A federal judge on Thursday sanctioned former President Donald Trump and his lawyers for nearly $1 million for filing a “frivolous lawsuit” against Hillary Clinton and 30 others.
Judge Donald Middlebrooks of the Southern District of Florida did not hold back in his scathing critique of Trump and his legal team, led by attorney Alina Habba, beginning his order by writing, “This case should never have been brought. Its inadequacy as a legal claim was evident from the start.”
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“No reasonable lawyer would have filed it,” Middlebrooks added. “Intended for a political purpose, none of the counts of the amended complaint stated a cognizable legal claim.”
Trump’s lawsuit against his 2016 presidential challenger and others claimed that they tried to rig the election in Clinton’s favor by smearing Trump, saying he and his campaign were colluding with Russia in order to win the race.
Trump’s suit, which sought $70 million in damages, was dismissed last September “with prejudice,” ensuring that the former president cannot refile it. Middlebrooks condemned Trump’s suit as a “two-hundred-page political manifesto outlining his grievances against those that have opposed him, and this Court is not the appropriate forum.”
Middlebrooks had previously granted the request for sanctions filed by one of the defendants against Trump’s lawsuit, but that order was paused while Trump’s attorneys appealed, per CNN. The latest decision comes from a request by several other defendants, including Clinton. In this order, Trump and Habba are “jointly and severally liable” for the series of sanctions adding up to $937,989.39.
The judge did not stop at denouncing this one lawsuit by Trump and his attorneys. Middlebrooks, rather, said the lawsuit is part of a pattern of misuse of the courts for political purposes, even mentioning other lawsuits the former president has filed.
Of Trump, Middlebrooks wrote, “He is the mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process, and he cannot be seen as a litigant blindly following the advice of a lawyer. He knew full well the impact of his actions.”
The other defendants in the case included the Democratic National Commission, former DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Clinton campaign chief John Podesta, the law firm Perkins Coie, the research firm Fusion GPS, the former FBI officials James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, as well as British ex-spy Christopher Steele, per CNBC.
