Corsi sues Mueller for alleged leaks and illegal surveillance
Conservative author and conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi on Sunday filed a lawsuit against special counsel Robert Mueller, alleging that Mueller illegally surveilled him as part of the investigation.
Corsi, in the document filed in the District Court for the District of Columbia, also claims that Mueller’s office leaked confidential information surrounding Corsi’s testimony before the special counsel’s grand jury.
“Defendant Mueller and his prosecutorial and media staff, acting in their official capacity and personally, also illegally released grand jury information to harm Plaintiff Corsi by attempting to destroy his reputation and personal and professional well-being and livelihood, thus also attempting to drive him into bankruptcy,” the document reads in part.
The special counsel’s office declined to comment to The Hill. The lawsuit is also filed against the Department of Justice, the FBI, the National Security Agency (NSA) and the CIA.{mosads}
Corsi has previously filed a complaint with the Justice Department over the Mueller investigation, requesting that criminal and ethical investigations be opened up into the special counsel’s office.
Larry Klayman, Corsi’s attorney and the founder of conservative watchdogs Judicial Watch and Freedom Watch, claimed in a statement that Mueller and his team “are allegedly themselves acting in a criminal manner to further their attempted ‘legal coup d’etat’ to remove the president from office by any illegal means.”
Both documents came after Corsi himself acknowledged that he will likely face an indictment from the special counsel in the near future.
He made public last month a plea deal offer from Mueller, in which Corsi would have pleaded guilty to one count of making false claims to investigators in exchange for no prison time. Corsi said he rejected the offer, and that he is prepared to die in prison.
In Sunday’s lawsuit, Corsi alleges that Mueller’s team took actions “intended to coerce, extort, threaten and/or blackmail him into submission and designed to remove the current president of the United States for political and other improper purposes.”
The document claims that the Justice Department, FBI, NSA and CIA — in addition to Mueller — “have engaged in ongoing illegal, unconstitutional surveillance” on Corsi, violating his Fourth Amendment rights as well as other U.S. laws.
The conspiracy theorist also claimed that Mueller’s team had leaked information about Corsi to the media.
The document pointed to an ABC News article about the special counsel’s examination of Corsi, claiming it included details that “could only possibly have come from Defendant Mueller.”
Those details include that Corsi has become a “central person of interest” to the special counsel, and that Mueller had evidence suggesting that Corsi had prior knowledge of WikiLeaks’s release of hacked emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.
Corsi is requesting an injunction in his case, as well as $350 million in damages.
The conservative figure reportedly caught the eye of Mueller’s team over his communications with President Trump’s longtime confidant Roger Stone, who has emerged as a central figure in the special counsel’s probe.
The men had exchanged emails about possible documents obtained by WikiLeaks, before the group released emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Trump has also recently tweeted about Corsi’s case, using it to attack Mueller while acknowledging that he does not know Corsi personally.
Both Trump and Corsi were proponents of the “birther” conspiracy theory, claiming without evidence that former President Obama was not born in the United States.
Obama eventually released his birth certificate, showing that he was born in Hawaii, to counter the allegations.
Updated Monday at 9:24 a.m.