A Georgian-American businessman is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in his lawsuit over a passage in the Mueller report he says made him a ‘scapegoat’ – and could give the Trump DOJ an early opportunity to hit back at the Russia probe.
The new Tuesday court filing, revealed by DailyMail.com, seeks an intervention by the high court that would allow businessman Giorgi Rtskhiladze to seek monetary damages as he pursues a correction over an infamous footnote in the report.
The language linked him to a debunked claim of tapes of a ‘golden showers’ episode involving Donald Trump in a Moscow hotel room.
It comes after an Appeals Court panel ruled he could sue the Justice Department for misquoting him about the ‘flow of some tapes from Russia’ and inaccurately calling him Russian in footnote No. 112 in the Mueller report.
Rtskhiladze said it damaged his reputation and misstated his communications with former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.
Rtskhiladze filed a petition for certiorari, essentially asking the high court to take up the case while contesting parts of the decision that didn’t go his way. The appeals court panel at the same time affirmed a lower court ruling that threw out his claim for monetary damages, finding he ‘failed to state a claim for which relief can be granted.’
He also wants to overturn a lower court ruling that he isn’t entitled to get a copy of his grand jury testimony when he was questioned by Mueller’s investigators.
The new filing says the case is about the ‘needless destruction’ of his business and personal reputation and says he was ‘caught in a crossfire between two titanic American political forces – Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton,’ referencing a former Clinton lawyer who served on Mueller’s team.
Georgian-American businessman Giorgi Rtskhiladze has taken his lawsuit over the Mueller report to the Supreme Court
If the court unlocks that claim, it would put the matter before the Trump Justice Department, soon to be headed by Trump loyalist Pam Bondi if she is confirmed by the Senate as the next AG.
‘They have to also acknowledge the extent of the damage that the footnote caused me,’ Rtskhiladze told DailyMail.com.
They ‘have to sit down and say we retracted it, you’ve been damaged, and there is certain settlement of the damages you should receive,’ he said.
Trump, who is himself suing the Justice Department over the FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago, continues to fume about the Mueller investigation – and has brought up what he dismisses as ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ in recent interviews and posts.
During a 2017 appearance with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Bondi seconded the host when he called the Mueller probe ‘worse than Watergate.’
‘I agree,’ she said.
That raises the prospect of an entirely new approach at DOJ.
Bondi faces her Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday.

The messages, obtained by DailyMail.com, show Rtskhiladze told Cohen: ‘Stopped flow of some tapes’

When Rtskhiladze mentioned it was ‘not a big deal’ but said there are ‘lots of stupid people,’ Cohen responded: ‘You have no idea’

Rtskhiladze wants the high court to green light his damages claim in his years-long suit over the Mueller report

‘Suddenly Pam Bondi, if she is confirmed she was the first person who said that Russia, Russia, Russia was a hoax, and she talked about this particular incident,’ said Rtskhiladze, who is hoping for a turnaround from the new administration after battling the DOJ in court

Bondi faces her Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday

Rtskhiladze wants DOJ to retract a footnote that connected him to unverified rumors about ‘tapes’ from Trump’s trip to Moscow
‘Suddenly Pam Bondi, if she is confirmed, she was the first person who said that Russia, Russia, Russia was a hoax, and she talked about this particular incident, and suddenly we are at court fighting over this,’ said Rtskhiladze,
‘So bringing this type of team, I cannot imagine that [Trump] doesn’t want this to be revealed and he doesn’t want this to end finally in his favor,’ he added.
Rtskhiladze, a naturalized U.S. citizen, helped bring Trump to his home country in 2012 on a potential Trump tower project in Georgia that fell through. (The country’s new government headed by Mikheil Kavelashvili has suspended its move to join the EU and has faced a series of street protests.)
He has long complained in court documents that the report wrongly described him as Russian, when in fact he hails from the former Soviet republic that continues to face tensions with Moscow.
The communications that landed Rtskhiladze in the Mueller report came in texts with former Trump fixer Michael Cohen.
‘Stopped flow of some tapes from Russia but not sure if there’s anything else. Just so you know …’ he wrote Cohen in October 2016.
The footnote misquoted him saying he ‘stopped flow of tapes,’ omitting the word ‘some’ which Rtskhiladze maintains indicated he was dismissive and didn’t know anything about them.
‘Footnote 112 remains a chilling example of how government power can be recklessly weaponized to destroy lives with falsehoods,’ said Rtskhiladze spokeswoman Melanie Bonvicino. She said the case ‘proves that no one—no matter their citizenship, creed, standing, or innocence—is immune from becoming “collateral damage” in a politically driven narrative.’
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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk