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Trump and his favorite lawyer ordered to pay $937,989.39 for 'frivolous' and 'abusive' lawsuit [1]
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Date: 2023-01-20
Middlebrooks continued, “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.”
Trump’s lawsuit was intended to, as the judge wrote, “rehash old grievances from the 2016 election,” going after people and organizations he claimed had conspired against him through allegations of collusion with Russia in that year’s elections. It was filled with claims Middlebrooks describes as “immaterial, conclusory facts not connected to any particular course of action,” or “categorically absurd” (that one is the idea that Comey, who did so much to damage Clinton’s presidential prospects, conspired with her to take down Trump). Overall, Trump’s suit—the amended version after an initial one was dismissed—is “a hodgepodge of disconnected, often immaterial events, followed by an implausible conclusion. This is a deliberate attempt to harass; to tell a story without regard to facts.”
The order repeatedly quotes Habba’s appearances on Fox News and Newsmax, in which she misrepresented the facts and attacked the judge himself. But Habba isn’t alone in being sanctioned here.
“Mr. Trump is a prolific and sophisticated litigant who is repeatedly using the courts to seek revenge on political adversaries,” Middlebrooks noted. “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.” The order backs that characterization up by recapping a series of Trump’s other frivolous and abusive lawsuits against the Pulitzer Prize Board, the New York attorney general (a suit Trump has now withdrawn in the immediate wake of these sanctions), Twitter, and CNN. Because this is a tactic he has used again and again, the sanctions fall on Trump as well as Habba, who are now responsible for that $937,989.39 in legal fees racked up by the 31 targets of Trump’s frivolous lawsuit.
Add that to the $1.6 million the Trump Organization was recently fined for tax fraud. Neither of these is anywhere close to what Trump should pay for his patterns of fraud and his abuse of the legal system, but finally he isn’t just getting away with everything. And Middlebrooks’ sanctions order is certainly a bench-slap for the ages. There are more possible consequences to Trump’s actions looming as well from the Georgia investigation into his attempts to overturn the 2020 election in that state to the investigation into his intentional theft of and refusal to return classified documents. It’s a start, and hopefully he’s damn nervous about it all.
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/20/2148252/-Judge-orders-Trump-and-lawyer-to-pay-up-for-using-the-courts-in-a-deliberate-attempt-to-harass
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