A federal judge in Florida delivered a sharp, strong, and devastating 65-page rebuke as he dismissed Donald Trump’s lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and more than two dozen others including the Democratic National Committee and, initially, five former FBI officials who were later dropped from the $24 million suit. U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks said the lawsuit was so weak he agreed with the defendants who described it as “a fundraising tool, a press release, or a list of political grievances,” and added, “it has no merit as a lawsuit.”
The lawsuit was filed by Alina Habba, who “previously worked as general counsel at a parking garage company.”
It “blamed Hillary Clinton and others for conspiring to malign his character,” Bloomberg reports, and “accused more than two dozen defendants of orchestrating ‘a malicious conspiracy to disseminate patently false and injurious information about Donald J. Trump and his campaign, all in the hopes of destroying his life, his political career and rigging the 2016 Presidential Election in favor of Hillary Clinton.’ It was filed in March under the civil version of a racketeering law normally used against organized crime.”
Judge Middlebrooks, in tossing Trump’s suit, wrote: “At its core, the problem with plaintiff’s amended complaint is that plaintiff is not attempting to seek redress for any legal harm; instead, he is seeking to flaunt a two-hundred-page political manifesto outlining his grievances against those that have opposed him, and this court is not the appropriate forum.”
The lawsuit claimed Trump suffered “injurious falsehood,” “malicious prosecution,” “violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,” “theft of trade secrets under the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016,” and “violations of the Stored Communications Act,” along with “various conspiracy charges and theories of agency and vicarious liability.”
Calling it “a scathing dismissal,” Politico’s Kyle Cheney notes Judge Middlebrooks “says the Alina Habba-led suit was devoid of facts, premised on nonsense legal claims, and late.”
Middlebrooks blasted Trump’s attorney, writing, “Plaintiff’s theory of this case, set forth over 527 paragraphs in the first 118 pages of the Amended Complaint, is difficult to summarize in a concise and cohesive manner. It was certainly not presented that way.”
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At one point Middlebrooks writes, “the claims presented in the Amended Complaint are not warranted under existing law. In fact, they are foreclosed by existing precedent, including decisions of the Supreme Court. To illustrate, I highlight here just two glaring problems with the Amended Complaint. There are many others. But these are emblematic of the audacity of Plaintiff’s legal theories and the manner in which they clearly contravene binding case law.”
“What the Amended Complaint lacks in substance and legal support it seeks to substitute with length, hyperbole, and the settling of scores and grievances,” Middlebrooks added.
Former FBI officials James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Kevin Clinesmith, and Bruce Ohr were named as defendant in the original lawsuit but later dismissed.
Judge Middlebrooks was so angered by the fact the lawsuit was even filed he noted, “I reserve jurisdiction to adjudicate issues pertaining to sanctions” against Trump’s attorneys.
Image by Matt Johnson/Right Cheer via Flickr and a CC license