in a strategic way that would benefit the campaign to elect Mr. Trump as President” (id. ¶ 13), and in return, defendants promised Russia that Mr. Trump would institute a more favorable policy toward Russia after assuming the presidency. (Id. ¶¶ 14–15; see also id. ¶ 138–59.) Plaintiffs also cite evidence of long-standing financial and personal relationships between agents of the Trump Campaign and Russia as background evidence to support an inference that there was a foundation on which both parties could build a conspiratorial relationship. (Id. ¶¶ 102–118.)
1. Meetings with Russian Agents in Spring and Summer 2016 Plaintiffs allege, on information and belief, that Russian agents met with the Trump Campaign and its agents in Cleveland, D.C., New York, London, and Moscow to collaborate on publication of the hacked emails. (See Compl. ¶¶ 88, 161.) Plaintiffs also allege, on information and belief, that the Trump Campaign exchanged at least 18 undisclosed phone calls and emails with Russian agents between April and November 2016. (Id. ¶ 92; see also id. ¶¶ 93–101, 129,
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135–37.)5 Plaintiffs ask the Court to infer that certain interactions could have been related to the
alleged conspiracies when agents of the Trump Campaign met to discuss foreign policy towards Russia or communicated with a representative or agent of the Russian government, including the Russian Ambassador. (See id. ¶ 139.) Most of the meetings that plaintiffs attempt to attribute to the conspiracies did not occur in the District, but allegedly took place in New York, at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, or abroad. As for D.C., plaintiffs allege, on information and belief, that “agents and associates of the Campaign frequently conducted Campaign-related business in D.C., including at the Trump International Hotel in the District (even before it opened for business in September 2016) and on Capitol Hill.” (Id. ¶ 37.) On March 24, 2016, George Papadopoulos—then a member of President Trump’s national security advisory committee—sent an email to “several high-ranking Campaign officials” about setting up a meeting between Russian leadership and President Trump. (Id. ¶ 94.) A week later President Trump held a meeting with his national security advisory committee at the Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C. (Id. ¶ 95.) Papadopoulos, Jeff Sessions, and J.D. Gordon, as well as other committee staff, attended. (Id.) The complaint does not allege what subjects were discussed at the meeting, but notes that “Mr. Gordon later stated that, because of the views that Mr. Trump expressed at this meeting, during the Republican National Convention, he pushed for the adoption of language more favorable to Russia in the Republican Party platform.” (Id.)
5 Plaintiffs allege that at least six of these contacts included Sergey Kislyak, the Russian Ambassador to the United States (Compl. ¶ 92), but plaintiffs’ complaint does not explain what role—if any—he played in the conspiracies, does not identify the dates when these contacts took place, or otherwise link these contacts to D.C. other than stating that the Ambassador has an office and residence in the District. (Id.)
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Almost a month later, on April 27, 2016, at the Mayflower Hotel in D.C., President Trump gave a foreign-policy speech that was favorable to Russia. (Id. ¶ 96.) Russian Ambassador Kislyak attended the speech, and “[o]n information and belief, Mr. Trump, Mr. Kushner, Mr. Sessions, and Mr. Kislyak held a private conversation during that event.” (Id.) Even if such a conversation occurred, there is, however, no indication as to how it related to the conspiracies alleged in the complaint.
Plaintiffs also allege that on July 7, 2016, Paul Manafort, while in Washington D.C., “sent an email through an intermediary to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire with close ties to Mr. Putin, offering to brief him about the campaign. The email stated: ‘If he needs private briefings we can accommodate.’” (Id. ¶ 99.) The complaint does not explain how, if at all, this email fits into the alleged conspiracies. But besides the two meetings discussed above, it is the only act alleged to have occurred in the District involving an agent of the Campaign that relates to the alleged conspiracies prior to the publication by WikiLeaks of the hacked DNC emails.
2. Publication of Hacked DNC Emails On July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks published over 44,000 hacked emails, most of which came from personnel on the DNC’s finance team, including Comer. (Compl. ¶¶ 16, 42.) WikiLeaks did not redact information from the emails, which meant that a myriad of personal information about DNC employees and donors was published with the email dump. (Id. ¶¶ 43, 45, 47–48.) As of the filing of the complaint, the emails were still publicly available on the Internet. (Id. ¶ 44.) Plaintiffs allege, again on information and belief, that defendants “and those they conspired with arranged for the hacked information to be provided to WikiLeaks” and targeted the DNC finance team’s emails for publication. (Id. ¶ 16.)
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3. Events After the Email Publication Plaintiffs do not specifically allege that Stone met with Russian agents or had communications with any co-conspirators until after the DNC emails were published on July 22, 2016, except to note that Stone admitted in an interview shortly after the email publication that “he had communicated with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange but that he was ‘not at liberty’ to discuss aspects of those communications.” (Compl. ¶ 162.) As evidence that Stone was involved in the conspiracies, plaintiffs also cite Stone’s public and private Twitter conversations, occurring shortly after the email publication, with “hacker Guccifer 2.0”— a person believed to be involved in the hack. (Id. ¶¶ 163–64, 170–72.) Plaintiffs also cite, as evidence to support an inference of conspiracy, instances after the July 22, 2016 publication when the Trump Campaign or Stone drew attention to the emails. (Id. ¶¶ 167–81.) In addition, plaintiffs note that after July 22, 2016, agents of the Trump Campaign met with Russian agents to discuss foreign policy. For example, Michael Flynn had a phone conversation with Ambassador Kislyak on December 29, 2016, which allegedly “took place while Mr. Flynn, Mr. Kislyak, or both were in Washington D.C.” (Id. ¶ 154.) Plaintiffs also claim that after the July 22, 2016 email dissemination, defendants have lied about or concealed their contacts with agents of the Russian government. (Id. ¶¶ 24, 182–219.)6 D. Injury Resulting from Publication According to the plaintiffs, the publication of the hacked DNC emails caused the following injuries:
6 For example, plaintiffs point to conversations in D.C. that Michael Flynn had with the Russian Ambassador in December 2016 when Flynn urged Russia not to respond to recent U.S.-imposed sanctions. (Compl. ¶¶ 152–55.) Flynn later lied to the FBI about the existence and substance of these conversations. (Id. ¶ 153.)
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First, it intimidated and deterred existing donors from further supporting the DNC’s financial efforts. Second, it intimidated and deterred existing or potential donors from communicating with Mr. Comer or others at the DNC to support the Democratic Party’s candidate for President. Third, it intimidated and deterred individuals, including Mr. Comer, from using email to advocate the election of their preferred candidate for the Presidency, for fear that their communications would be publicly disclosed.
(Compl. ¶ 16.) In addition, plaintiffs suffered other harm from the publication of personal
information. (See also id. ¶ 61.) Specific to their § 1985(3) claim, plaintiffs allege that “[t]he
injuries suffered by all three Plaintiffs were the result of their having taken steps to advocate for
and support candidates running for federal office.” (Id. ¶ 78.)
1. Comer
WikiLeaks published “thousands” of Comer’s emails. (Compl. ¶ 19.) Comer complains
about the dissemination of emails relating to his sexuality, a medical condition, and gossip.
(Id. ¶ 19–20.)
Comer’s hometown newspaper covered publication of the DNC emails, which led family
members—including his grandparents—to search for and read emails about him. (Id. ¶ 51.)
Comer admits that he had disclosed his sexuality to friends, colleagues, and other family
members, but he had not shared it with his grandparents before the email publication. (Id. ¶¶ 69– 70.)7 The emails indicated that Comer served as the LGBT Finance Director for the DNC, and
7 According to the complaint:
In 2011, Mr. Comer came out as gay to his mother and close friends. He came out to his father a couple years later. But he did not tell most of his family, including his siblings and his grandparents. He knew that his grandparents viewed homosexuality as inconsistent with their deeply held religious beliefs. For the next five years, Mr. Comer kept his sexual orientation from his grandparents (as well as certain other close friends and relatives) so as not to upset them or disrupt his relationship with them, which he cherished.
(Compl. ¶ 5.)
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some emails contained interoffice gossip. At a hearing before this Court, plaintiffs argued that
this interoffice gossip contained innuendo and suggestive language that could allow Comer’s
grandparents to deduce that he was gay. (Hr’g Tr., May, 17, 2018, ECF No. 70, (“Tr.”) at 18–
19.) As described generally in the complaint, Comer’s
emails . . . included frank and private discussions about other individuals. Those emails sometimes reflected frustration or conflict—unsurprising in a tight-knit office under a great deal of stress—or the kind of offhand remarks or gossip that many of us make in private but are never intended for sharing with the entire world.
(Compl. ¶ 53.)
These revelations strained relationships with coworkers, family, and friends, and ended some of Mr. Comer’s relationships altogether. Publication of private statements about other individuals caused damage to his personal and professional reputation. Because his emails were disclosed, Mr. Comer received phone calls threatening violence, some calling him “faggot.” These circumstances led to severe emotional distress, anxiety, and depression. He found himself unable to sleep, haunted by nightmares, and unable to focus. He recognized the severity of the injury to his mental health and sought treatment, generating significant costs for medication and frequent visits with physicians and therapists.
In addition, Mr. Comer has felt intimidated regarding how he communicates with others in his advocacy for candidates for federal office out of a fear that his communications will be publicly disclosed.
(Id. ¶¶ 19–20.) One of the emails that were disclosed also contained information about Comer’s
health. “A May 17, 2016 email from Mr. Comer to his boss, with whom he was close, describes
his bodily functions during a virus, a topic that Mr. Comer, like most people, would never raise
in public communications.” (Id. ¶ 52.)
Comer left the DNC in October 2016. (Tr. at 40.) Plaintiff attributes his decision to
leave the DNC, the ending of a long-term romantic relationship, and damage to his professional
reputation in the political finance industry to the publication of the emails. (Compl. ¶¶ 71–77.)
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2. Cockrum
WikiLeaks published Cockrum’s social security number, address, and phone number.
(Compl. ¶¶ 17, 49.) He was required to provide most of this information to the DNC to be a donor and attend certain DNC events. (Id. ¶ 49); 11 C.F.R. § 104.8.8
As a result [of the email publication], Mr. Cockrum has seen multiple strangers attempt to obtain credit in his name, and at least one of these attempts was successful. Each new attempt requires a new round of extensive communications with creditors and credit agencies in an effort to prevent substantial financial loss. These circumstances have led to significant distress and anxiety and will require lifelong vigilance and expense. In addition, Mr. Cockrum has been chilled in the extent to which he supports and contributes to the DNC and political campaigns.
(Compl. ¶ 17; see also id. ¶¶ 61–64.)
3. Schoenberg
Similarly, WikiLeaks published the social security numbers, address, phone number, and
banking relationships of Schoenberg and his wife. See supra n. 8; (Compl. ¶¶ 18, 50.)
As a result, Mr. Schoenberg’s identity was stolen and his information used in fraudulent attempts to get credit cards. In one instance, two new credit cards arrived together at his home—one in his wife’s name, and the other in the name of an unknown woman. To this day, Mr. Schoenberg remains concerned that his and his family’s credit and financial information are permanently in jeopardy. These circumstances led to significant distress and anxiety and will require lifelong vigilance and expense.
(Compl. ¶ 18; see also id. ¶¶ 65–68.)
8 Federal regulation requires that the DNC report donor contributions in excess of $200. 11 C.F.R. § 104.8. The Federal Election Commission’s website publicly lists a contributor’s name, employer, state, recipient of donation, and amount. FEC, Individual Contributions, FEC (last visited July 3, 2018), https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individualcontributions/?two_year_transaction_period=2018&min_date=01%2F01%2F2017&max_date=0 6%2F26%2F2018.
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II. PROCEDURAL HISTORY Plaintiffs filed their first complaint on July 12, 2017. On September 26, 2017, after
defendants filed their first motions to dismiss, plaintiffs amended their complaint. Plaintiffs’ current complaint contains three claims. The premise of these claims is that
defendants conspired with Russian agents and WikiLeaks to publish the hacked emails, or aided and abetted Russian agents and WikiLeaks in publishing the hacked emails. Plaintiffs allege that defendants have committed two torts under D.C. law: (1) public disclosure of private facts, and (2) intentional infliction of emotional distress. (Compl. ¶¶ 223–39.) As for their federal claim, plaintiffs allege that defendants violated 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) by conspiring to intimidate lawful voters from supporting or advocating for candidates for president and to injure citizens in person or property on account of such support or advocacy. (Id. ¶¶ 240–50.) Plaintiff seek compensatory damages and punitive damages “in an amount over $75,000” to compensate them for their injuries. (Id. “Prayer for Relief” at 57.)
On October 25, 2017, the Trump Campaign filed a motion to dismiss, citing (1) lack of subject matter jurisdiction, Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1), (2) lack of personal jurisdiction, Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(2), (3) improper venue, Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(3), and (4) failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). Stone also filed a parallel motion to dismiss citing the same grounds and additionally arguing that plaintiffs lacked standing to bring their claims.9 Plaintiffs filed their opposition on December 1, 2017, and defendants filed their replies on December 29, 2017. The Court granted plaintiffs leave to file a surreply, which plaintiffs filed on February 7, 2018.
At a hearing on defendants’ motions to dismiss on May 17, 2018, which focused on the
9 Both defendants also filed a motion to dismiss under the D.C. Anti-SLAPP Act. See supra n.2. 12

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issue of personal jurisdiction, plaintiffs never raised jurisdictional discovery. However, on May 24, 2018, plaintiffs filed a motion for such discovery. Prior to this motion the only notice plaintiffs had given the Court that they might seek jurisdictional discovery came in a footnote in their opposition, which stated: “Plaintiffs believe that the allegations in the Complaint are sufficient to establish that this Court may exercise personal jurisdiction over Defendants. If the Court disagrees, Plaintiffs should be allowed to take jurisdictional discovery.” (Pls.’ Opp. to Defs.’ Mots. to Dismiss, ECF No. 25, (“Pls.’ Opp.”) at 18 n. 7.)
Having received extensive briefing from all parties and three briefs from amicus curiae,10 the Court is now in a position to rule on the motions.
ANALYSIS I. LEGAL STANDARD
A. Personal Jurisdiction To survive a motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(2), the plaintiff bears the burden of establishing a basis for exercising personal jurisdiction over the defendant. Crane v. New York Zoological Soc., 894 F.2d 454, 456 (D.C. Cir. 1990). “In determining whether such a basis exists, factual discrepancies appearing in the record must be resolved in favor of the plaintiff.” Id.; see also Jacobsen v. Oliver, 201 F. Supp. 2d 93, 104 (D.D.C. 2002). However, the Court “need not accept inferences drawn by plaintiffs if such
10 Former National Security Officials filed an amicus curiae to offer a perspective on “whether and how Russia uses local actors inside a country to facilitate disinformation campaigns.” (ECF No. 37, at 4.) Campaign Legal Center and Professor Theodore M. Shaw filed an amicus curiae in opposition to defendants’ motion to dismiss addressing the merits of plaintiffs’ § 1985(3) claims. (ECF No. 38.) Bipartisan Campaign Officials filed an amicus curiae in opposition to defendants’ motion to address the harms posed to electoral democracy from conspiracies to hinder political participation by members of the electorate. (ECF No. 40.)
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inferences are unsupported by the facts.” Livnat v. Palestinian Auth., 851 F.3d 45, 57 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (citation omitted); see also Houlahan v. Brown, 979 F. Supp. 2d 86, 88 (D.D.C. 2013). “Mere conclusions or ‘bare allegation[s]’ do not constitute the prima facie case for jurisdiction that this standard requires.” Fawzi v. Al Jazeera Media Network, 273 F. Supp. 3d 182, 186 (D.D.C. 2017) (alteration in original) (citation omitted). “Under District of Columbia law, personal jurisdiction is determined as of the commencement of an action.” Roz Trading Ltd v. Zeromax Grp., Inc., 517 F. Supp. 2d 377, 384 (D.D.C. 2007).
B. Venue Under 28 U.S.C. § 1406, “[t]he district court of a district in which is filed a case laying venue in the wrong division or district shall dismiss, or if it be in the interest of justice, transfer such case to any district or division in which it could have been brought.” Id. § 1406(a); see also Corbett v. Jennifer, 888 F. Supp. 2d 42, 44 (D.D.C. 2012) (“The Federal Rules provide that a court will dismiss or transfer a case if venue is improper or inconvenient in the plaintiff’s chosen forum.”) (citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(3)). The “question—whether venue is ‘wrong’ or ‘improper’—is generally governed by 28 U.S.C. § 1391.” Atl. Marine Const. Co. v. U.S. Dist. Court for W. Dist. of Texas, 134 S. Ct. 568, 577 (2013) (citation omitted). “In assessing a motion for improper venue, the court accepts the plaintiff’s well-pled factual allegations regarding venue as true, draws all reasonable inferences from those allegations in the plaintiff’s favor and resolves any factual conflicts in the plaintiff’s favor.” Fam v. Bank of Am. NA (USA), 236 F. Supp. 3d 397, 405 (D.D.C. 2017). However, a plaintiff has the burden of demonstrating that venue is proper once challenged and “[t]he Court . . . need not accept the plaintiff’s legal conclusions as true.” Id. at 406; Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. v. Bivins, 20 F. Supp. 3d 207, 212 (D.D.C. 2014).
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II. PERSONAL JURISDICTION The Court’s exercise of personal jurisdiction over nonresidents must satisfy both the Due
Process Clause11 and D.C.’s long-arm statute. See GTE New Media Servs. Inc. v. BellSouth Corp., 199 F.3d 1343, 1347 (D.C. Cir. 2000); Edmond v. U.S. Postal Serv. Gen. Counsel, 949 F.2d 415, 424 (D.C. Cir. 1991); see also Lemon v. Kramer, 270 F. Supp. 3d 125, 135–37 (D.D.C. 2017); Swecker v. Midland Power Coop., 253 F. Supp. 3d 274, 278 & n.1 (D.D.C. 2017). A plaintiff still must carry its burden of demonstrating that a court can exercise personal jurisdiction over a defendant “[e]ven if the defendant would suffer . . . no inconvenience.” Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California, San Francisco Cty., 137 S. Ct. 1773, 1780 (2017) (alteration in original) (citation omitted).
“To show that the exercise of jurisdiction would comply with the constitutional requirements of due process, a plaintiff must demonstrate that there are ‘minimum contacts between the defendant and the forum establishing that the maintenance of the suit does not offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.’” Swecker, 253 F. Supp. 3d at 278 (citation omitted); see also Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., 137 S. Ct. at 1779–80; Livnat, 851 F.3d at 54–55; Molock v. Whole Foods Mkt., Inc., No. 16-cv-2483, 2018 WL 1342470, at *5 (D.D.C. Mar. 15, 2018). As the Supreme Court has explained, “restrictions on personal jurisdiction are more than a guarantee of immunity from inconvenient or distant litigation.” Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., 137 S. Ct. at 1780 (citation omitted).
Consistent with due process, this Court may “exercise either general or specific personal jurisdiction.” Bigelow v. Garrett, 299 F. Supp. 3d 34, 41 (D.D.C. 2018). But as explained
11 The D.C. Circuit does not draw a legally operative distinction between Fourteenth Amendment due-process precedent and Fifth Amendment due-process precedent for purposes of deciding this case. See Livnat, 851 F.3d at 54–55.
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herein, the Court has neither.12 The Court will first address general jurisdiction, then specific jurisdiction, and conclude by explaining its denial of plaintiffs’ request for jurisdictional discovery.
A. General Jurisdiction and the Trump Campaign “A court with general jurisdiction may hear any claim against that defendant.” BristolMyers Squibb Co., 137 S. Ct. at 1780. “But ‘only a limited set of affiliations with a forum will render a defendant amenable to’ general jurisdiction in that State.” Id. (citation omitted). “For an individual, the paradigm forum for the exercise of general jurisdiction is the individual’s domicile.” Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown, 564 U.S. 915, 924 (2011).13 For corporations, it is “an equivalent place, one in which the corporation is fairly regarded as at home,” id., almost always “the place of incorporation and principal place of business.” Daimler AG v. Bauman, 571 U.S. 117, 137 (2014). A corporation with a state of incorporation and principal place of business outside of the District cannot be regarded as “at home” in the District simply because its headquarters are nearby in Virginia and it conducts business activity in the District. See Duarte v. Nolan, 190 F. Supp. 3d 8, 15 (D.D.C. 2016). The Court lacks general jurisdiction over the Trump Campaign, which is incorporated in Virginia and has its principal place of business in New York. Plaintiffs argue that the Court has general jurisdiction over the Trump Campaign because it has a temporary home in D.C.—at least
12 The inability of this Court to exercise personal jurisdiction over defendants consistent with due process renders discussion of D.C.’s long-arm statute unnecessary. Suffice it to say that plaintiffs argue their strongest personal jurisdiction argument involves specific personal jurisdiction under (a)(1) of the D.C. long-arm statute, which is coextensive with the Due Process Clause. See Shoppers Food Warehouse v. Moreno, 746 A.2d 320, 329 (D.C. 2000); Bigelow, 299 F. Supp. 3d at 45; United States v. Ferrara, 54 F.3d 825, 828 (D.C. Cir. 1995). 13 Plaintiffs do not argue that the Court has general jurisdiction over Stone, who is not a domiciliary of D.C.
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since President Trump was inaugurated—and the Trump Campaign’s contacts with D.C. for purposes of electing President Trump are so continuous and systematic as to render the Campaign at home in D.C. First, “personal jurisdiction is determined as of the commencement of an action,” not as of President Trump’s inauguration. Roz Trading Ltd, 517 F. Supp. 2d at 384. Second, plaintiffs cannot analogize (see Pls.’ Opp. at 23) the domestically-incorporated Trump Campaign to a foreign corporation temporarily located in Ohio due to the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in World War II. See Perkins v. Benguet Consolidated Mining Co., 342 U.S. 437, 447–49 (1952).14
Finding general jurisdiction over the Trump Campaign—with a place of incorporation and principal place of business outside D.C.—based on its election-related contacts within the forum would eviscerate the distinction between general and specific jurisdiction. See Bigelow, 299 F. Supp. 3d at 42; see also Daimler AG, 571 U.S. at 139.
B. Specific Jurisdiction Plaintiffs argue that specific jurisdiction exists due to defendants’ contacts with the District or, alternatively, based on the theory of conspiratorial personal jurisdiction. After considering the parties’ pleadings, the arguments of counsel at the hearing, and the relevant law, the Court disagrees and concludes that it lacks specific jurisdiction over defendants. But before the Court can address the two bases for specific jurisdiction, it is necessary to clearly delineate what is not at issue here. The Court’s ruling does not represent a ruling on the
14 Plaintiffs also rely on Daimler AG v. Bauman, for the proposition that jurisdiction is proper “over a foreign corporation temporarily headquartered in the forum state.” (Pls.’ Opp. at 23.) This case is also inapposite. Daimler concerned a foreign corporation with continuous and systematic affiliations inside a forum state “comparable to a domestic enterprise in that State,” Daimler AG, 571 U.S. at 133 n.11, but was incorporated or based outside the United States. Id. at 131–33. The Supreme Court has never suggested that there is any basis to extend Daimler to a corporation that has both a principal place of business and state of incorporation inside another forum state within the United States.
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merits of plaintiffs’ claims. Plaintiffs seek to establish jurisdiction by citing events that happened outside the District, events that happened well before defendants allegedly joined the conspiracies, and events after the conspiracies achieved their objective on July 22, 2016. These events may have relevance to determining whether plaintiffs’ claims are meritorious for purposes of a Rule 12(b)(6) inquiry. But that is not the issue before the Court in ruling on personal jurisdiction, for the focus of a Rule 12(b)(2) inquiry is far different. Specific personal jurisdiction must focus on defendants’ contacts with the forum related to the specific claims raised in plaintiffs’ complaint.
1. Suit-Related Contacts with the Forum i. Legal Principles
In order to meet the test for specific jurisdiction, “the plaintiff must allege some specific facts evidencing purposeful activity by the defendants in the District of Columbia by which they invoked the benefits and protections of the laws of the District of Columbia.” Bigelow, 299 F. Supp. 3d at 44. Specific jurisdiction requires that a plaintiff’s suit arise out of or relate “to the defendant’s contacts with the forum.” Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., 137 S. Ct. at 1780. Therefore, “specific jurisdiction is confined to adjudication of ‘issues deriving from, or connected with, the very controversy that establishes jurisdiction.’” Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A., 564 U.S. at 919 (citation omitted). Specific jurisdiction is tied to each defendant and to each claim. See Vasquez v. Whole Foods Mkt., Inc., 302 F. Supp. 3d 36, 45–46 (D.D.C. 2018); Seiferth v. Helicopteros Atuneros, Inc., 472 F.3d 266, 274 (5th Cir. 2006).
For this Court to exercise specific personal jurisdiction over defendants their “suit-related conduct must create a substantial connection with” the District. Walden v. Fiore, 134 S. Ct. 1115, 1121 (2014). The contours of plaintiffs’ claims dictate what constitutes suit-related
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conduct. See id. at 1123; Vasquez, 302 F. Supp. 3d at 45–46. Therefore, for purposes of asserting jurisdiction over defendants, the Court must determine from the allegations in the complaint what suit-related conduct by defendants, in furtherance of the conspiracies, took place in D.C. See Walden, 134 S. Ct. at 1121.
Plaintiffs’ claims are based on a conspiracy theory of liability. Importantly though, plaintiffs’ claims define the parameters of what constitutes suit-related contacts, and the scope of the civil conspiracies is tethered to the injuries for which they may recover. See Graves v. United States, 961 F. Supp. 314, 321 (D.D.C. 1997) (“The plaintiff’s § 1985 claim also must be dismissed because at the pleading stage a plaintiff is required to allege a connection between the overt acts, the furtherance of the conspiracy and the plaintiff’s injury.”); see also Wiggins v. Philip Morris, Inc., 853 F. Supp. 470, 483 (D.D.C. 1994) (“It is well established that there is no recognized independent tort action for civil conspiracy in the District of Columbia.”) (citation omitted).
“Civil conspiracy” is not a boundless concept that empowers this Court to exercise personal jurisdiction over alleged wrongdoers from the beginning of any wrongdoing by an alleged co-conspirator to the time when the co-conspirators cease covering up their wrongdoing. Rather, conspiracy under 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3), conspiracy to commit public disclosure of private facts, and conspiracy to intentionally inflict emotional distress all focus on specific wrongful conduct, and defendants’ contacts for specific jurisdiction must relate to those wrongs. See, e.g., Atlantigas Corp. v. Nisource, Inc., 290 F. Supp. 2d 34, 44 (D.D.C. 2003) (“[P]laintiff’s jurisdictional allegations must arise from the same conduct of which it complains.”).
Plaintiffs’ federal claim rests on a conspiracy (1) to prevent a “citizen who is lawfully entitled to vote” from giving support and advocacy or (2) to “injure any citizen in person or
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property on account of such support or advocacy.” 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3); see also Graves, 961 F. Supp. at 321. The objective or goal of the § 1985(3) conspiracy was to intimidate or injure plaintiffs by disclosing DNC emails concerning plaintiffs on July 22, 2016.
Similarly, the scope of the conspiracies relevant to plaintiffs’ tort law claims depends on the underlying tortious acts, see Richards v. Duke Univ., 480 F. Supp. 2d 222, 241 (D.D.C. 2007), for there is no independent tort of “civil conspiracy.” Exec. Sandwich Shoppe, Inc. v. Carr Realty Corp., 749 A.2d 724, 738 (D.C. 2000). The public disclosure of private facts involved the July 22, 2016 public disclosure of DNC emails concerning plaintiffs, and the intentional infliction of emotional distress occurred when WikiLeaks published the emails concerning plaintiffs on July 22, 2016.
Plaintiffs urge this Court to adopt a theory of specific jurisdiction that requires no causal link between defendants’ contacts and plaintiffs’ claims. Relying on the D.C. Court of Appeals’ precedent in Shoppers Food Warehouse v. Moreno, 746 A.2d 320 (D.C. 2000), plaintiffs argue that to satisfy the requirements of due process they need only demonstrate that defendants’ contacts have a “discernible relationship” to plaintiffs’ claims. Id. at 336. Neither the Supreme Court nor the D.C. Circuit has decided the contours—for purposes of satisfying the due process limits on specific jurisdiction—of the causal connection between a defendant’s in-forum contacts and plaintiffs’ claims. See Triple Up Ltd. v. Youku Tudou Inc., 235 F. Supp. 3d 15, 26 (D.D.C. 2017); see also Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., 137 S. Ct. at 1788 & n.3 (Sotomayor, J., dissenting) (noting that the Supreme Court in Bristol-Myers did not address the exact causal connection between suit-related contacts and a plaintiff’s injury). But, as explained by Judge Moss of this Court in Triple Up Limited v. Youku Tudou Inc.,
At the most restrictive end of the spectrum, courts require the defendant’s contacts to have been the “proximate cause”—or at least something similar to the
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proximate cause—of the plaintiff’s alleged injury. Other courts are satisfied if the contacts are merely a “but-for cause” of the injury. And a third category of courts, including, notably, the D.C. Court of Appeals, require only a “discernable relationship” between the contacts and the plaintiff’s cause of action. Unlike the other tests, the “discernable relationship” test does “not ... require a causal connection between the defendant’s [activities] and the plaintiffs’ lawsuit.” Instead, “courts that follow this approach consider the totality of the circumstances,” and from that attempt to infer whether the exercise of jurisdiction in the forum was “reasonably foreseeable.” 235 F. Supp. 3d at 26–27 (footnotes omitted); see also Myers v. Holiday Inns, Inc., 915 F. Supp. 2d 136, 142 (D.D.C. 2013). For present purposes, it is sufficient to hold, as did Judge Moss in Triple Up Limited, 235 F. Supp. 3d at 27, that the discernible relationship test is not the applicable standard for complying with the due process limitations on this Court’s exercise of specific jurisdiction. See id. A plaintiff must show a more exacting nexus between a defendant’s contacts and the plaintiff’s claims to support a finding of specific jurisdiction. See id.; see also Estate of Klieman v. Palestinian Auth., 82 F. Supp. 3d 237, 247 (D.D.C. 2015) (“Plaintiffs’ theory is tenuous at best, and this broad reading of the phrase ‘relates to’ has no support in the relevant case law. Courts typically require that the plaintiff show some sort of causal relationship between a defendant’s U.S. contacts and the episode in suit.”). Holding otherwise would eviscerate the due process limitations on specific jurisdiction. First, plaintiffs’ theory ignores the distinction between conduct that relates to a finding of liability for civil conspiracy and contacts that relate to specific jurisdiction. Only the latter represent the “suit-related conduct” that the Court can consider in determining specific personal jurisdiction. See Kopff v. Battaglia, 425 F. Supp. 2d 76, 85 (D.D.C. 2006) (“The central failure of plaintiffs’ assertions relating to Sadiq is that they focus on his potential liability without alleging facts sufficient to support a judgment of liability in this forum. As noted above, the two
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inquiries are to be kept analytically distinct; personal jurisdiction does not automatically flow from the statement of a cognizable claim—at least not in the District of Columbia on these facts.”). Second, plaintiffs fail to distinguish defendants’ contacts with D.C.—such as Campaign-related activity—from suit-related contacts, and thereby they impermissibly “blur[] the distinction between specific and general jurisdiction.” Triple Up Ltd., 235 F. Supp. 3d at 27.
Plaintiffs’ approach also contravenes the Supreme Court’s holding that specific jurisdiction depends on contacts that the “defendant himself” created with the forum. Walden, 134 S. Ct. at 1122; see also id. at 1122–23.15 Likewise, “[s]pecific jurisdiction is case specific.” Vasquez, 302 F. Supp. 3d at 45. Thus, this Court is confronting three civil conspiracies predicated on two tort claims and one federal claim, and only the defendants’ contacts in D.C. relating to those claims have relevance to the Court’s specific jurisdiction analysis.
ii. The Trump Campaign In their opposition, plaintiffs focus on five categories of contacts to support a claim of specific jurisdiction over the Trump Campaign: (1) campaign activity in D.C., (2) meetings in D.C., (3) email communications from the Trump Campaign, (4) acts by the Trump Campaign in D.C. after the email dissemination occurred on July 22, 2016, and (5) harms allegedly suffered in D.C. by plaintiffs. None of these contacts establishes suit-related contacts that give rise to specific jurisdiction.
a. Campaign Activity in D.C. In their opposition, plaintiffs argue that, in conducting a specific jurisdiction analysis, the Court should consider the (1) Trump Campaign’s electioneering in D.C. and (2) the fact that
15 To the extent D.C. Court of Appeals jurisprudence represents an interpretation of due process principles—as opposed to an interpretation of the D.C. long-arm statute—it is federal precedent, not D.C. Court of Appeals case law, which controls the Court’s due process inquiry. See Triple Up Ltd., 235 F. Supp. 3d at 27.
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its foreign policy team was based in D.C. (Pls.’ Opp. at 19 & n.8.) These contacts, however, have no relevance to a specific jurisdiction analysis absent a causal link between the activities and plaintiffs’ substantive claims. See Bigelow, 299 F. Supp. 3d at 44 (“[T]he plaintiff’s jurisdictional allegations must arise from the same conduct of which he complains.”).
The Trump Campaign’s efforts to elect President Trump in D.C. are not suit-related contacts for those efforts did not involve acts taken in furtherance of the conspiracies to disseminate emails that harmed plaintiffs. Campaign meetings, canvassing voters, and other regular business activities of a political campaign do not constitute activities related to the conspiracies alleged in the complaint. See id.; Second Amendment Foundation v. United States Conference of Mayors, 274 F.3d 521, 524 (D.C. Cir. 2001); see also Richards, 480 F. Supp. 2d at 236 (“The tortious activity that plaintiff alleges in this count, the fraudulent grading schemes at Duke and Georgetown and the misrepresentations by Dean Sockwell, are distinct actions or events, both from one another and from the other counts in her complaint, and these discrete incidents cannot be joined together as a continuing violation simply because plaintiff alleges that it was all part of an ongoing and widespread conspiracy.”). Plaintiffs have not brought, nor could they bring, a viable claim to hold defendants liable for conspiring to elect Donald Trump. See Graves, 961 F. Supp. at 321 (“[T]he plaintiff has failed to allege how these acts either evidenced or furthered a conspiracy between any of these defendants.”). The same is true of the fact that the Trump Campaign’s foreign policy team was based in the District. Its mere presence here, without it undertaking overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracies, does not represent a suit-related contact.
b. Meetings in D.C. Plaintiffs also argue that the Trump Campaign planned and negotiated at least part of the
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conspiracies through meetings that took place in D.C. (Pls.’ Opp. at 19.) There are two meetings in the District that occurred prior to the July 22, 2016 email publication: (1) the Trump Campaign’s March 31, 2016 meeting at the Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C., and (2) the April 27, 2016 foreign-policy speech President Trump gave at the Mayflower Hotel in D.C.—where agents of the Trump Campaign may have had a conversation with Russian Ambassador Kislyak. Plaintiffs attempt to suggest that these activities should be treated as overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracies. Yet, plaintiffs do not allege anything more than that there was a March meeting at a D.C. hotel where the Trump Campaign adopted a favorable approach to Russia and an April meeting at another D.C. hotel where high-level Trump Campaign officials talked to the Russian Ambassador.
These contacts, as alleged, do not establish specific jurisdiction over the Trump Campaign. At some point, agents of the Trump Campaign, such as George Papadopoulos may have learned—at a meeting in London on April 26, 2016—that Russians had emails concerning Hillary Clinton.16 But in any event, there is no indication that the two meeting that occurred in the District related in any way to the emails or to discussions about working with Russian agents to publish those emails.17
Without more specific allegations, the Court cannot assume that meetings in the District in March and April involving the Trump Campaign’s national security team or the Russian
16 As of the March meeting at the Trump Hotel, there is no suggestion that any Trump Campaign official knew of the existence of the hacked emails. The April 26th Papadopoulos meeting in London is not mentioned in the complaint, but plaintiffs reference it in their motion for jurisdictional discovery. (Pls.’ Mot. for Jurisdictional Disc., ECF No. 62, at 11.) 17 Admittedly, if the Trump Campaign took a favorable approach to Russia in exchange for help from the Russian government in defeating Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, this may have violated federal election law, but such conduct alone could not be the subject of a lawsuit brought by these plaintiffs. Rather, plaintiffs can only vindicate harms that are done to them by the defendants or their co-conspirators.
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Ambassador related to plaintiffs’ claims. Take, for instance, Second Amendment Foundation v.
United States Conference of Mayors, 274 F.3d 521 (D.C. Cir. 2001), a case plaintiffs rely on in
their own briefing. (Pls.’ Opp. at 20.) In Second Amendment Foundation, plaintiffs (“SAF”)
brought suit against the Conference of Mayors under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the mayors
conspired together to sue gun manufacturers and dealers in order to bankrupt the manufacturers
and dealers. 274 F.3d at 522.
The mayors, pointing out that none of them lives in the District of Columbia, moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. In response, SAF asserted that the district court had jurisdiction under the District of Columbia long-arm statute, which accords jurisdiction over persons who “transact[ ] business” in the District “directly or by an agent[.]” D.C. Code Ann. § 13–423(a)(1) (West 2001). As evidence that the mayors transacted business here, SAF pointed to the United States Conference of Mayors’ web site, which reports that at the Conference’s 67th Winter Meeting, held in the District of Columbia, the mayors discussed their litigation against gun manufacturers. According to the web site, “[i]n a session closed to the public, Philadelphia Mayor Edward Rendell led mayors in a discussion of gun-related legislative and litigation strategies.” In another session, the mayors “focused on lawsuits previously brought against the gun industry by the cities of New Orleans and Chicago, and two new suits filed by Miami–Dade County and Bridgeport.” Id. The web site identifies four of the twenty-two mayors sued in this case as having participated in this session.
Id. at 522–23. “Concluding that SAF’s allegations fell ‘far short’ of ‘the prima facie showing
necessary to carry the burden of establishing personal jurisdiction,’ the district court dismissed
the complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(2).” Id. at 523.
The D.C. Circuit affirmed, explaining that the plaintiffs’ allegations—that the mayors had
met in D.C. and possibly discussed gun-related litigation strategies in closed sessions—were not
sufficient to support a theory that those closed sessions were in furtherance of the conspiracy as
alleged by the plaintiffs. Id. at 523–25. “Were [they] to conclude otherwise, people would be
unable to meet in the nation’s capital to discuss issues of concern without subjecting themselves
to the jurisdiction of D.C. courts.” Id. at 524. The D.C. Circuit further explained that, even
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assuming that the alleged conspiracy would be unlawful, the plaintiffs had “alleged no ‘specific acts’ showing” an agreement or acts in furtherance of the conspiracy. Id. “The allegation that the mayors ‘conspired together’ represents nothing more than a legal conclusion, which we have held ‘does not constitute the prima facie showing necessary to carry the burden of establishing personal jurisdiction.’” Id.
Unlike plaintiffs here, the plaintiffs in Second Amendment Foundation alleged that the Conference of Mayors actually discussed plans relevant to the alleged conspiracy at the meeting, but the D.C. Circuit ultimately found that allegation insufficient to confer personal jurisdiction. As in Second Amendment Foundation, the Court needs more than “[m]ere conclusions or ‘bare allegation[s]’ [since they] do not constitute the prima facie case for jurisdiction that [the due process] standard requires.” Fawzi, 273 F. Supp. 3d at 186; Does 1-144 v. Chiquita Brands Int’l, Inc., 285 F. Supp. 3d 228, 234 (D.D.C. 2018) (“This single assertion about one meeting at the Department of Justice does not create a basis for personal jurisdiction in this District under the District of Columbia long-arm statute. Plaintiffs have failed to plead with particularity the existence of a conspiracy between the alleged co-conspirators or to explain how the single meeting in this District furthered the alleged conspiracy.”); see also Bigelow, 299 F. Supp. 3d at 45.18
18 Plaintiffs cite Dooley v. United Technologies Corporation, for the proposition that a court in the District has specific jurisdiction where a “conspiracy allegedly came to its inception” in D.C. 786 F. Supp. 65, 72 (D.D.C. 1992), abrogated on other grounds by FC Inv. Grp. LC v. IFX Markets, Ltd., 529 F.3d 1087 (D.C. Cir. 2008). Dooley is distinguishable on multiple grounds. First, plaintiffs here have not specifically alleged that the conspiracies came to their inception in D.C. Second, in Dooley the plaintiffs pleaded the conspiracy with much more particularity:
[P]laintiff Dooley has set forth, in extraordinary detail, his allegations of conspiracy and each defendant’s alleged involvement. He has cataloged numerous meetings allegedly held by the co-conspirators, and in many instances, described discussions which took place. Additionally, he has set forth a number of overt acts
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c. Emails from the Trump Campaign Plaintiffs also point to “communications during which at least one party was in D.C.” (Pls.’ Opp. at 19.) But the Court is unable to identify from plaintiffs’ complaint any communications based in the District or sent to the District that establish suit-related contacts. Plaintiffs’ complaint is far from a model of clarity, but they allege, on information and belief, that the “Trump Campaign associates exchanged at least 18 undisclosed calls and emails with Russian officials and agents between April and November 2016, including at least six with Russian Ambassador the United States Sergey Kislyak, whose U.S. office and residence is in Washington D.C.” (Compl. ¶ 92.) Calls and emails occurring after July 22, 2016, do not have a suit-related connection to the conspiracies that plaintiffs allege. See infra Part II.B.1.ii.d. As to plaintiffs’ reference to the Russian Ambassador, plaintiffs fail to specify the time frame that he was contacted, and they have provided no basis to infer that the Russian Ambassador’s conversations were in furtherance of the conspiracies alleged in the complaint or that he was a participant in those conspiracies. Plaintiffs also allege that on July 7, 2016, Paul Manafort, while in Washington D.C., “sent an email through an intermediary to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire with close ties to Mr. Putin, offering to brief him about the campaign. The email stated: ‘If he needs private briefings we can accommodate.’” (Compl. ¶ 99.) The complaint fails to tie this email to the alleged conspiracies, but more importantly, the complaint cites allegations about Paul Manafort’s personal and business ties to Russian interests, including the claim that “Mr. Manafort was in debt to Russian interests by as much as $ 17 million just months before he joined the Trump
within the District of Columbia allegedly committed by co-conspirators. Id. at 78.
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Campaign.” (Id. ¶ 127; see also id. ¶ 97 (“While he was Campaign Chairman, Mr. Manafort also
sent emails from his Campaign account to Mr. Kilimnik in which Mr. Manafort emphasized his
influence in the Trump Campaign, sought repayment of debts, and discussed potential new
business opportunities in Ukraine.”).) Thus, Manafort had compelling business and financial
reasons to contact Deripaska and other Russian agents, which had nothing to do with plaintiffs’
claimed conspiracies. See also Deripaska v. Associated Press, 282 F. Supp. 3d 133, 138–40
(D.D.C. 2017), appeal dismissed, No. 17-7164, 2017 WL 6553388 (D.C. Cir. Dec. 8, 2017).
Without an allegation linking Manafort’s communications to plaintiffs’ alleged conspiracies, this
Court cannot infer that Manafort’s email to Deripaska plausibly represents a suit-related contact.19
d. Post-Conspiracy Acts in D.C.
Moreover, plaintiffs cannot establish personal jurisdiction over the Trump Campaign by
alleging that agents of the Trump Campaign may have had foreign-policy conversations or
conversations about further email disclosures with Russian agents after the DNC email
19 Plaintiffs’ complaint does refer to meetings that Manafort had with a Russian-Ukrainian operative— Konstantin Kilimnik. (Compl. ¶ 97.) But these meetings occurred outside the district, one in New York in May 2016 and one in Cleveland in August 2016. (Id.) It appears from the complaint that any conversation about emails between Manafort and Kilimnik occurred in Cleveland in August, after the publication of the emails, since the conversation about emails also references the Republican Convention which had already occurred in July:
On information and belief, around the time Mr. Manafort took over as Campaign Chairman in May of 2016, he met in New York with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian-Ukrainian operative with suspected ties to Russian intelligence who traveled from the Ukraine to the U.S. for that meeting. Mr. Manafort met with Mr. Kilimnik again in Cleveland in August of 2016. Mr. Manafort discussed the hacking of DNC emails with Mr. Kilimnik, and Mr. Kilimnik has claimed that he played a role in preventing adoption of a version of an amendment to the Republican Party platform regarding military aid to Ukraine.
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publication relevant to plaintiffs’ claims was complete, even if discussions between agents of the Trump Campaign and Russian agents are arguably probative of a conspiracy. (See, e.g., Compl. ¶¶ 152–54 (describing a December 2016 phone conversation between Michael Flynn and Russian Ambassador Kislyak).) Similarly, plaintiffs cannot establish personal jurisdiction over the Trump Campaign by alleging that agents of the Trump Campaign sought to lie or conceal evidence of their contacts with Russian agents.
While civil conspiracies share some similarities with criminal conspiracies, they are principally distinct in that, for a Court to impose liability, the underlying unlawful act must cause some injury. See 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) (requiring injury to sustain an action: “in any case of conspiracy set forth in this section . . . the party so injured or deprived may have an action for the recovery of damages occasioned by such injury or deprivation, against any one or more of the conspirators”); Second Amendment Found., 274 F.3d at 524 (“In the District of Columbia, civil conspiracy has four elements: ‘(1) an agreement between two or more persons; (2) to participate in an unlawful act, or a lawful act in an unlawful manner; (3) an injury caused by an unlawful overt act performed by one of the parties to the agreement; (4) which overt act was done pursuant to and in furtherance of the common scheme.’”) (citing Halberstam v. Welch, 705 F.2d 472, 477 (D.C. Cir. 1983)); see also Richards, 480 F. Supp. 2d at 241. Therefore, courts should determine specific jurisdiction pertaining to civil conspiracies by examining the agreement and the overt acts that led to the plaintiff’s injury. See Graves, 961 F. Supp. at 321 (To sustain a § 1985 claim a plaintiff must “allege a connection between the overt acts, the furtherance of the conspiracy, and the plaintiff’s injury”). Activities that occur after the injury occurred could be circumstantial evidence that conspiracies had existed, but these acts do not constitute in-forum contacts for purposes of establishing specific jurisdiction. See, e.g., Kopff, 425 F. Supp. 2d at 85.
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The same conclusion follows for acts of concealment that postdate the conclusion of the conspiracies. Even in the context of criminal conspiracies, acts of concealment that follow completion of the conspiracies’ main objective are generally not considered to be part of the conspiracy, see Grunewald v. United States, 353 U.S. 391, 402 (1957), and courts have applied Grunewald and its progeny to civil conspiracies. See, e.g., Pyramid Sec. Ltd. v. IB Resolution, Inc., 924 F.2d 1114, 1118 (D.C. Cir. 1991). When considering acts of concealment in the context of a civil conspiracy, courts require plaintiffs to plead with particularity facts that show defendants agreed, as part of their initial conspiratorial agreement, to include acts of concealment as a necessary component of the underlying wrongdoing. See EIG Energy Fund XIV, L.P. v. Petroleo Brasileiro S.A., 246 F. Supp. 3d 52, 90–91 (D.D.C. 2017). It is therefore not sufficient to allege that after the conspiracy ended, an individual co-conspirator sought to deny the conspiracy’s existence or his role in it.
In short, federal courts can only redress injuries that arise from cognizable cases and controversies. U.S. Const. Art. III. A plaintiff essentially defines the parameters of his case or controversy by virtue of his complaint. Plaintiffs’ tort claims cannot arise from events that occurred after the torts were committed, and plaintiffs’ § 1985(3) claim cannot arise out of events that occurred after plaintiffs were intimidated or injured on account of their support and advocacy.
e. Plaintiffs’ Harm in D.C. Lastly, plaintiffs attempt to connect the Trump Campaign to the District by reference to alleged harms suffered by plaintiffs in the District: This Court may also exercise specific personal jurisdiction over Defendants because their actions foreseeably caused harm in D.C., and that harm is the basis of Plaintiffs’ claims. First, Defendants harmed Mr. Comer’s professional reputation in D.C. Second, Defendants harmed Plaintiffs’ ability to support their
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preferred candidates for elected office, and D.C. was the locus of Plaintiffs’ political advocacy. (Pls.’ Opp. at 21.) This argument fails for two related reasons. First, the harm to plaintiffs was not suffered in the forum. No plaintiff is domiciled in the District. Cockrum and Schoenberg suffered emotional injury related to disclosure of their social security numbers at home, outside of the District. See Masterson-Cook v. Criss Bros. Iron Works, 722 F. Supp. 810, 813 (D.D.C. 1989). Second, assuming personal jurisdiction over outof-state defendants because plaintiffs’ support and advocacy focused on national campaigns run by entities operating in the District would ignore Walden’s requirement of defendant-centered contacts.20 Comer presents a stronger argument for finding at least some harm in the forum. Like Cockrum and Schoenberg, Comer’s emotional injuries are considered to have been suffered at home in Maryland. However, Comer worked for the DNC in the District. Comer thus claims that both his § 1985 injury and his tort-law injuries are connected to the reputational injury and emotional harm he suffered at his job. Even this is not enough. See Exponential Biotherapies, Inc. v. Houthoff Buruma N.V., 638 F. Supp. 2d 1, 10 (D.D.C. 2009). Moreover, assuming arguendo that some of plaintiffs’ injuries were suffered in the District, these injuries cannot serve as an independent basis for exercising personal jurisdiction over an out-of-state defendant that does not have sufficient in-forum contacts, as the Supreme
20 Taken to its logical conclusion, this argument would give the District personal jurisdiction over all claims brought under § 1985(3). For example, under plaintiffs’ theory, this Court would have personal jurisdiction in a suit brought by an Alaskan citizen based on an alleged conspiracy that threatened the Alaskan citizen’s right to send money to the DNC to support national election efforts. When confronted with similar “national connection” theories of personal jurisdiction in other contexts, courts in this Circuit have refused to allow personal jurisdiction over nonresidents whose only contacts with the District arise from its role as the epicenter of national politics. See, e.g., Bigelow, 299 F. Supp. 3d at 42–45; see also Atlantigas Corp., 290 F. Supp. 2d at 44.
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Court has held, “the plaintiff cannot be the only link between the defendant and the forum.
Rather, it is the defendant’s conduct that must form the necessary connection with the forum
State that is the basis for its jurisdiction over him.” Walden, 134 S. Ct. at 1122.21
iii. Roger Stone
According to plaintiffs’ statements at the hearing, they “are primarily relying on”
conspiratorial personal jurisdiction to establish specific jurisdiction over Stone. (Tr. at 22.) But
to the extent that plaintiffs have raised the possibility of relying on suit-related contacts by Stone
in D.C., the Court can quickly dispense with such a suggestion. In the complaint it is alleged that
Stone has suit-related contacts with D.C. because of his employment with the Trump Campaign.
(Compl. ¶ 41.)22 But plaintiffs have not alleged that Stone’s work for the Trump Campaign was
related to the alleged conspiracies. See, e.g., Graves, 961 F. Supp. at 321. In fact, plaintiffs have
not alleged that Stone joined the conspiracies before either the hack of the DNC servers or the
dissemination of the emails on July 22, 2016.23
21 Although plaintiffs do not cite Calder v. Jones, 465 U.S. 783 (1984), they rely on personaljurisdiction precedent that purports to follow Calder by allowing personal jurisdiction over a defendant whose out-of-state conduct causes tortious injury in the forum where the plaintiff brought suit. But in Walden, the Supreme Court explained that Calder did not rest on the proposition that tortfeasors would always be subject to personal jurisdiction simply because their alleged wrong caused harm in the forum where the plaintiff brought suit. Rather, “[a] forum State’s exercise of jurisdiction over an out-of-state intentional tortfeasor must be based on intentional conduct by the defendant that creates the necessary contacts with the forum,” Walden, 134 S. Ct. at 1123, and according to the Supreme Court, both Calder and Walden are properly understood as focusing on “the relationship among the defendant, the forum, and the litigation.” Id. 22 Stone ended his official employment with the Trump Campaign in August 2015, but plaintiffs allege that he “continued to play an important role in the Trump Campaign as an advisor even after his departure, and he remained in regular contact with Mr. Trump throughout the campaign.” (Compl. ¶ 41.)
23 Recent news reports published since the Court’s hearing suggest that Stone may have met with a Russian who may have had damaging information about Hillary Clinton in May 2016. See, e.g., Manuel Roig-Franzia & Rosalind S. Helderman, “Trump Associate Roger Stone Reveals
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Plaintiffs also allege that Stone had contact with D.C. as a result of “at least two trips to D.C. during the campaign—on or about November 9, 2015, and on or about October 30, 2016— during which, on information and belief, he interacted with other agents and associates of the Campaign.” (Compl. ¶ 41.) One of these trips occurred long before any conspiracy could have begun and the other occurred after the emails were disseminated.
The flaws in plaintiffs’ definition of the scope of the conspiracies also apply to plaintiffs’ arguments about other actions by Stone. See supra Part II.B.1.ii; (see also Compl. ¶¶ 163–64, 170–72 (discussing twitter public and private conversations Stone had with an alleged Russian hacker after July 22, 2016); id. ¶ 216 (citing Stone’s July 11, 2017 denial of Russian interference in the 2016 election)); Atlantigas Corp., 290 F. Supp. 2d at 42 (noting that normally a “plaintiff cannot aggregate factual allegations concerning multiple defendants in order to demonstrate personal jurisdiction over any individual defendant.”).
2. Conspiratorial Theory of Personal Jurisdiction Plaintiffs’ remaining argument is based on a theory of conspiratorial jurisdiction, which uses the overt acts of co-conspirators in the forum as a basis for exercising specific jurisdiction over a defendant who otherwise has insufficient in-forum contacts.24 Plaintiffs point to the fact
New Contact with Russian National During 2016 Campaign”, Washington Post (June 17, 2018), https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-associate-roger-stone-reveals-new-contact-withrussian-national-during-2016-campaign/2018/06/17/4a8123c8-6fd0-11e8-bd50b80389a4e569_story.html?utm_term=.76a839ea96f1. However, this meeting occurred in Florida. Id. 24 Plaintiffs appeared to concede at the hearing that they were relying on a theory of conspiratorial jurisdiction to establish jurisdiction over Stone, but not the Trump Campaign:
So let me be clear about this. We are alleging that the campaign engaged in acts in furtherance of the conspiracy in the forum. We are not relying on the acts of the campaign’s coconspirators. We’re saying the campaign itself engaged in acts in furtherance of the conspiracy in the forum.
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that the emails disclosed by WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016, came from the hacking of DNC servers located in the District. (Pls.’ Opp. at 20–21.) While plaintiffs acknowledge that they are not seeking to hold defendants directly liable for a conspiracy to hack into the DNC servers (Id. at 21; Tr. at 7), they nevertheless argue that the hack should be considered because “[c]oconspirators can be liable for acts that took place before they joined the conspiracy” for purposes of specific jurisdiction. (Pls. Opp. at 21.) Plaintiffs also suggest that defendants’ co-conspirators may have taken other actions in the District that could subject defendants to conspiratorial personal jurisdiction. (See id. at 20 (noting that “this Court may exercise jurisdiction over Defendants because their co-conspirators acted [in D.C.], and those actions gave rise to Plaintiffs’ claims.”).) In making this argument, plaintiffs again ignore both the scope of the conspiracies alleged in their complaint, and the focus of specific jurisdiction as clarified by the Supreme Court in Walden.
i. Legal Principles Some cases in this Circuit, predating the Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Walden v. Fiore, discussed a conspiracy theory of personal jurisdiction, and those cases required “a prima facie showing of (1) a conspiracy (2) in which the defendant participated and (3) a coconspirator’s overt act within the forum, subject to the long-arm statute and in furtherance of the conspiracy.” Youming Jin v. Ministry of State Sec., 335 F. Supp. 2d 72, 78 (D.D.C. 2004) (footnote omitted); FC Inv. Grp. LC v. IFX Markets, Ltd., 529 F.3d 1087, 1096 (D.C. Cir. 2008); World Wide Minerals, Ltd. v. Republic of Kazakhstan, 296 F.3d 1154, 1168 (D.C. Cir. 2002).
(Tr. at 14.) Despite this unambiguous statement, plaintiffs addressed this theory in their opposition to the motion to dismiss (Pls.’ Opp. at 20), and in their motion for jurisdictional discovery. (Pls.’ Mot. for Jurisdictional Disc., ECF No. 62, at 1.) The Court, out of an abundance of caution, will therefore address the theory of conspiratorial jurisdiction as it relates to the Trump Campaign and Stone.
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In Youming Jin v. Ministry of State Security, Judge Urbina presciently noted:
without [imposing additional requirements besides the three listed above], one might wonder what happened to the due process requirement regarding “the foreseeability that is critical to due process analysis . . . that the defendant’s conduct and connection with the forum State are such that he should reasonably anticipate being haled into court there.” In fact, it is not entirely clear whether the doctrine of conspiracy jurisdiction seeks to sidestep an explicit due process analysis altogether or whether due process is the second step in an analysis that begins with the three elements listed above 335 F. Supp. 2d at 79 (citation omitted). In Youming Jin, Judge Urbina held that “jurisdiction based on the three traditional elements of conspiracy jurisdiction alone violates due process. Personal jurisdiction, even if based on conspiracy, requires purposeful availment.” Id. at 80. However, he noted that one way to reconcile conspiratorial jurisdiction with due process would be to “require another element for conspiracy jurisdiction: the defendant’s awareness or knowledge of the co-conspirator’s acts in the forum.” Id. at 79. The Supreme cast further doubt on a broad-reaching theory of conspiratorial jurisdiction in its 2014 decision in Walden. As already explained, in Walden, the Supreme Court made clear that, for purposes of determining specific jurisdiction, “it is the defendant, not the plaintiff or third parties, who must create contacts with the forum State.” Walden, 134 S. Ct. at 1126. After Walden, very few cases have discussed a theory of specific jurisdiction based on acts of co-conspirators. A notable exception is Judge Mehta’s decision in EIG Energy Fund XIV, L.P. v. Petroleo Brasileiro S.A., where he noted that “[c]ourts in this Circuit . . . have applied the test for co-conspirator jurisdiction ‘warily’ in order ‘to prevent a broad extension of long-arm jurisdiction.’” 246 F. Supp. 3d at 90 (citation omitted). “As a result, the D.C. Circuit requires that the plaintiff ‘plead with particularity the conspiracy as well as the overt acts within the forum taken in furtherance of the conspiracy’ in order to establish conspiracy jurisdiction over a
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defendant.” Id. (citation omitted). “This particularity requirement is ‘strictly enforced.’” Id. (citation omitted); see also Does 1-144, 285 F. Supp. 3d at 234; Globe Metallurgical, Inc. v. Rima Indus. S.A., 177 F. Supp. 3d 317, 330 (D.D.C. 2016), appeal dismissed sub nom. Globe Metallurgical, Inc. v. Rima Indus., S/A, No. 16-7058, 2016 WL 3543509 (D.C. Cir. June 18, 2016); Mensah-Yawson v. Raden, 170 F. Supp. 3d 222, 230 (D.D.C. 2016). Judge Mehta’s opinion addressed the implications of Walden, and concluded that “following Walden, a plaintiff who seeks to establish jurisdiction over a defendant based on a co-conspirator’s contacts must plead, at a minimum, that the defendant knew his co-conspirator was carrying out acts in furtherance of the conspiracy in the forum.” EIG Energy Fund XIV, L.P., 246 F. Supp. 3d at 91.
Adopting the approach taken by Judge Mehta, this Court concludes that if any conspiratorial jurisdiction survives Walden, a plaintiff pursuing such a theory must allege that the defendant knew of the co-conspirator’s acts in the forum. Furthermore, at the very least, a plaintiff needs to meet the Circuit’s strict particularity requirement to comport with due process.25
ii. The Trump Campaign and Stone Thus, for purposes of specific jurisdiction, the Court must focus on when defendants began taking steps to join the conspiracies or themselves committed acts that were in furtherance of the conspiracies. Plaintiffs’ theory of the case is that the Trump Campaign became aware, sometime in spring of 2016, at the earliest, that Russian agents had hacked into DNC servers and
25 This Court’s survey of out-of-Circuit precedent revealed that most courts addressing the issue of conspiratorial jurisdiction post-Walden have refused to apply the theory or have limited it. See, e.g., Wescott v. Reisner, No. 17-cv-06271, 2018 WL 2463614, at *4 (N.D. Cal. June 1, 2018) (noting that “district courts in this circuit [the Ninth Circuit] have refused to exercise personal jurisdiction over defendants based solely on the actions of their co-conspirators. In any event, California courts applying both California and federal due process have held that personal jurisdiction does not lie over an out-of-state defendant merely because of the residence or acts of a co-conspirator.”) (citation omitted).
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obtained information that would be damaging to Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party. As for Stone, plaintiffs have no allegations suggesting he even became privy to this information preJuly 22, 2016, much less that he joined conspiracies whose objective it was to disseminate the DNC emails.
Plaintiffs do not allege that defendants directed the Russian hackers to target servers or locations in the District, nor do they allege that defendants joined a conspiracy the purpose of which was to hack the DNC servers. See Kopff, 425 F. Supp. 2d at 88. The Court cannot exercise jurisdiction over defendants by reference to activities performed by Russians participating in a separate conspiracy of hacking (as opposed to the publication of emails) that occurred during a different time frame from that of plaintiffs’ alleged conspiracies. See Walden, 134 S. Ct. at 1126; Halberstam, 705 F.2d at 477; see also Mattel, Inc. v. MGA Entm’t, Inc., No. 04-cv-9049, 2010 WL 11463911, at *3 (C.D. Cal. Sept. 3, 2010) (“[O]ne logically cannot contemplate acts committed in furtherance of a conspiracy into which he has not yet entered.”). Therefore, plaintiffs cannot invoke the hack to support claims of personal jurisdiction.
As for other in-forum acts by co-conspirators, plaintiffs have not met the exacting particularity requirement for pleading conspiratorial personal jurisdiction. See Mensah-Yawson, 170 F. Supp. 3d at 230 & n.4; North v. Smarsh, Inc., 265 F. Supp. 3d 71, 77 (D.D.C. 2017), aff’d, No. 17-7120, 2017 WL 6553385 (D.C. Cir. Dec. 6, 2017) (“Both the existence of the conspiracy and the overt action taken within the forum must be plead with particularity.”).
On the contrary, plaintiffs broadly rely on allegations that defendants conspired with WikiLeaks and Russian agents. But these amorphous allegations are not sufficient.
First, WikiLeaks did not subject itself to personal jurisdiction in the District simply by posting material on the Internet that could be read by District residents. See, e.g., Hourani v.
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Psybersolutions LLC, 164 F. Supp. 3d 128, 139 (D.D.C. 2016), aff’d, 690 F. App’x 1 (D.C. Cir. 2017); Bigelow, 299 F. Supp. 3d at 45. And plaintiffs do not allege any other acts by WikiLeaks connected to the District.
As for Russian agents, plaintiffs’ complaint fails to identify who these Russian agents are. At the hearing, when asked to identify the Russian co-conspirators, plaintiffs’ counsel stated: “We don’t name anyone [of the Russian agents] –we don’t name any other coconspirators, nor are we required to name all coconspirators. We have the campaign, Mr. Stone, of course, and WikiLeaks.” (Tr. at 10.) Apparently, plaintiffs are content to rely on Stone and WikiLeaks, neither of whom committed any in-forum overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracies. Alternatively, as plaintiffs seem to implicitly recognize, subjecting defendants to personal jurisdiction based on unspecified acts by unidentified third parties would offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice. See North, 265 F. Supp. 3d at 77–78.
Finally, the Court cannot subject Stone to personal jurisdiction by reference to a conspiracy with the Trump Campaign when the Trump Campaign’s suit-related contacts themselves failed to subject the Trump Campaign to specific jurisdiction. See supra Part II.B.1.ii.
C. Jurisdictional Discovery The D.C. Circuit has consistently held that district courts exercise broad discretion in resolving jurisdictional discovery disputes. Naartex Consulting Corp. v. Watt, 722 F.2d 779, 788 (D.C. Cir. 1983). To obtain jurisdictional discovery a plaintiff must request discovery in a detailed manner “at an appropriate stage in the course of litigation.” City of Moundridge v. Exxon Mobil Corp., 244 F.R.D. 10, 14 (D.D.C. 2007); see also Second Amendment Found., 274 F.3d at 525; NBC-USA Hous., Inc. Twenty-Six v. Donovan, 741 F. Supp. 2d 55, 60 (D.D.C.
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2010). The Court denies plaintiffs’ motion because it is both untimely and ill-defined. 1. Untimely
Plaintiffs’ motion for jurisdictional discovery is untimely. When a defendant has moved to dismiss a complaint on jurisdictional grounds, the appropriate time to request jurisdictional discovery is in opposition to the defendant’s motion—whether a plaintiff files a separate motion for jurisdictional discovery or puts the Court on notice by requesting jurisdictional discovery in a detailed manner in the opposition to the motion to dismiss. See City of Moundridge, 244 F.R.D. at 14–16; see also Second Amendment Found., 274 F.3d at 525; Eliahu v. Israel, No. 14-cv01636, 2015 WL 981517, at *9 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 3, 2015), aff’d sub nom., 659 F. App’x 451 (9th Cir. 2016).
Plaintiffs knew that defendants were opposing plaintiffs’ complaint on jurisdictional grounds when defendants first moved to dismiss in September 2017. After plaintiffs amended their complaint, defendants again moved to dismiss on jurisdictional grounds in October 2017.
Yet, despite notice that they were defending their complaint against a motion to dismiss on jurisdictional grounds, plaintiffs only briefly mentioned discovery in a couple of sentences tucked away in a footnote of an 84-page opposition: “Plaintiffs believe that the allegations in the Complaint are sufficient to establish that this Court may exercise personal jurisdiction over Defendants. If the Court disagrees, Plaintiffs should be allowed to take jurisdictional discovery.” (Pls.’ Opp. at 18 n. 7.)
“[E]ven if that footnote had constituted a request for jurisdictional discovery — which it most certainly did not — that request would have been woefully deficient.” GSS Grp. Ltd. v. Nat’l Port Auth., No. 09-cv-1322, 2011 WL 13121428, at *6 (D.D.C. Aug. 10, 2011). A plaintiff seeking jurisdictional discovery must explain in detail what discovery she wishes to
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conduct and what results she anticipates it would produce. See NBC-USA Housing, Inc., 741 F. Supp. 2d at 60–61; see also Second Amendment Found., 274 F.3d at 525. Plaintiffs’ footnote is conclusory, ambiguous, and explains nothing. See Atlantigas Corp., 290 F. Supp. 2d at 53 (“Plaintiff’s request to supplement its jurisdictional allegations through discovery is not merely ambiguous, it is conclusory and vague, and therefore insufficient.”).
Plaintiffs had ample opportunity to address jurisdictional discovery not only in their opposition, but also in their surreply. In its reply filed on December 29, 2017, the Trump Campaign put forth a sound argument for why plaintiffs were not entitled to jurisdictional discovery (Trump Campaign Reply, ECF No. 42, at 6), but plaintiffs made no mention of jurisdictional discovery in their surreply filed on February 7, 2018. Likewise, plaintiffs remained mute on the subject of jurisdictional discovery during the Court’s May 17, 2018 hearing, despite the fact that the over 3-hour hearing focused on personal jurisdiction and the flaws in plaintiffs’ jurisdictional allegations.
2. Ill-defined Plaintiffs waited until after the Court’s hearing to file a 24-page motion for jurisdictional discovery, presumably because the Court’s extensive questioning on personal jurisdictional alerted plaintiffs to the risk of relying on their complaint. This motion came too late, but even this late-filed motion is ill-defined and overly broad. See Atlantigas Corp., 290 F. Supp. 2d at 53. Plaintiffs have failed to specifically tailor their discovery requests to jurisdictional matters. See Coal. for Mercury-Free Drugs v. Sebelius, 725 F. Supp. 2d 1, 5 (D.D.C. 2010), aff’d, 671 F.3d 1275 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (“The Court also concludes that the plaintiffs’ request for jurisdictional discovery was not narrowly tailored to produce information relevant to the issue of standing and thus ordering jurisdiction discovery is not warranted.”).
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Instead, they are seeking merits discovery. Plaintiffs want to serve defendants with
discovery requests for material related to “Relevant Forum Contact” defined as
any in-person meeting, telephone conversation, or other communication, including electronic communications, conducted in the District of Columbia involving any Defendant, or between any Defendant and any Russian or Russian agent or any agent of WikiLeaks, in which any form of assistance by Russia or Russian agents to the Trump Campaign was discussed or facilitated, including but not limited to any discussions of the DNC emails, publication of the DNC emails by WikiLeaks, or the resulting impact on the Clinton campaign.
(Pls.’ Mot. for Jurisdictional Disc., ECF No. 62, at 16.) Plaintiffs request: (1) all initial
disclosures required under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(a); (2) interrogatories to identify
all persons with knowledge of, or possession of, materials pertaining to Relevant Forum
Contacts; (3) materials relating to the date, time, location, participants, and subject matter of any
Relevant Forum Contacts (including the D.C. meetings of the Trump Campaign on March 31,
2016 and April 27, 2016, but not limited to these meetings); and (4) depositions of all persons
with knowledge relating to any Relevant Forum Contacts or the location and condition of
evidence relating to Relevant Forum Contacts. (Id. at 16–18.) In addition to this wide-ranging
discovery, plaintiffs seek additional discovery related to their conspiracy theory of jurisdiction
by expanding the term “Relevant Forum Contacts” to include:
all contacts in the District of Columbia (1) between the Defendants, (2) between the Defendants and Russians or Russian agents or agents of WikiLeaks, or (3) attended by Russians, Russian agents, agents of WikiLeaks, or others acting in concert with them, in which any form of assistance by Russians or Russian agents to the Trump Campaign was discussed or facilitated including but not limited to any discussions of the DNC emails, publication of the DNC emails by WikiLeaks, or the resulting impact on the Clinton campaign.
(Id. at 18.)
These requests “do[] not constitute the required ‘detailed showing of what discovery
[plaintiffs] wish to conduct or what result [plaintiffs] think such discovery would produce.’”
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App Dynamic EHF v. Vignisson, 87 F. Supp. 3d 322, 330 (D.D.C. 2015) (citation omitted). Instead, they are trying to sidestep any procedural barriers to their bringing suit, in a thinlyveiled effort to obtain discovery on the merits of their case. See Shaheen v. Smith, 994 F. Supp. 2d 77, 89 (D.D.C. 2013) (“The plaintiff only asserts that discovery should be ‘freely given,’ but does not assert any other facts that establish that his request for discovery is more than a speculative fishing expedition.”); see also Bible Way Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ World Wide, Inc. v. Showell, 578 F. Supp. 2d 164, 171 (D.D.C. 2008); Lehigh Val. Indus., Inc. v. Birenbaum, 527 F.2d 87, 93–94 (2d Cir. 1975).
Granting plaintiffs’ overreaching and ill-defined jurisdictional-discovery motion would also draw this Court into endless discovery disputes. For example, plaintiffs’ request for depositions would include Trump Campaign officials who are now high-level officials in the Executive Branch, possibly even the President. See Cheney v. U.S. Dist. Court for D.C., 542 U.S. 367, 384–89 (2004); see also id. at 385 (“A party’s need for information is only one facet of the problem. An important factor weighing in the opposite direction is the burden imposed by the discovery orders. This is not a routine discovery dispute. The discovery requests are directed to the Vice President and other senior Government officials who served on the NEPDG to give advice and make recommendations to the President.”). Similarly, plaintiffs admit that their allegations of conspiracy dovetail with Special Prosecutor Robert Muller’s ongoing investigations, so they will be faced with witnesses who will invoke their Fifth Amendment rights.
The Court will not lightly set “coequal branches of the government” onto “a collision course,” id. at 389, especially when plaintiffs’ jurisdictional-discovery requests “ask for everything under the sky.” Id. at 387; see also NBC-USA Hous., Inc., 741 F. Supp. 2d at 60–61
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(examining the burden and expense of discovery in considering the propriety of jurisdictional discovery). For all these reasons, the Court denies plaintiffs’ motion for jurisdictional discovery. III. VENUE
In addition, the District of Columbia is an improper venue for plaintiffs’ lawsuit. The parties have not sufficiently briefed or argued the issue of transfer, but at a minimum, the Court finds that dismissal for improper venue is both warranted and within this Court’s discretion.
The Court’s venue analysis is governed by 28 U.S.C. § 1391. Atl. Marine Const. Co., 571 U.S. at 55–56. Under § 1391(b)(1), “[a] civil action may be brought in . . . a judicial district in which any defendant resides, if all defendants are residents of the State in which the district is located.” Subsection (b)(1) does not apply because no defendant resides in the District of Columbia. Lemon, 270 F. Supp. 3d at 139. Subsection (b)(3) is also inapplicable because the Court has found that defendants are not subject to the personal jurisdiction of this Court.
That leaves the Court with § 1391(b)(2), which provides that “[a] civil action may be brought in . . . a judicial district in which a substantial part of the events or omissions giving rise to the claim occurred, or a substantial part of property that is the subject of the action is situated.” 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b)(2) (emphasis added). “[W]here ‘the claim arose’ should . . . be ascertained by advertence to events having operative significance in the case, and a commonsense appraisal of the implications of those events for accessibility to witnesses and records.” Lamont v. Haig, 590 F.2d 1124, 1134 (D.C. Cir. 1978). Peripheral and tangential events occurring in the district will not establish venue. See Ciralsky v. CIA, 689 F. Supp. 2d 141, 161 (D.D.C. 2010). “[P]laintiffs must show that a considerable portion of the events took place in their chosen forum.” Perlmutter v. Varone, 59 F. Supp. 3d 107, 110 (D.D.C. 2014).
Venue is improper in the District because plaintiffs have not sufficiently alleged that a
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substantial part of the events giving rise to plaintiffs’ claim occurred here. As plaintiffs acknowledge, “the venue inquiry overlaps pretty closely with the personal jurisdiction inquiry [in this case] because venue is based on conduct in furtherance of the conspiracy.” (Tr. at 63.) Here, plaintiffs’ claims arose from alleged conspiracies to harm plaintiffs by publishing the emails on July 22, 2016, and plaintiffs have alleged at most two meetings and some emails involving a sender or recipient in the District that could possibly be linked to their alleged conspiracies. Otherwise, plaintiffs rely on vague allegations of conspiratorial activity possibly occurring in the District. (See, e.g., Compl. ¶ 37 (“Many of the Campaign’s agents and associates were based in or near D.C. and spent a substantial amount of time in D.C. working on behalf of the Campaign. Meetings and other conduct relevant to the conspiracy occurred in D.C.”).) Plaintiffs’ own allegations suggest that defendants largely orchestrated the alleged conspiracies from New York—where the Trump Campaign was headquartered and where Trump Campaign officials met with Russian agents in May and June. (See id. ¶¶ 97–98; see also id. ¶ 41 (noting that Stone rents an apartment located in New York).)26 In fact, the Democratic National Committee—the custodian of Cockrum’s and Schoenberg’s personal information and of Comer’s work emails—recently brought suit in the Southern District of New York against, inter alia, the Russian Federation, WikiLeaks, the Trump Campaign, Roger Stone, and other Trump Campaign employees and agents for violating a host of federal and state laws covering both the hacking and the dissemination of the DNC emails. Compl., Democratic Nat’l Comm. v. The Russian Federation et al., 18-cv-3501 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 20, 2018).
Plaintiffs’ reticence to file in New York is understandable given their concession that New York does not recognize their tort claims. (Tr. at 64.) But this Court must consider only
26 The Trump Campaign remarked at the Court’s hearing that “[a]t this juncture, I can’t think of a reason [venue would not lie in New York] in all candor.” (Tr. at 60.)
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the statutory limitations of 28 U.S.C. § 1391 when determining if venue is proper. See Atl. Marine Const. Co., 571 U.S. at 56 (noting that “§ 1391 makes clear that venue in ‘all civil actions’ must be determined in accordance with the criteria outlined in that section. That language cannot reasonably be read to allow judicial consideration of other, extrastatutory limitations on the forum in which a case may be brought.”). “The structure of the federal venue provisions confirms that they alone define whether venue exists in a given forum,” id., and here, it is clear that venue does not lie in the District.
CONCLUSION In summation, this is the wrong forum for plaintiffs’ lawsuit. The Court takes no position on the merits of plaintiffs’ claims. It holds only that plaintiffs have failed to carry their burden to demonstrate that this Court has jurisdiction and is the appropriate venue. Nor are plaintiffs entitled to jurisdictional discovery. Therefore, the Court denies plaintiffs’ motion for jurisdictional discovery and dismisses their suit without prejudice.

Date: July 3, 2018

/s/ Ellen Segal Huvelle
ELLEN SEGAL HUVELLE United States District Judge

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