FBI special counsel Robert Mueller, who was assigned to investigate the claims in a Democrat opposition research compilation that the 2016 Trump campaign "colluded" with Russia on the election, now has been harassing the family members of one of his investigative targets, the man's lawyer states.

Larry Klayman, a former U.S. Department of Justice trial lawyer and founder of Freedom Watch, is representing New York Times best-selling author Jerome Corsi.

Corsi reports he refused a plea bargain with Mueller because Mueller was demanding that he lie in it, and he has filed a $350 million lawsuit against Mueller and his team of mostly Democrat investigators over their attacks on him.

He's also told leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who demanded that he produce massive quantities of his records, to "take a hike."

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Corsi contends Mueller set up a "perjury trap" to force him to testify against the president.

On Thursday, Klayman released a statement regarding the "criminal persecution" of Corsi by Mueller.

"Not to be undone by having previously criminally threatened Dr. Corsi with indictment if he did not lie under oath to try to incriminate President Donald J. Trump, and then when Dr. Corsi refused to accept an illegal plea deal, having criminally smeared him with leaks of grand jury information in retaliation, the less than 'special counsel' is now sending FBI agents to intimidate and effectively threaten my client's family members as well as continuing to illegal surveil them without any probable cause to do so," Klayman said in a statement.

"For example, just recently reporter Chuck Ross of the nominally conservative publication 'The Daily Caller' told Dr. Corsi that the special counsel's office had leaked grand jury information about my client's efforts to raise funds for cancer victims, falsely claiming that this was a fraud. This criminal leak, intended to intimidate and harass Dr. Corsi, is now proof positive of the allegations contained in the $350,000,000 plus complaint for damages which he has filed against Mueller and his accomplices. Ross has now become a material witness in this case," he said.

"Further, just over the last few days, black FBI SUVs, obviously on the orders of Mueller and his lackeys at the FBI, have been sent to the homes and workplaces of Dr. Corsi's family members and friends and parked outside for days in order to scare and threaten them. This is intended to coerce my client to accept the fraudulent plea deal and testify falsely under oath against the president. Particularly coming during this joyous and holy Christmas, and now New Year's season, this despicable misconduct effectively constituted a legally actionable assault on these family members," Klayman said.

"Previously, Mueller and his dishonest leftist hack prosecutors, including Jeannie Rhee, who before joining the special counsel's office has been a lawyer for the Clinton Foundation, had mocked in closed door settings Dr. Corsi's Christian beliefs requiring him not to lie under oath, and also ordered him not to report any agreed sealed plea deal to government regulators, which he would have been required to do under his license to sell and market securities. Thus, Jeannie Rhee and others in Mueller's office incredibly counseled Dr. Corsi to commit more crimes in addition to perjury," he said.

Corsi, too, explained what he sees as Mueller's harassment of his family.

"Right now I've got evidence that the FBI and Mueller's team are now harassing my family," Corsi said during an interview on Fox's "Trish Regan Primetime." "They are doing door knocks on my stepson. They are parking surveillance vans with two agents in it outside the places where various members of my family work."

Continued Corsi, "My children have done nothing wrong. My wife, I've been married to her for 27 years, and now they're gonna try to make them criminals? I mean this is harassing my family, it's beyond bounds, and I won't stand for it."

Mueller's prosecutors apparently believe Corsi is a link between WikiLeaks and its dissemination of Democrat emails during the 2016 race and Trump's campaign.

Corsi has explained he doesn't know and hasn't had contact with WikiLeaks' Julian Assange. He's encouraged Mueller's team to ask Assange himself.

Corsi, a longtime investigative reporter with several New York Times best-sellers to his credit, contends Mueller and others violated the Fourth Amendment and the USA Freedom Act, as well as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Klayman said court documents show Mueller was appointed to investigate "collusion" between the Trump campaign in 2016 and Russia, but he "misrepresented" the ordinary investigative research done by Corsi on that issue to spin a "fake narrative" that Corsi colluded with Russian intelligence.

"This was based upon Plaintiff Corsi's investigative deduction that the emails between Hillary Clinton and John Podesta would probably be released at a later date," court documents say.

WikiLeaks obtained hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and released them in stages. When the first cache came out, Corsi noticed there were none from John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman.

Corsi accurately predicted they eventually would be released. But Mueller is operating on the theory that Corsi was in touch with WikiLeaks and helped coordinate the release of the Podesta emails. The email release came only hours after the release of the Access Hollywood tape, which harmed Trump's campaign.

Mueller and his staffers, Klayman said, threatened to put Corsi in jail for the rest of his life unless he would "provide the false testimony they demanded."

Klayman said details about the allegations are at Corsination.com.