Status: 01/20/2023 10:33 a.m
A lawsuit against his former opponent Clinton is costing ex-President Trump dearly: A judge in Florida has sentenced him to a fine of almost one million dollars: Trump is showing a “continuing pattern of abuse of the courts”.
Former US President Donald Trump has been fined nearly $1 million for a lawsuit against Hillary Clinton. Trump shows a “continuing pattern of court abuse” and filed the lawsuit “to dishonestly advance a political narrative,” said US District Judge Donald Middlebrooks in Florida.
In the lawsuit, which Middlebrooks dismissed last year, Trump accused Clinton of attempted fraud in the 2016 presidential election. He accused his then-rival of wanting to convince the public that he had cooperated with Russia in his election campaign and demanded $70 million in damages. Clinton lost to Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
“A lawsuit should never have been filed”
The lawsuit “should never have been filed,” Middlebrooks said in the court order. Its inadequacy as an appeal was evident from the outset and “no reasonable attorney would have filed it,” the judge wrote. Trump is “a sophisticated litigator who repeatedly uses the courts to take revenge on political opponents”. Trump and his attorney Alina Habba were sentenced to a total fine of almost $938,000 (€867,000).
When the lawsuit was dismissed in September last year, Middlebrooks had already stated that Trump was not concerned with any legal disadvantages. The lawsuit lacks legal substance. Rather, it is a 200-page political manifesto in which Trump complains about people who have opposed him. The court is the wrong place for that.