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U.S. District Judge John Middlebrooks, who threw out Trump's
lawsuit in September, said the sanctions were warranted because
the former president had exhibited a pattern of misusing the
courts to further his political agenda.
"This case should never have been brought. 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," Middlebrooks wrote in the 45-page written ruling.
Representatives for Trump and his lead attorney in the case,
Alina Habba, could not be reached for comment by Reuters on
Thursday evening.
Trump sued Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee,
claiming that she and other Democrats sought to rig that
election by falsely accusing his campaign of links to Russia.
Middlebrooks, who was appointed to the bench by President Bill
Clinton in 1997, dismissed the case in September, calling the
lawsuit "a two-hundred-page political manifesto outlining his
grievances against those that have opposed him."
Trump, a Republican, sought re-election in 2020 but was defeated
by Democrat Joe Biden, after which he repeatedly made false
claims blaming widespead voting fraud for his loss.
He has launched a run for the 2024 presidential election,
setting up a potential rematch against Biden.
(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
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