A Florida judge threw out a lawsuit that Donald Trump filed against Hillary Clinton and fined Trump’s lawyers nearly $1 million.
A federal judge in South Florida who threw out Donald Trump’s lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and other Democrats over the 2016 election campaign slammed the former president’s attorneys with legal fees and costs totaling nearly $1 million for filing a “completely frivolous” complaint against them.
U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks on Thursday ruled in his sanctions order that lawyer Alina Habba and her law firm Habba Madaio & Associates must pay $937,989.39 in attorneys’ fees and costs to the lawyers for Clinton and 30 other plaintiffs in the case. Middlebrooks had dismissed Trump’s lawsuit last year.
Middlebrooks concluded the suit was a bad-faith use of the federal court system, in which Trump’s lawyers echoed his allegations that Clinton, the Democratic National Committee and others orchestrated a “Russia Hoax” that falsely portrayed Trump in a conspiracy with the Russians to meddle in the 2016 election campaign. Clinton lost the election to Trump, who was investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller but was not charged with a crime after Mueller found that the Russian government meddled in the U.S. presidential campaign.
In the lawsuit filed in South Florida, Trump’s lawyers claimed that Clinton and other major Democrats had “orchestrated a malicious conspiracy to disseminate patently false and injurious information about Donald J. Trump and his campaign, all in the hope of destroying his life, his political career, and rigging the 2016 Presidential Election in favor of Hillary Clinton.”
Middlebrooks, responding to the defense lawyers’ motion for sanctions, found that “this case should never have been brought.”
“Its inadequacy as a legal claim was evident from the start,” Middlebrooks wrote in a scathing 46-page sanctions order. “No reasonable lawyer would have filed it. Intended for a political purpose, none of the counts of the amended complaint stated a cognizable legal claim.” The judge alluded to the “telltale signs” of Trump’s “playbook”: “Provocative and boastful rhetoric; a political narrative carried over from rallies; attacks on political opponents and the news media; disregard for legal principles and precedent; and fundraising and payments to lawyers from political action committees.”
“Thirty-one individuals and entities were needlessly harmed in order to dishonestly advance a political narrative,” Middlebrooks concluded. “A continuing pattern of misuse of the courts by Mr. Trump and his lawyers undermines the rule of law, portrays judges as partisans, and diverts resources from those who have suffered actual legal harm.”
Trump’s lawyers will appeal. However, after the Florida ruling, Trump dropped his $250 million lawsuit against New York State Attorney General Letitia James. His lawyers must have persuaded him that they did not want to risk their own firm’s assets.
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article271418742.html#storylink=cpy
In other Florida news, another federal judge ruled against Governor DeSantis for firing the elected state attorney for Hillsborough County, Andrew Warren. DeSantis has already named a replacement for Warren. So Warren wins the case but does not get his job back. DeSantis fired Warren because he signed a statement saying that he would not prosecution for “abortion crimes.” DeSantis accused Warren of being “woke,” which he cannot tolerate.
Despite concluding that Gov. Ron DeSantis violated the Florida Constitution and the First Amendment when he suspended Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren last year, a federal judge ruled Friday that he didn’t have the power to restore Warren to office.
U.S. District Judge Robert L. Hinkle found that DeSantis suspended Warren based on the allegation that the state attorney had blanket policies not to prosecute certain kinds of cases. ”The allegation was false,” Hinkle wrote in a ruling issued Friday morning.
“Mr. Warren’s well-established policy, followed in every case by every prosecutor in the office, was to exercise prosecutorial discretion at every stage of every case. Any reasonable investigation would have confirmed this.” Yet Hinkle concluded that the U.S. Constitution prohibits a federal court from awarding the kind of relief Warren seeks, namely to be restored to office.
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article271422712.html#storylink=cpy
Diane Ravitch's blog 
If Dangerously Deranged De-Fascist Desantis could, he’d fire judges that rule against him, too. DDDD also probably dreams at night of building concentration camps with gas chambers and huge ovens to get rid of anyone that he thinks are “woke”.
All the signs of a fascist.
So many fines, but no real accountability.
It’s just one wrist also after another.
Wrist slap
A very rare outcome. Damning.
“. . . undermines the rule of law, portrays judges as partisans, and diverts resources from those who have suffered actual legal harm.”
Legal harm? Yes, that is all the matters to the courts, arcane arguments of “legal harm”. Doesn’t matter is someone had been harmed as long as there is no “legal harm”.
And lawyers make a ton of jack on those “legal harms”. . . and even not “legal harms” as decided by quite fallible “judges”.
By the time this gets to any higher level, Trump will be gone from the face of the earth or forgotten like a morning dream. So all rich people play the system, all the while complaining that the death penalty cases take too long to adjudicate.
One thing is certain.
Trump himself will never get to a higher level.
He’s stuck in the gutter.
Score one for justice! About damn time!
“Today, Judge Hinkle upheld @GovRonDeSantis decision to suspend Andrew Warren from office for neglect of duty and incompetence” tweeted by DeSantis’ communications director
Here’s what the Judge in the DeSantis case actually said “The record includes not a hint of misconduct by Mr. Warren. So far as this record reflects, he was diligently and competently performing the job he was elected to perform, very much in the way he told voters he would perform it. He had no blanket nonprosecution policies. Any minimally competent inquiry would have confirmed this. The assertion that Mr. Warren neglected his duty or was incompetent is incorrect. This factual issue is not close.””
It’s worth noting that the question of Warren’s competence and neglect” could be considered open to interpretation.
But the question of what the judge actually said in his decision is not. The judge himself actually made it crystal clear that he was NOT upholding DeSantis’ suspension of Warren for incompetence or neglect.
The claim that the judge did so is just a blatant lie.
Hope that all the judges that are having to deal with Trump’s BS law suits and using the courts to delay having to answer subpoenas and to deliver documents that he’s been ordered to deliver follow this judge’s example. Since he has a habit of stiffing his attorneys and sub contractors they will quit helping him and start putting liens on Mar-a-Largo and the rest of his “clubs”.