Anti-Trump group files FBI complaint over alleged Russian collusion

A Democratic group has filed a complaint with the FBI alleging that Donald Trump’s campaign and his ally Roger Stone have been colluding with the Russian government to hack American computers and manipulate the U.S. election.

The move came Saturday, one day after four top House Democrats renewed their push for the FBI to investigate Stone.

{mosads}“We are requesting that the FBI immediately look into the connection between Roger Stone and the Trump campaign and the recent hacking of emails, likely conducted by the Russian government,” reads the complaint from the Democratic Coalition Against Trump. 

“We believe that Roger Stone had forewarning of the hack, based on a statement he made in August 2016 that Podesta’s emails would be next, and that he and the campaign have been working with a foreign government to influence an American election,” the complaint states.

Stone has claimed “backchannel” communications with Julian Assange, the head of WikiLeaks, which has published thousands of emails this month taken from the account of Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta.

In August, Stone tweeted, “Trust me, it will soon [be] Podesta’s time in the barrel.#CrookedHillary.” 

While WikiLeaks has published breached Podesta emails and documents that intelligence officials believe were hacked by Russian operators, no evidence has emerged tying WikiLeaks to the hacks.

On Friday, Reps. Elijah Cummings (Md.), John Conyers (Mich.), Eliot Engel (N.Y.) and Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) issued a statement making similar allegations that Stone knew of the cyberattack beforehand.

The lawmakers sent a letter to the FBI in late August, asking the bureau to investigate any connection between the Trump campaign and Russia on the heels of Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort resigning amid scrutiny of his ties to pro-Russian figures.

The Democratic letter came about a month after Trump asked Russian hackers to release evidence on Clinton’s email server scandal – something he later claimed was a joke. 

The Democratic Coalition Against Trump says they filed their claim electronically to the FBI’s general complaints system.  

“We defer to the FBI to decide which specific agency is best equipped to deal with the complaint,” a representative for the group said.