Hillary Clinton is joining other defendants in petitioning a court to compel her 2016 nemesis, former President Donald Trump, to cough up about $1.06 million in legal fees for a rejected lawsuit against them.
Decrying Trump’s sprawling racketeering lawsuit that claimed Clinton and others peddled false allegations that his campaign colluded with Russia as a “political stunt,” Clinton and the other defendants argued they deserved reimbursement from Trump.
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“Because of the particularly vexatious and frivolous nature of the Complaint and Amended Complaint in this case, the Court should use its inherent authority [to] … impose sanctions on Plaintiff himself for the filing of both the original and amended Complaint,” Clinton’s team wrote.
In March, Trump filed a lawsuit against Clinton and a cadre of other Democrats and allies. Christopher Steele, a former British spy who compiled the now-discredited anti-Trump dossier, was also listed among the defendants. Clinton and others sought to dismiss the suit this summer.
Trump, who amended his suit in June, maintained that he suffered over $24 million in losses from the innuendo about possible collusion between him and Russia. But U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks in Florida concluded that his suit was marred with glaring “deficiencies in the plaintiff’s argument” and dismissed the case last month. Trump has appealed Middlebrooks’s ruling.
Middlebrooks, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, further 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.”
The Clinton-backed motion cited comments made by Trump lawyer Alina Habba on Newsmax earlier this year to buttress the argument that the suit was intended to further political goals rather than legitimate legal gripes.
“Alina Habba stated to Newsmax: ‘What the real goal [of the suit] is, is democracy. Is continuing to make sure that our elections, continuing to make sure our justice system is not obstructed by political enemies. That cannot happen. And that’s exactly what happened. They obstructed justice, they continued the false narrative,” Clinton’s petition argued.
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Clinton’s costs rang in around $176,412, but the total costs for others amounted to about $1.06 million, per the motion. The petition was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Habba slammed the motion filed by the Clinton team.
“We vehemently deny the inflammatory allegations contained in the sanctions motion filed by the Clinton team,” Habba told Bloomberg. “This motion, conveniently filed one week prior to Election Day, is nothing more than a thinly-veiled attempt to score political points.”
