Trump lawyers face $66,000 in fines over tossed Russiagate suit
Ryan King
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Several Trump lawyers were hit with $66,000 in fees Thursday after a judge determined they clogged federal courts with frivolous filings for a lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and a slew of Democrats alleging they peddled false Russia collusion allegations.
U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks ordered former President Donald Trump‘s lawyer Alina Habba and several associates to pay $50,000 in sanctions to the court and the $16,274 in legal fees to Democratic operative Charles Dolan, who was a defendant in the suit and had been involved in the 2016 Clinton campaign.
HILLARY CLINTON DEMANDS OVER $1 MILLION IN FEES AFTER RUSSIAGATE SUIT TOSSED
“The rule of law is undermined by the toxic combination of political fundraising with legal fees paid by political action committees, reckless and factually untrue statements by lawyers at rallies and in the media, and efforts to advance a political narrative through lawsuits without factual basis or any cognizable legal theory,” Middlebrooks wrote.
Trump, who filed a sprawling racketeering lawsuit against his 2016 nemesis and others in March and amended it in June, maintained that he suffered over $24 million in losses from the innuendo about possible collusion between him and Russia. But Middlebrooks, who sits on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, concluded that his suit was marred by glaring “deficiencies in the plaintiff’s argument” and dismissed the case in September. Trump has appealed Middlebrooks’s ruling.
In addition to Habba, Middlebrooks’s ruling Thursday also sanctioned Michael Madaio, Habba Madaio & Associates, Peter Ticktin, Jamie Alan Sasson, and The Ticktin Law Group. Middlebrooks ordered them to “jointly and severally” pay the $50,000 sanction to the court and the $16,274 fee for Dolan.
Dolan had petitioned sanctions against the Trump lawyers and cited the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which argues legal contentions should be “non-frivolous,” which he claimed the Trump lawyers breached.
Middlebrooks, who was appointed to the court by former President Bill Clinton, reiterated his gripes with Trump’s lawsuit in his siding with Dolan.
“Every claim was frivolous, most barred by settled, well-established existing law. These were political grievances masquerading as legal claims. This cannot be attributed to incompetent lawyering. It was a deliberate use of the judicial system to pursue a political agenda,” Middlebrooks declared.
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Other defendants in that suit, including Clinton, have filed a joint request demanding sanctions and fees of over $1 million from Trump over the lawsuit against them.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Habba for comment.