U.S. District Court Judge Donald Middlebrooks, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, has dismissed former President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against Hillary Clinton.
Trump’s lawsuit contended that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party, “blinded by political ambition, orchestrated a malicious conspiracy to disseminate patently false and injurious information about Donald J. Trump and his campaign, all in the hopes of destroying his life, his political career and rigging the 2016 Presidential Election in favor of Hillary Clinton.”
According to the lawsuit docket, Trump is suing based on the 1962 RICO Act, which handles Racketeering, Influence and Corrupt Organizations.
Interestingly this statute is typically used by prosecutors to charge mafia and organized crime cases.
In his 65-page ruling, Judge Middlebrooks declared, “At its core, the problem with Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint is that Plaintiff is not attempting to seek redress for any legal harm.”
He continued, “instead, he is seeking to flaunt a two-hundred-page political manifesto outlining his grievances against those that have opposed him, and this Court is not the appropriate forum.”
The Florida judge seemed to take issue with the lawsuit.
In the scathing analysis, he wrote that what the suit lacks “in substance and legal support it seeks to substitute with length, hyperbole, and the settling of scores and grievances.”
Judge Middlebrooks also seemed to agree with an accusation against Trump in his ruling.
Do you believe Judge Middlebrook’s ruling was unbiased?
Yes: 2% (1 Votes)
No: 98% (44 Votes)
He wrote that the defendants argued, “[w]hatever the utilities of [the Amended Complaint] as a fundraising tool, a press release, or a list of political grievances, it has no merit as a lawsuit.”
Then the Judge added, “I agree.”
According to Axios, “Middlebrooks said Trump exceeded the legal statute of limitations and that ‘many of the statements that Plaintiff characterizes as injurious falsehoods qualify as speech plainly protected by the First Amendment.’”
The legal team representing Trump issued a statement from the former President’s attorney Alina Habba, according to Axios. “We vehemently disagree with the opinion issued by the court today,” she wrote.
“Not only is it rife with erroneous applications of the law, but it also disregards the numerous independent governmental investigations which substantiate our claim that the defendants conspired to falsely implicate our client and undermine the 2016 Presidential election.”
“We will immediately move to appeal this decision,” Habba said.
Judge Middlebrooks was nominated by then-President Bill Clinton in January 1997 and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate that May by a voice vote.
In April of this year, Trump’s legal team filed a motion to disqualify Judge Middlebrooks from hearing the case. His attorneys argued, “Due to the fact that the Defendant, HILLARY CLINTON is being sued by her former opponent for the United States Presidency, an election that she lost, regarding serious allegations on her part, as well as her allies, of engaging in fraudulent and unlawful activities against the Plaintiff, and because her husband nominated Judge Middlebrooks to the Federal Bench, there exists a reasonable basis that Judge Middlebrooks’ impartiality will be questioned.”
