Are you being served? DNC officially gives notice of lawsuit against WikiLeaks via Twitter
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has officially served its lawsuit to WikiLeaks through the unconventional means of Twitter.
The suit, which alleges that the Russian government, the Trump campaign, and WikiLeaks conspired to influence the 2016 presidential election in favour of Donald Trump was filed last April. However, due to the group’s elusive nature, lawyers were unable to officially serve the whistleblowing organization.
On Friday, the law firm representing the DNC, Cohen Milstein, served the suit in a single tweet. The account, which appears to have been set up specifically for this purpose, links to a number of legal documents related to the case.
@wikileaks By Court order, you are being served with the following legal documents: https://t.co/ICg8qWnsUy, https://t.co/ZP2tTPJ4pb, https://t.co/RKue30s4hM, https://t.co/q5g0G1rQpQ.All of these documents may be found here: https://t.co/NOCgvQhh2j.
— Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll Process Server (@ProcessServiceC) August 10, 2018
Last month, the DNC filed a motion in a federal court in Manhattan requesting permission to serve the lawsuit through Twitter after its attempts to reach WikiLeaks via email failed, reported CBS News.
The Democrats argued that Twitter was an appropriate platform in this instance because of WikiLeaks’ prolific tweeting.“WikiLeaks seems to tweet daily,” the DNC contended, drawing on a legal precedent set in a US District Court in 2016
The DNC also pointed out that WikiLeaks previously claimed on Twitter that it had already read the lawsuit.
Democrats have gone all Scientology against @WikiLeaks. We read the DNC lawsuit. Its primary claim against @WikiLeaks is that we published their "trade secrets". Scientology infamously tried this trick when we published their secret bibles. Didn't work out well for them. pic.twitter.com/NfCJEMiPCo
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 22, 2018
At the time of writing, WikiLeaks had yet to respond to the official notice of the summons.
Earlier this week, its founder Julian Assange was called to testify before the US Senate Intelligence Committee - an offer that WikiLeaks say is being considered.The letter was delivered to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where Assange has been living since he was granted asylum six years ago.
READ MORE: US Senate Intelligence Committee calls Julian Assange to testify - WikiLeaks
