Trump, lawyer Alina Habba fined for ‘frivolous’ charges against Clinton, Comey : NPR

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Former President Donald Trump announced he will run for president for a third term during a speech on Nov. 15 at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla. Andrew Harnik/AP hide caption

toggle caption Andrew Harnik/AP

Former President Donald Trump announced he is running for president for a third term during a speech Nov. 15 at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla.

Andrew Harnik/AP

A Florida judge has sanctioned former President Donald Trump and one of his lawyers, ordering them to pay nearly $1 million for filing what he said was a bogus lawsuit against Trump’s 2016 rival Hillary Clinton and others.

In a blistering filing Thursday, US 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 “equivalent to obstruction of justice.”

“Here, we are faced with a lawsuit that should never have been filed, which is completely frivolous, both factually and legally, and which 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 uses the courts “to seek revenge on political opponents.”

“He is the mastermind of the strategic abuse of the judicial process,” he wrote.

The ruling requires Trump and his attorney, Alina Habba, to pay nearly $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 Trump filed against Clinton, former top FBI officials and the Democratic Party, denying the former president’s claims that they and others conspired to sink his winning presidential campaign in by dealing with relations with Russia.

The lawsuit names as defendants Clinton and several of her top advisers, as well as former FBI Director James Comey and other FBI officials involved in the investigation into whether Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign colluded ties with Russia to change the election results.

He said then that the suit contains “glaring structural deficiencies” and that many of the “characterizations of events are implausible.”

With the sanctions looming, Trump on Friday withdrew his lawsuit against New York Attorney General Letitia James. The case, in federal court in Florida, is also in Middlebrooks.

Trump sued James in November in response to his lawsuit alleging he and his company misled banks and others about the value of assets in a practice he called “The art of the steal.”

Trump, a Republican, also sought to prevent James, a Democrat, from having any oversight of the family trust that controls his company. Her 35-page complaint rehashed several claims from her earlier dismissed lawsuit against James in federal court in New York, angering Middlebrooks, who wrote in a December order: “The trial it has all the hallmarks of being both annoying and pointless.”

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