The judge who dismissed a Donald Trump lawsuit accusing dozens of conspiring to undermine the 2016 presidential election penalized Trump’s lawyers.
U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks ordered four attorneys and their two law firms to pay a $50,000 court penalty. Charles Dolan, one of the named defendants in Trump’s suit, was awarded $16,274.23 in attorney’s fees, also.
Plaintiff’s counsel Alina Habba, Michael T. Madaio, Habba Madaio & Associates, Peter Ticktin, Jamie Alan Sasson and The Ticktin Law Group are the attorneys sanctioned by the judge.
Middlebrooks dismissed Trump’s case in September, claiming his lawyers abused the legal system by suing for political purposes. He added the case was full of misinformation.
“Every claim was frivolous, most barred by settled, well-established existing law,” Middlebrooks explained in his 19-page decision. “This cannot be attributed to incompetent lawyering. It was a deliberate use of the judicial system to pursue a political agenda.”
Attorney Alina Habba was spotlighted in the judge’s decision, noting her appearance on the Fox News program “Hannity.”
“[W]hen you have a Clinton judge, as we did here, Judge Middlebrooks, who I had asked to recuse himself but insisted that he didn’t need to, he was going to be impartial, and then he proceeds to write a 65-page scathing order where he basically ignored every factual basis which was backed up by indictments, by investigations, the Mueller Report, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, not to mention [Special Counsel John] Durham and all the testimony we heard there, we get dismissed,” Middlebrooks quoted Habba.
In the next paragraph, the judge quoted her conversation with Hannity further, noting she accepted blame for pursuing the lawsuit. Habba said Trump had urged to let the case go, but she claimed she replied, “No, we have to fight. It’s not right what happened.”
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