This worked with Nixon. The Richard Nixon campaign eventually paid $750,000 to the Democratic National Committee to settle a lawsuit the DNC brought against them for breaking into the Watergate.

Today, the DNC is casting an even more ambitious net in an attempt to hold somebody accountable for hacking into the DNC servers, stealing thousands of emails, and using them to influence the 2016 presidential election. A complaint filed in federal district court in Manhattan alleges that Trump campaign officials, Julian Assange and Wikileaks, Guccifer 2.0, and the Russian government conspired to steal secrets from the DNC, in violation of a number of laws.

Whether or not you believe that Donald Trump personally knew about the hack (Donald Trump is not personally named as a defendant), that the DNC was hacked is an undeniable thing that happened. That thing was illegal. The DNC alleges 12 violations. Of note:

Count I: Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

Count IV: Wiretap Act

Count VI: Digital Millennium Copyright Act

Count VII: Misappropriation of Trade Secrets

Counts IX – XII: Various common law trespass violations

There is some question about whether the Russian government can be sued by the DNC… what with Russia being a sovereign power with nukes and all. I… doubt Russia will submit itself to this lawsuit. Never start a land war in Asia.

But the two most important charges are Counts II and III: the civil RICO charges. The DNC alleges “The Trump Campaign Was A Racketeering Enterprise.” In the alternative, they allege “The Trump Campaign Was An Association-In-Fact Enterprise.”

Getting an organization labeled a criminal conspiracy for the purposes of civil RICO charges is a high bar. The DNC would have to prove an actual agreement existed between all the parties. Just going on the information that is publicly available, we don’t really know if everybody from Paul Manafort to Roger Stone to Julian Assange to Guccifer actually achieved a common conspiracy. There is more than enough evidence to show that there was an “overt act” in furtherance of the conspiracy, but establishing the conspiracy itself will be a challenge.

But, as any defense lawyer could tell you, if the DNC can show that a “conspiracy” existed… that’s the whole ball game. It is OVER. You don’t survive a RICO charge if a conspiracy can be shown. RICO is the Gozer of criminal prosecutors and civil plaintiffs, if it is invoked it can take nearly any form to destroy what it seeks.

You can read the full lawsuit here. There are no new allegations, but the theory of the crime is worth reading.

The first test for this lawsuit will likely be a motion to dismiss on behalf of all parties. The Russians will allege the court has no authority, Wikileaks will… well I don’t actually know what Wikileaks does except steal things. And all of the named defendants will argue that the DNC didn’t allege enough facts to support a possible criminal conspiracy. Even if the lawsuit survives dismissal, the DNC will have to wait in line behind the ongoing criminal investigations already underway. The DNC will not be getting a deposition from Roger Stone any time soon.

But, here’s why I think is why the DNC is doing this: if the lawsuit survives a motion to dismiss, then they will have opened a truly independent third front to investigate the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. I’ve already said that I think we are close to the point where Trump cannot fire his way out of trouble. If this DNC lawsuit goes forward, Trump’s ability to stop the bleeding with dismissals is foreclosed.

Trump and his supporters think that the Mueller investigation is a partisan witch-hunt? Bruh, they don’t know what pain is. This DNC lawsuit could hound the Trump klan (Don Jr. and Jared Kushner are named in the complaint) for years. The lawsuit was filed by attorneys at Cohen Milstein. There are kids who will start law school in the fall who might one day work at Cohen Milstein and do some work on this lawsuit.

If the lawsuit survives.

And if it doesn’t survive, well, we’ll probably make some good precedent that limits the scope of the civil RICO statute, which will generally benefit many defendants who cannot marshal the full power of Article I, Cooley Law School, and Fox News to defend them. It’s kind of a win-win.

Democratic Party files lawsuit alleging Russia, the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks conspired to disrupt the 2016 campaign [Washington Post]

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.