Florida federal judge hits Trump, lawyers with nearly $1M in fees over ‘frivolous’ Clinton suit

A federal judge in South Florida who threw out Donald Trump’s lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and other Democrats over the 2016 election campaign slammed the former president and his attorneys with legal fees and costs totaling nearly $1 million for filing a “completely frivolous” complaint against them.

U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks on Thursday ruled in his sanctions order that Trump, his lawyer Alina Habba and her law firm Habba Madaio & Associates must pay $937,989.39 in attorneys’ fees and costs to the lawyers for Clinton and 30 other plaintiffs in the case. Middlebrooks had dismissed Trump’s lawsuit last year.

Middlebrooks concluded the suit was brought in “bad faith” by Trump and his lawyers, in which they echoed his political allegations that Clinton, the Democratic National Committee and others orchestrated a “Russia Hoax” that falsely portrayed Trump in a conspiracy with the Russians to meddle in the 2016 election campaign. Clinton lost the election to Trump, who was investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller but was not charged with a crime after Mueller found that the Russian government meddled in the U.S. presidential campaign.

“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,” Middlebrooks wrote in a scathing 46-page sanctions order against Trump and his lawyers.

“Mr. Trump is a prolific and sophisticated litigant who is repeatedly using the courts to seek revenge on political adversaries,” the judge found. “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. As such, I find that sanctions should be imposed upon Mr. Trump and his lead counsel, Ms. Habba.”

In the lawsuit, which was filed in West Palm Beach federal court, Trump and his lawyers claimed that Clinton and other major Democrats had “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.”

Middlebrooks, responding to the defense lawyers’ motion for sanctions, described Trump’s lawsuit against Clinton as a political ploy, saying “its inadequacy as a legal claim was evident from the start.”

“No reasonable lawyer would have filed it,” the judge wrote. “Intended for a political purpose, none of the counts of the amended complaint stated a cognizable legal claim.”

In driving home that point, the judge alluded to the “telltale signs” of Trump’s “playbook”: “Provocative and boastful rhetoric; a political narrative carried over from rallies; attacks on political opponents and the news media; disregard for legal principles and precedent; and fundraising and payments to lawyers from political action committees.”

“Thirty-one individuals and entities were needlessly harmed in order to dishonestly advance a political narrative,” Middlebrooks concluded. “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.”

While judicial sanctions are not uncommon in lawsuits found to be “frivolous,” the amount of attorneys’ fees and costs imposed by Middlebrooks is extraordinary, legal experts said. Middlebrooks was confirmed as a federal judge in 1997 after being nominated by then-President Bill Clinton.

His latest ruling followed sanctions that he had imposed on Trump’s lawyers in November after a single plaintiff in the case, Charles Dolan, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee and a Clinton campaign operative, sought attorneys’ fees and costs. Habba and Trump’s other lawyer were ordered to pay $50,000 in a sanction to the court registry and $16,274.23 in fees to Dolan.

Habba, Trump’s lead attorney, did not respond to a request for comment on Friday. She is expected to appeal the judge’s sanctions decision, as she did with his dismissal ruling, to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Clinton’s defense attorneys, David O. Markus in Miami, and David Kendall and Michael Mestitz of Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C., led the sanctions effort for attorneys’ fees and costs.

“As the court has now recognized, from the beginning this lawsuit was a political stunt that had no business in a court of law,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers said in a statement provided to the Miami Herald on Friday. “It was a sham which unfairly absorbed the court’s time and energy better devoted to litigants with real claims, and it caused 31 defendants to spend money and effort debunking phony legal claims.”