Trump lawyer hit with massive lawsuit over 'bizarre' foreign spying scheme: report

A lawyer who previously worked within President Donald Trump's business empire has gotten caught up in a massive new lawsuit, according to The Daily Beast, alleging that he was involved in a "bizarre international spying escapade."

Breaking the story on Tuesday, The Daily Beast reported that Ted Kittila, a "prominent Republican attorney" who previously worked for Trump's Truth Social company, has been hit with a $120 million lawsuit accusing him of "fraud, civil conspiracy, and extortion on behalf of agents of an abusive foreign regime." Based in Delaware, Kittila previously ran multiple failed runs for state-level political office, including for the state's attorney general in 2014, its House of Representatives in a special election in 2022 and its Senate later on in 2022. The Daily Beast also noted that he was recently hired by the Republican National Committee to help sue Delaware for access to its voter rolls.

"The Daily Beast can reveal that the Delaware-based lawyer has been named in a complaint, filed in late April in his home state’s federal court, for his work on behalf of representatives of an authoritarian Middle Eastern government that sought to obtain sinister surveillance software in the U.S.," the outlet reported. "Kittila, 52, has deep ties to the GOP. He previously represented Trump Media & Technology Group in a bitter legal spat over ownership of Truth Social."

It continued: "He also assisted with the long-running Republican probe of the Biden family, and was hired by the RNC to sue the Delaware State Election Commissioner for access to voter rolls. The RNC legal action in Delaware is the latest in a string of similar Republican voter-roll lawsuits across the country that rights groups have slammed as part of a broader push to enable voter purges."

The report explained that Kittila had provided legal services to the Kurdistan regional government in Northern Iraq dating back three years, where the "regime has long faced accusations of human rights abuses, including attacks on journalists, political opponents, and activists." Around the same time, he was also involved in the House Ways and Means Committee’s failed attempt to prove that Joe Biden had profited from his son Hunter's business dealings.

"A Kurdish spy based in Virginia claims in court papers that he had attempted in late 2022 to purchase $11 million worth of high-tech surveillance equipment from a U.S. vendor," The Daily Beast's report continued. "He says the seller, spyware contractor Ben Jamil, failed to prove that the system worked, but refused to refund the $360,000 deposit. So he hired Kittila to sue Jamil. Now Jamil, 93, has sued the spy for $460 million in a separate action. That lawsuit also directly goes after Kittila."

It added later: "Jamil is demanding a further $120 million from all parties involved in the original spyware case, including Kittila himself, accusing them of fraud, civil conspiracy, and extortion. Among Jamil’s claims is that Kittila and others weaponized a criminal contempt motion, unusual in a civil case, that he says amounted to 'malicious prosecution' designed to stop him from discussing or sharing details of the dispute out of court. Jamil told the Daily Beast he believes Kittila sought the contempt order on behalf of the Kurdish spy to save both himself and the Kurdish regime the embarrassment of the 'scandal' breaking."

“If he’s a prominent and important lawyer, connected to important people, why would he want to have the world know?” Jamil, 93, said. “If I was an important guy, working for Trump, I would go to church, I’d buy Girl Scout cookies. So people in his particular situation would certainly want to keep their hands very clean and not be associated with anything that could become a scandal. And this is a scandal.”