NEW YORK (AP) – A Florida judge has barred former President Donald Trump and one of his attorneys from paying nearly $1 million to file a fraudulent lawsuit against Trump’s 2016 rival Hillary Clinton and others. Ordered.
In a scathing filing Thursday, US District Judge Donald M. Middlebrook accused Trump of a “pattern of abuse of the courts” for filing frivolous lawsuits for political purposes, which he said “undermine the rule of law”. and “constraint equals” justice.”
“Here, we are faced with a lawsuit that should never have been filed, that was factually and legally completely frivolous, and that was brought in bad faith for an improper purpose,” he wrote .
Citing Trump’s recent legal action against the Pulitzer Prize board, New York’s attorney general, big tech companies and CNN, he described Trump as “a prolific and sophisticated litigator” who “seeks to take revenge on political opponents.” For” uses the courts.
“He is the mastermind of the strategic abuse of judicial process,” he wrote.
The judgment required Trump and his attorney, Alina Habba, to pay approximately $938,000 to the defendants in the case.
A spokeswoman for Trump and Habba did not immediately respond to requests for comment late Thursday.
Middlebrooks in September dismissed a lawsuit filed by Trump against Clinton, former top FBI officials and the Democratic Party, rebutting the former president’s claims that he and others accused of ties to Russia during his victorious presidency. Conspired to sabotage the campaign.
The lawsuit implicates defendants Clinton and some of her top advisers, as well as former FBI Director James Comey and other FBI officials in an investigation into whether Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Russia to influence the outcome of the election. coordinated with.
He then added that the suit had “glaring structural deficiencies” and that “many of the characterizations of events are implausible.”
In the wake of the sanctions, Trump on Friday dropped his lawsuit against New York Attorney General Letitia James. The case was also before Middlebrooks in Florida federal court.
Trump sued James in November in response to her lawsuit alleging that he and his company misled banks and others about the value of the property, which he dubbed “stolen art.”
Trump, a Republican, also sought to bar James, a Democrat, from having any oversight over the family trust that controls his company. His 35-page complaint restated some of the claims from a previously dismissed lawsuit against James in federal court in New York, which upset Middlebrooks, who wrote in a December order: “This lawsuit includes harassing and All clear signs of both being trivial.”
___ Associated Press writer Michael R. Sisak contributed to this report.
