“Here, we are confronted with a lawsuit that should never have been filed, which was completely frivolous, both factually and legally, and which was brought in bad faith for an improper purpose,” wrote United States District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks in an order issued Thursday.
He was referring to a suit filed by former President Donald Trump’s attorneys against Hillary Clinton. In the order, he concluded that Trump and his legal team are liable for approximately $937,989 in sanctions.
According to the order, Trump – who is represented by lead attorney Alina Habba and Habba Madaio & Associates – initiated the lawsuit last March. They alleged that that “the Defendants, 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 hope of destroying his life, his political career, and rigging the 2016 Presidential Election in favor of Hillary Clinton.”
While Clinton won the popular vote during the 2016 presidential election, Trump won the presidency through the electoral college votes.
Middlebrooks – who was appointed in the 1990s by former President Bill Clinton, according to Ballotpedia – determined that the “inadequacy as a legal claim,” in Trump’s suit against Clinton “was evident from the start” and that “no reasonable lawyer would have filed it.”
The judge went on to say that the suit was intended for political purpose and that 31 people were needlessly harmed by it. He said it is part of a continuing pattern of misuse of the courts by Trump and his lawyers that “undermines the rule of law.”
Last April, less than a month after Trump’s Complaint was filed, Hillary Clinton moved for dismissal with prejudice.
“Her motion identified substantial and fundamental factual and legal flaws,” said Middlebrooks. “Each of the other Defendants followed suit, pointing to specific problems with the claims against them. The problems in the Complaint were obvious from the start. They were identified by the Defendants not once but twice, and Mr. Trump persisted anyway.”
Trump’s team filed an amended complaint last June and Middlebrooks dismissed it with prejudice for most parties in September.
“Mr. Trump is a prolific and sophisticated litigant who is repeatedly using the courts to seek revenge on political adversaries,” said the judge. “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.”
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