Donald Trump and lawyer fined nearly US$1 million for ‘frivolous’ Hillary Clinton lawsuit
- In a blistering filing, the judge accused the ex-US president of a ‘pattern of abuse of the courts’, using them to seek revenge on political adversaries
- Trump had accused Clinton and others of conspiring to sink his winning 2016 White House campaign by alleging ties to Russia
A Florida judge sanctioned former US president Donald Trump and one of his lawyers on Thursday, ordering them to pay nearly US$1 million for filing what he said was a bogus lawsuit against Trump’s 2016 rival Hillary Clinton and others.
In a blistering filing, 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 “amounts to obstruction of justice”.
“Here, we are confronted with a lawsuit that should never have been filed, which was 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 Attorney General Letitia James, big tech companies and CNN, he described Trump as “a prolific and sophisticated litigant” who uses the courts “to seek revenge on political adversaries”.
“He is the mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process,” he wrote.
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The ruling required Trump and his lawyer, Alina Habba, to pay nearly US$938,000 to the defendants in the case.
