President Donald Trump and his then-lawyer Alina Habba are on the hook for almost $1 million in sanctions.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a court order penalizing Trump and Habba in lawsuits against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former FBI Director James Comey, former head of the Democratic National Committee Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DNC itself and others.
Trump and Habba filed suit under anti-racketeering laws against 28 total people and organizations in 2022, alleging a conspiracy to collude with Russia in order to tank his 2016 presidential campaign. Though the Steele dossier at the center of the claims has been described as "discredited" by a number of news outlets, Trump and Habba filed the original suit 5 months after the statute of limitations had passed.
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"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,'" Chief Judge William Pryor Jr. wrote. "Yet, those findings do not cure the deficiencies in Trump's racketeering claims."
In addition Pryor wrote that even if Trump had filed suit before the statute of limitations expired, "none of these proceedings are, or even resemble, a racketeering action."
"At best, they are actions involving some of the conduct that Trump incorporates into his racketeering claim," Pryor wrote.
There was a minor bit of good news for Trump, however. In one of the four appeals Pryor ruled on, he rejected a request by two appellants, Orbis Limited and Charles Halliday Dolan Jr., for fees and double costs to be levied against the president. Orbis is Christopher Steele's "private intelligence firm" that produced the Steele dossier, while Dolan was a Clinton campaign operative who provided information used in the dossier.
Pryor found that in this one case, Trump's appeal to the dismissal of the case made "meritorious arguments." He remanded that particular case back to the lower court to change its dismissal from "with prejudice" -- meaning that the case cannot be filed again -- to "without prejudice," meaning that Trump's team could fix errors in the original lawsuit and refile.