Alina Habba boasted on Sunday that she and her client, Donald Trump were fined and sanctioned by a judge for abusing the courts by filing “frivolous” lawsuits.
Earlier this year Florida District Court Judge Donald Middlebrooks fined Trump and his attorneys nearly $1 million for a lawsuit they filed against 31 individuals, including Hillary Clinton and former FBI Director James Comey, accusing them of conspiring against Trump during the 2016 presidential election by saying Russia was helping his campaign.
Middlebrooks already dismissed the case in September 2022, before issuing the fine in January 2023.
“Its inadequacy as a legal claim was evident from the start. No reasonable lawyer would have filed it,” Middlebrooks wrote in his January ruling, according to the New York Times. “Intended for a political purpose, none of the counts of the amended complaint stated a cognizable legal claim.”
“Frivolous lawsuits should not be used as a vehicle for fundraising or fodder for rallies or social media,” Middlebrooks wrote, adding: “This behavior interferes with the ability of the judiciary to perform its constitutional duty.”
At the Turning Point USA event, Habba noted that Middlebrooks was nominated to the bench by Hillary’s husband, President Bill Clinton in 1997. She also boasted that she and Trump paid the fine and complained that there was not enough media coverage of the judge’s decision to throw out their case and fine them, Newsweek reports.
“What do you think happened? Nobody’s heard of the case, right? Because it’s gone. I never met the judge. I never walked into the courtroom. There were probably 50 lawyers representing all of the radical left,” Habba said. “One month, it got dismissed, and me and President Trump got sanctioned a million dollars for going against crooked Hillary.”
“You didn’t know that, did you? Fake news, folks. They won’t report it,” Habba added. “But guess what? We paid that million and we’re going to keep on fighting.”
Habba’s comments baffled some legal experts who questioned why she would want news organizations to broadcast how unethical she acted.
“This is very strange. Apparently she wants publicity about how unethical a lawyer she is. It is incredibly hard to be sanctioned under Rule 11. It actually takes work!” Washington-based attorney Mark S. Zaid said.
