A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld nearly $1 million in sanctions against President Donald Trump and his attorneys for what it called “sanctionable conduct” in a racketeering lawsuit they filed against Hillary Clinton and other Democrats over the 2016 election.
A panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of Trump’s $24 million suit, agreeing with the lower court that many of the legal arguments advanced “were indeed frivolous.”
The three-judge panel also concluded that U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks of the Southern District of Florida acted within his authority when he sanctioned Trump and his then-lawyer, now acting New Jersey U.S. Attorney Alina Habba, and ordered them to pay $937,989.39 for pursuing the case in “bad faith.”
Trump’s lawsuit had claimed that, in the run-up to the 2016 election, Clinton and others conspired to “weave a false narrative” linking him to Russia in order to “discredit, delegitimize and defame” him.
In his earlier ruling, Middlebrooks found the complaint riddled with meritless assertions, including what he described as “a malicious prosecution claim without a prosecution” and “a trade secret claim without a trade secret.”
“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, adding that the suit appeared designed to “harass” and to serve “a political purpose.”
He also stressed that Trump was not an unwitting participant.
“Mr. Trump is a prolific and sophisticated litigant who is repeatedly using the courts to seek revenge on political adversaries,” Middlebrooks wrote. “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.” On that basis, he concluded that “sanctions should be imposed upon Mr. Trump and his lead counsel, Ms. Habba.”
A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team responded that he “continues to fight back against all Democrat-led Witch Hunts, including the ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ hoax,” adding that “President Trump will continue to pursue this matter to its just and rightful conclusion.”
