And pan on the fingers! A US federal judge on Thursday night sentenced Donald Trump and his lawyer to more than $937,000 in damages for attempting to use justice for political ends. Accusing Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate for the 2016 presidential election, and others in her camp of trying to persuade the American public that Donald Trump’s campaign was colluding with Russia, the former Republican president claimed 70 million dollars in damages. US District Judge Donald Middlebrooks of the Southern District of Florida refused last September to sue Hillary Clinton.
Thursday, he gave his conclusion on the case: “This action should never have been initiated. Its inadequacy as a legal claim was obvious from the start. No reasonable lawyer would have filed it. Intended for political purposes, none of the counts in the Amended Complaint set forth a valid legal claim,” Donald Middlebrooks wrote in his 45-page written decision. According to him, the New York billionaire, candidate for a candidacy in 2024, committed a “misuse of the courts” by bringing a lawsuit “in order to dishonestly advance a political narrative”.
Donald Trump is a “prolific and sophisticated litigator who repeatedly uses the courts to exact revenge on his political adversaries”, wrote Judge Middlebrooks, appointed in 1997 by Bill Clinton. But “frivolous lawsuits should not be used as a fundraising or filler vehicle for rallies or social media,” wrote Middlebrooks, who again accuses Trump of being “the mastermind of a misdirection strategy of the judicial process”.
The judgment, by listing several other unsuccessful lawsuits that Trump has filed in recent years, condemns him jointly and severally with his lead lawyer Alina Habba to pay 937,989.39 dollars (865,500 euros) to cover the legal costs of the opposing party. Representatives of Mr. Trump and Alina Habba have not yet reacted.