Trump campaign mocks DNC’s fundraising struggle as ‘conspiracy theory’

The Democratic National Committee has laid out a conspiracy theory to explain away its fundraising struggles in the 2016 election.

In a lawsuit filed last week, Democrats assert that the Trump campaign, Russia and WikiLeaks worked together to hurt Hillary Clinton, undercut the party’s message and sow “discord within the Democratic Party at a time when party unity was essential to electoral success.”

“At the same time, Defendants’ conduct resulted in a dramatic drop in donations to the DNC,” the lawsuit says. “The dissemination of hacked information heightened donors’ concerns that confidential information disclosed through their contributions might be publicly disseminated.”

The Trump campaign mocked the claim.

“This is a sham lawsuit about a bogus Russian collusion claim filed by a desperate, dysfunctional, and nearly insolvent Democratic Party,” said Brad Parscale, President Trump’s campaign manager. “With the Democrats’ conspiracy theories against the President’s campaign evaporating as quickly as the failing DNC’s fundraising, they’ve sunk to a new low to raise money, especially among small donors who have abandoned them.”

In an appearance Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” DNC Chair Tom Perez defended the lawsuit filed two days earlier in federal court in New York, saying Trump campaign’s response is similar to the way that President Richard Nixon responded to a lawsuit Democrats filed against his campaign over the Watergate break-in in 1972.

“We’re bringing this lawsuit to seek justice, to expose the truth and to deter future behavior,” Mr. Perez said. They tried to interfere, they interfered in 2016. They did it with impunity, and they’re trying to do it again.”

Mr. Perez also downplayed the idea that the lawsuit would further diminished the finances of the cash-strapped DNC.

The Republican National Committee has outraised the DNC in the 2018 election cycle. Last week, the RNC announced it has set a new fundraising record for the month of March after pulling in $13.9 million last month.

The RNC raised $39 million over the first quarter of 2018, and has raised a total of $171 million over the course of the current election cycle. It has almost $43 million cash on hand.

The DNC, meanwhile, has raised $81 million and has $10 million cash on hand, according to its latest report.

The campaign arms for House and Senate Democrats, however, have outraised their GOP counterparts and Democrats running in congressional races across the country posted strong fundraising numbers.

Christy Setzer, a Democratic strategist, said the DNC’s claim that its fundraising was hurt by the “illegal conspiracy” in 2016 is hard to prove, but a “reasonable conclusion.”

“At a time of unprecedented new energy on the Democratic side, with a rash of new candidates, activists and money, that rising tide somehow isn’t lifting the DNC’s boat,” Ms. Setzer said. “Why? Because 2016 took a sledgehammer to voters’ faith in political parties, specifically the party that got hacked and whose emails were stolen and leaked for maximum damaging effect.”