Highlights:
- A Florida judge sanctioned former US President Donald Trump and his lead attorney to pay nearly $1 million.
- Trump and his lead attorney were fined for filing a “frivolous” lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and 30 others.
- The case was dismissed in September, with the judge deciding it had no merit as a lawsuit.
A federal judge on Thursday ordered former US President Donald Trump and his lead attorney—Alina Habba and Habba Madaio & Associates, to jointly pay $937,989.39 in sanctions for suing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over claims she tried to rig the 2016 presidential election.
In a blistering filing, U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks accused Trump of a “pattern of abuse of the courts” for filing frivolous lawsuits for political purposes, which he said “undermines the rule of law” and “amounts to obstruction of justice.”
“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,” he wrote.
ORDER ON SANCTIONS
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. Intended for a political purpose, none of the counts of the amended complaint stated a cognizable legal claim.
Thirty-one individuals and entities were needlessly harmed in order to dishonestly advance a political narrative. A continuing pattern of misuse of the courts by Mr. Trump and his lawyers undermines the rule of law, portrays judges as partisans, and diverts resources from those who have suffered actual legal harm.
I previously granted Defendant Charles Dolan’s motion for sanctions, brought pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11. (DE 284). Now before me is a motion seeking sanctions brought by eighteen other Defendants. Upon consideration of the Motion (DE 280), Response (DE 285) and Reply (DE 287), for the reasons that follow and also for those stated in my previous Order, sanctions are awarded.
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