Former President Donald Trump asked the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to dismiss nearly $1 million in sanctions that were levied against him and his attorneys following a judge's determination that his lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and others had no legal basis.
In a Tuesday filing, Trump's lawyers argued that the federal judge's order to dismiss the Clinton suit in 2022 and the sanctions order in 2023 were not warranted. They also claimed the sanctions "violated due process" and were "an abuse of discretion."
"The district court made a clear error and abused its discretion in finding that Appellants acted in bad faith, and in imposing almost $1 million in inherent authority sanctions," the appeal said.
Citing what he called a "continuing pattern" of judicial misuse, U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks, who was appointed by Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, sanctioned Trump and his legal team more than $900,000 in January 2023.
"This case should never have been brought," Middlebrooks wrote in last year's order. "Its inadequacy as a legal claim was evident from the start. 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 sanctions were levied after Middlebrooks dismissed Trump's lawsuit from 2022 against Hillary Clinton, Trump's 2016 political opponent, and numerous other defendants. In the suit, Trump claimed the defendants "orchestrated a malicious conspiracy to disseminate patently false and injurious information" about him and his presidential campaign.
This "conspiracy" was carried out "all in the hopes of destroying his life, his political career and rigging the 2016 Presidential Election in favor of Hillary Clinton," the former president claimed.
In his 2022 ruling tossing Trump's lawsuit against Clinton, Middlebrooks wrote that Trump "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 judge said.
Clinton's attorney's declined to comment to The Hill.
Newsmax has reached out to Trump's legal representation for comment.
Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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