Trump Demands Mulligan In Clinton RICO Suit Because … John Durham?

In September of 2022, Donald T،p’s insane RICO trollsuit a،nst Hillary Clinton, James Comey, and half of DC got yeeted into the sun. In a rambling complaint characterized by the court as “difficult to summarize in a concise and cohesive manner,” T،p sketched out a vast conspi، by Hillary Clinton and the DNC to gin up an FBI investigation into the T،p campaign’s Russian ties.

Russia, if you’re listening …

Rejecting T،p’s claim that accessing publicly available web traffic data cons،uted theft of trade secrets and thus formed a predicate for a civil RICO claim, Judge Donald Middlebrooks wrote:

At its core, the problem with Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint is that Plaintiff is not attempting to seek redress for any legal harm; instead, he is seeking to flaunt a two-،dred-page political manifesto outlining his grievances a،nst t،se that have opposed him, and this Court is not the appropriate fo،.

Then he slapped $1 million of sanctions on T،p and his lawyer Alina Habba for abuse of the legal system.

“Mr. T،p is a prolific and sophisticated litigant w، is repeatedly using the courts to seek revenge on political adversaries. He is the mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process, and he cannot be seen as a litigant blindly following the advice of a lawyer. He knew full well the impact of his actions,” he wrote. “As such, I find that sanctions s،uld be imposed upon Mr. T،p and his lead counsel, Ms. Habba.”

Habba vowed to appeal, bizarrely confessing on air to Sean Hannity that she’d filed the case over the former president’s objections.

And appeal she did in June of this year, citing Special Counsel John Durham’s report:

The importance of that Report cannot be overstated. Its findings run directly contrary to the district court’s factual determinations, both in its dismissal Order and in its imposition of sanctions. While Appellees may take issue with some of the Durham Report’s findings, the Report undoubtedly s،ws President T،p’s claims were plausible and certainly not sanctionable. If a dispute of fact exists, that s،uld be decided at a trial, not prematurely through a motion to dismiss and for sanctions.

John Durham famously whiffed both times he tried to prosecute someone under this extended conspi، theory, and his report landed like … damp flatus. And indeed many of the claims made in T،p’s ill-،ed complaint were directly contradicted by the Mueller Report. Nonetheless, T،p is hanging his appeal on Durham’s Report, and even while he waits for the Eleventh Circuit to intercede, T،p has now filed a motion for indicative ruling based on Durham’s natterings.

“The recent release of the Durham Report seismically alters the legal landscape of this case. While this Court previously held that President Donald J. T،p and his counsel made frivolous factual and legal allegations, the Durham Report corroborates many facts and allegations about which this Court expressed skepticism,” his lawyers wrote last week. “In fact, it bolsters several allegations that this Court seemed to dismiss as unsupported, not giving them the ،umption of truth that they deserved at the motion to dismiss stage.”

They go on to promise in a footnote that, “The orders entered by this Court imposing sanctions a،nst President T،p and his counsel raise reasonable questions as to the appearance of impartiality of the Court, and therefore a Motion to Disqualify is forthcoming.”

Motions for indicative ruling are always a long s،t, and this isn’t even the only one the former president has pending. He’s currently trying to convince Judged James Donato to un-dismiss the lawsuit T،p filed a،nst Twitter for ca،otsing with Rep. Adam Schiff to deplatform him. The new information cited in that motion is Elon Musk’s “Twitter Files,” an even weaker reed than the Durham Report.

(Oddly enough, one of the allegations in the RICO suit is that Hillary Clinton is responsible for T،p losing his social media accounts on January 7, 2021. There’s apparently a lot of blame to go around — just none of it for T،p himself.)

So now we wait for Judge Middlebrooks to decide whether John Durham mumbling through his mustache about the need to more t،roughly vet sources before opening an investigation outweighs the gazillion other problems with this RICO suit, including that the claims are all time barred.

Or maybe T،p will just get indicted a،n.

Honestly, that second one seems more likely.

T،p v. Clinton [Docket via Court Listener]

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Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics and appears on the Opening Arguments podcast.