Just in time for Thanksgiving, the Eleventh Circuit finally weighed in on Donald Trump’s appeal that hoped to set aside the massive sanctions slapped upon the president and his lawyers in the Florida conspiracy case against Hillary Clinton and most of D.C. In a unanimous opinion, the panel reviewed Trump’s deranged Hillary-Clinton-RICO fanfic and said: Absolutely not, you clowns owe the million dollars.
Before the inevitable Truth Social posts blasting the George Soros-funded, radical, activist, soyboy circuit judges, we note that the opinion is authored by Chief Judge William Pryor, a man whose jurisprudence is generally best described as “what if Federalist Society swag bags could vote?” Joining Pryor in the opinion were Judge Andrew Brasher — a Trump judge and Pryor’s former clerk — and Biden-appointed Judge Embry Kidd. So, we’re dealing with a deeply conservative majority here, and nonetheless upheld the sanctions with a brand of judicial deadpan usually reserved for telling a toddler to stop sticking forks into electrical outlets.
This case began as a Trump shotgun manifesto disguised as a RICO complaint alleging that Hillary Clinton conspired with James Comey, Perkins Coie, Marc Elias, the Tooth Fairy, Jake Sullivan, the Democratic Party, and a series of John Does to cook up the Russia investigation and ruin his life.
A conspiracy so damaging that Trump won the election.
The case was assigned to Judge Donald Middlebrooks, who jettisoned the complaint, warning ominously that he was reserving “jurisdiction to adjudicate issues pertaining to sanctions.” Those sanctions came in to the tune of a million dollars. Trump appealed, hoping for a friendly panel. As a partisan matter, it couldn’t have gotten much friendlier… and he still lost.
And Trump’s favorite fantasy novel — The Durham Report — didn’t change the matter:
We do not doubt that, in the light of the Durham Report, President Trump has concerns about some defendants’ conduct during the 2016 election. The investigation by Special Counsel Durham found that some defendants played a role in orchestrating unverified allegations of him colluding with Russia. And it found that key allegations in the Steele Dossier, relied on by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the press, were never corroborated. Some appeared to be fabricated. The Special Counsel’s investigation found that Bureau officials appeared to favor Clinton and that their investigation decisions reflected that preference. And it found that the Crossfire Hurricane investigation began without “any actual evidence of collusion.” Yet, those findings do not cure the deficiencies in Trump’s racketeering claims.
The Steele Dossier, a privately commissioned piece of opposition research, included some wild and probably untrue claims. But the right answer for any campaign looking over those allegations was to flag the issue for the FBI. The Durham Report can’t change that the whole case was time-barred, unsupported, incoherent, and stitched together from misquoted sources and “knowingly false or made with reckless disregard for the truth.”
Many of Trump’s and Habba’s legal arguments were indeed frivolous. Even setting aside the tolling arguments, the district court ruled that Trump brought several frivolous claims, including a “malicious prosecution claim without a prosecution,” and a “trade secret claim without a trade secret.”
Habba, of course, continues to fail upward. Having walked Trump into a million dollars worth of sanctions, she’s presently cosplaying as the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey. Now that they’ve lost the appeal, she’s presumably on tap to take over as Attorney General.
And life just got a million dollars more expensive for Donald Trump. This Trump economy is really hurting everyone, isn’t it?
(Check out opinion on the next page…)
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
The post Trump And Habba Must Pay Million Dollar Stupid Tax, Court Confirms appeared first on Above the Law.