Former US president Donald Trump on Thursday filed a lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, Democratic Party leaders and others alleging they falsely accused him of colluding with Russia ahead of the 2016 election.

In a complaint filed in a federal court in Florida said, “In the run-up to the 2016 Presidential Election, Hillary Clinton and her cohorts orchestrated an unthinkable plot — one that shocks the conscience and is an affront to this nation’s democracy.”

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“Acting in concert, the Defendants maliciously conspired to weave a false narrative that their Republican opponent, Donald J. Trump, was colluding with a hostile foreign sovereignty,” it said.

“The actions taken in furtherance of their scheme — falsifying evidence, deceiving law enforcement, and exploiting access to highly-sensitive data sources — are so outrageous, subversive and incendiary that even the events of Watergate pale in comparison,” the complaint added.

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Others named in the complaint include the Democratic National Committee, John Podesta, who served as chairman of Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, and former FBI director James Comey.

Also named as a defendant was Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer who produced a dossier ahead of the election containing allegedly compromising information about Trump.

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AFP reported that Trump allegedly denounced the Steele dossier as “fake” and The New York Times determined there was no corroborating evidence to support many of its claims.

A Russian analyst who contributed to the dossier has been indicted in the United States for lying to FBI agents investigating some of its findings.

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Also named as defendants were the Perkins Coie law firm, which was working for the Clinton campaign, and Fusion GPS, a private firm which Perkins Coie hired to do opposition research.

Trump is seeking a jury trial and at least $72 million in damages.

Former special counsel Robert Mueller investigated Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign and revealed multiple meetings between Trump advisers and Russians.