Donald Trump and one of his top lawyers were ordered on Thursday to pay nearly US$1 million for filing a spurious lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, and other believed rivals.
Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida determined Trump and his lawyer Alina Habba, along with her team at Habba Madaio and Associates, were liable for US$937,989 (CA$1,263,471). Middlebrooks wrote in his 46-page order that Trump’s lawsuit “should never have been filed.”
Trump and Habba have not commented publicly on the sanctions.
The lawsuit, which was dismissed in September, argued that Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, and former FBI director James Comey engaged in “malicious conspiracy” to fabricate connections between the 2016 Trump election campaign and Russian collusion. Through his lawyers, Trump claimed the investigation into his campaign was “all in the hope of destroying his life, his political career, and rigging the 2016 Presidential Election in favor of Hillary Clinton.”
Trump originally filed the lawsuit in March 2022. Middlebrooks called the filing “completely frivolous, both factually and legally.” He wrote that Trump and his lawyers submitted the lawsuit to “advance a political narrative.”
“This case should never have been brought. Its inadequacy as a legal claim was evident from the start. No reasonable lawyer would have filed it,” Middlebrooks wrote.
He continued: “Mr. Trump is a prolific and sophisticated litigant who is repeatedly using the courts to seek revenge on political adversaries. 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.”
In October, Clinton and 17 other defendants filed a joint motion for sanctions against Trump.
Trump, Habba and associates have previously been ordered to pay US$50,000 (CA$67,100) to another defendant in the lawsuit, Charles Dolan, a Democratic public relations executive.
Middlebrooks’ order also referenced a number of other lawsuits filed by Trump, all of which “undermines the rule of law, portrays judges as partisans, and diverts resources from those who have suffered actual legal harm.” This included Trump’s December lawsuit filed against members of the Pulitzer Prize Board, who awarded journalists from The New York Times and the Washington Post for reporting about Russian attempts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
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