Donald Trump Avoids Hasty Retreat From Federal Courts Following Epic Sanctions Smackdown
photo: Getty Images
Last Monday, Judge Donald Middlebrooks of the Southern District of Florida fined Donald Trump and his lawyer Alina Habba a million dollars for filing a sham case claiming a RICO conspiracy by Hillary Clinton, James Comey, and half of the Democrats in DC.
The court cited several frivolous lawsuits filed by the former president’s counsel, accusing them of “recklessly advancing claims foreclosed by existing precedent that the most basic legal research would have revealed” as part of “Mr. Trump’s pattern of misusing the courts to serve political purposes.”
Trump and his attorneys appear to have received the message. They quickly abandoned a lawsuit they’d filed in Florida state court against New York Attorney General Letitia James.
The complaint aimed to prevent James from acting in her “personal capacity” to have a New York state judge ordered Trump to release his revocable trust documents – something that a private citizen James would not be able to do.
The matter was promptly transferred to federal court, where it was assigned to Judge Middlebrooks. The court sent a strong signal to the plaintiff and his counsel on December 21 that they should “reconsider their resistance to Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss” because “this action has all the telltale marks of being both vexatious and frivolous.”
Judge Middlebrooks referred to the now-dismissed James lawsuit in Florida in the Clinton RICO sanctions decision, calling it “plainly frivolous” and full of “provocative rhetoric, all too familiar” from Trump’s repeated assertions.
He also talked about a similar action filed in the Northern District of New York, in which Trump urged Judge Brenda Sannes to take jurisdiction away from New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron and order AG James to quit investigating him.
Following Judge Sannes’ dismissal of the turkey, Trump filed an appeal with the Second Circuit, despite the fact that, as the state defendants pointed out in a recent letter to the appellate court, the investigation ended with a civil fraud prosecution.
This not only renders the appeal irrelevant but also emphasizes the fact that Trump’s rant about a bogus fishing expedition was “wholly unsupported,” as the trial judge put it.
Alina Habba, the former president’s lawyer, officially dropped the appeal yesterday, signing a joint stipulation of dismissal with the New York AG. The lawsuit is dismissed with prejudice, and neither party will pay any costs or attorney’s fees.
Apparently, the original vexatious litigant and his sparkle magic lawyers are fed up with winning and/or paying his opponents’ legal expenses.
We may still look forward to that absurd clown suit he filed against the Pulitzer Prize board members in some rinkydink courtroom in the middle of Lake Okeechobee.
In addition to the defamation claim against CNN, the tortious de-platforming complaint against Twitter, the appeal of Judge Middlebrooks’ rejection and penalties orders, and the defamation suit he has pledged to launch against E. Jean Carroll and her counsel Roberta Kaplan…
Because when you’re a celebrity, they let you do whatever you want.
