Judge throws out Trump's sprawling lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, ex-FBI officials over Russia probe | CNN Politics
Category: News & Politics
Via: jbb • 3 years ago • 76 commentsBy: Kara Scannell,Marshall Cohen,Chandelis Duster (CNN)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
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A federal judge has dismissed former President Donald Trump's lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, several ex-FBI officials and more than two dozen other people and entities that he claims conspired to undermine his 2016 campaign by trying to vilify him with fabricated information tying him to Russia.
US District Judge Donald Middlebrooks dismissed the lawsuit Thursday, saying "most of Plaintiff's claims are not only unsupported by any legal authority but plainly foreclosed by binding precedent."
"What (Trump's lawsuit) lacks in substance and legal support it seeks to substitute with length, hyperbole, and the settling of scores and grievances," Middlebrooks, a Bill Clinton appointee, wrote.
Trump filed his sprawling lawsuit in March, naming a wide cast of characters that Trump has accused for years of orchestrating a "deep state" conspiracy against him - including former FBI Director James Comey and other FBI officials, the retired British spy Christopher Steele and his associates, and a handful of Clinton campaign advisers.
Middlebrooks, of the Southern District of Florida, said there were "glaring problems" with Trump's "audacious" interpretations of the law, and that many of Trump's specific factual assertions were "implausible" or unsupported.
Trump "is not attempting to seek redress for any legal harm," Middlebrooks said. "(I)nstead, 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 ruling is a legal victory for the figures that Trump sued, many of whom were involved in Clinton's campaign in 2016 or were involved in the US government's efforts to investigate Russian interference in that election.
This includes including Clinton, several of her top 2016 campaign officials, the Democratic National Committee, Comey, his former deputy Andrew McCabe, former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. It also includes Steele, author of the Trump-Russia dossier and the opposition group that Steele worked with, Fusion GPS.
The lawsuit accused a large group of former US government officials and Democratic operatives of orchestrating a "deep state" conspiracy against him and of perpetuating a massive hoax in the form of the Russia investigation. Trump, who has pushed these baseless claims for years and included them in the lawsuit, had asked for $24 million in damages.
Alina Habba, an attorney for Trump, said Trump will "immediately move to appeal this decision."
"We vehemently disagree with the opinion issued by the Court today," Habba told CNN in a statement. "Not only is it rife with erroneous applications of the law, it disregards the numerous independent governmental investigations which substantiate our claim that the defendants conspired to falsely implicate our client and undermine the 2016 Presidential election."
In April, lawyers for Clinton asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit and argued that it had "no merit."
Clinton's team had argued that she should not be a defendant in the federal court in South Florida because too many years have passed to allow for a lawsuit centered on events from 2016.
This story has been updated with additional details.
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Of course he did. He had to. Beginning by at least 2014 and continuing right up to election day in 2016 Trump was in secret negotiations with clandestine agents of Russian State Intelligence Services to build Trump Tower Moscow. Trump even offered Putin a luxury penthouse as a bribe. Every Intelligence agency in the world was aware Trump was colluding with Russia in the years leading up to the 2016 election!
...and the hits just keep coming.
Hillary Clinton retired from public service in January of 2013. How could she order the FBI and CIA to initiate their investigations of Trump from 2014 to 2016?
Well duh! As one of the 7 shadow heads of the 'Deep State' she's always retained her power over the entire government. And when she and the all powerful 'Deep State' decided to use the FBI to sabotage her own campaign just weeks before the election with the announcement they were re-opening the investigation into her email server she was just playing 3D chess while Trump was playing 'Chutes & Ladders', obviously... /s
Who remembers when Don Jr, Eric and Jerrod met with known Russian operatives at Trump Tower to negotiate getting Putin to hack Hillary Clinton and the DNC?
No one cuz it didn't happen.............................the meeting was to get dirt on Ms. Clinton but it was a false premise and ended up with talks about Russian children adoption.
Sure it did and it is just partly why Trump's dumb lawsuit got laughed out of court!
Do you not understand what happened, or do you not care?
NOTHING was discussed or disclosed that had anything to do with hacking any email. Damn you constantly make shit up.
...which could have come by way of hacking HRC and the DNC in exchange for Trump lifting the Magnitsky Act which were sanctions placed on Russian Oligarchs.
The claim about Russian adoptions was a smoke screen.
"Donald Trump Jr." " initially told the press that the meeting was held to discuss adoptions of Russian children by Americans. On July 8, 2017, after news reports stated that Trump Jr. knew the meeting was political, he admitted in a tweet that he had agreed to the meeting with the understanding that he would receive information damaging to Hillary Clinton , and that he was conducting opposition research."
" Seems we have some time and if it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer." Don Jr email
" William Browder testified before the Committee on the Judiciary on July 27, claiming that Veselnitskaya was representing the Kremlin's interests in the meeting , which was arranged for persuading the future lifting of the Magnitsky Act ."
Veselnitskaya disclosed that she was in regular contact with the Russian Prosecutor General 's office and with Prosecutor General Yury Chaika , about sharing information she acquired in her investigation relating to the Magnitsky Act."
Trump Tower meeting - Wikipedia
Talks about Russian children adoptions by Americans?
I admire how you hand supporters/enablers of #45, their asses, many times, daily.
"could have". So you don't know / don't have any proof of it. Just the normal blathering of somebody in a "but Trump" fit.
When you look at your source, there are links next to each "piece" of the site the apear as "[edit]". Those allow people to edit that section. With that being said, you are going to have to do better with your "sources". At least find one that can't be altered by the general public.
Trump must be the most innocent person alive, because no one is apparently capable of criticizing him using actual facts
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How did Trump think Putin's operatives were going to get their dirt on Clinton? Her trash?
What don't you understand about discussing the Magnitsky Act?
Try again.
Maybe the same way the Democrats thought they would when they contacted the Russians. You do remember the "Russia Collusion" hoax started with the Democrats and Clinton right?
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Where in that verbiage does it say a fucking thing about hacking emails which was the original comment? I'll wait.................
Yet the Judge just ruled that it wasn't a hoax!
Trump and Co had over a hundred secretive meetings with clandestine agents of Russian State Intelligence Services whom they had sought out and developed relationships with.
I am sure they were under the impression they would be delivered during the meeting because they already had it. Now where anywhere except your imagination, does it become clear they were going to ask them to hack emails? It was a smoke screen meeting to discuss other shit and the only way they could get them there was to make up the "we have dirt" bullshit.
Good to see you finally acknowledge the Democrats put all this in motion with their contact with the Russians then, when they got their asses handed to them, it spawned the "investigations" and TDS as we know it today.
You forgot "which ceased when Trump got the candidacy/presidency." It was real estate deals FFS you have even stated such on several occasions.
Lol. why do you even bother making these bizarre claims? Your own seed rebuts you.
"It was real estate deals FFS"
A real estate deal?
Talk to jbb about that. Has included that in the narrative, along with "give Putin a multi million dollar penthouse" bullshit
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Imagine if Obama had a side deal with Putin!
Except, Michael Cohen, Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump Junior already admitted to it!
So you are walking back your comment that the Judge said it wasn't a hoax? The childish memes throws it off (but I think that was your intent)
The judge ruled Trump had no case because the FBI and CIA investigations into Trump's Russian dealings were all legally predicated.
Predicated on Trump and Co seeking out and meeting with and establish ties to Russian secret agents. Interpol and MI6 noticed too.
Yeah he just had "more flexibility" after the election........................
Oh FFS.
Hillary was correct about EVERYTHING.
I know how much that pisses y'all off to no end!
Plus, is that all you have, deflection?
Where do yous see anything referencing Hillary in 3.1.32? I was responding to jbb's comment about Obama.
Lol. Keep making things up.
Admitted to what? That Trump was trying to get an in into Russia for a development/project? So fucking what.
Careful walking that back. Don't want you to slip in your own bs.
The huge plot was to license the Trump name to a developer and collect royalties. That's the extent of it.
Upon that perfectly mundane negotiation, a pyramid of lies and misinformation has been built. You'd think the Mueller report would have ended the conspiracy mongering, but nope.
You seem to think Trump was not defeated.
His case was thrown out for having no merit.
What about the part where Trump asked Putin to help Trump beat Hillary Clinton?
So he's conducting opposition research, the same thing the Clinton campaign was doing, is she colluding with Russia?
Show us!
Nowhere in that ruling does the judge say that Trump conspired with Russia
"Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation found repeated contacts between Russia-linked entities and Trump campaign officials before the election, but didn’t establish that anyone affiliated with his campaign knowingly conspired with Russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential campaign."
And yet we still have people babbling about Don Jr getting enticed into a nothing meeting
“.,,Don Jr getting enticed…”
The fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Looks like you are drowning, not swimming.
That doesn't look well for democrats when you apply that same saying to Biden and his crackhead kid.
Are you trying to tell me what to think?
Was Trump's case thrown out? Did he win it?
It was thrown out. He lost. These are FACTS!
Medvedev isn't Putin. Thanks for playing.
Did you miss the "Tell Vlad"?
Also means he won. No matter how much you cry about it, that's fact as well.
It's impossible to miss since it wasn't said. Why lie?
That's some epic pretzel logic right there Jeremy.
You may have missed this at the end of the exchange....................
Nope, I didn't miss that. You implied that Obama was making a deal with Putin. What Medvedev decided to share with Putin was on him, NOT Obama.
Fail.
Ummmmm Medvedev was on his way out and was going to pass the information on to Putin, his successor coming in May.
I'm just glad that he didn't have a silly 'reset button' for Medvedev like Hillary had for Sergey Lavrov.
No different than yours.
Actually, my comments have a foundation in fact and reality, Jeremy. Your comment has no such foundation.
In other words 200 pages of BS.
200 pages of political grievances.
And how many pages has the Dems/Libs racked up in the past 7 years???? Thousands upon thousands of pages filled with pure hate.
A Clinton appointee. Figures.
No conflict of interests here. Nope. Look the other way everyone.
The law is whatever Democrats say it is; and will be applied based on whatever they feel like at the time.
Ah, so when it's a Bill Clinton appointee from 25 years ago, it must be a conflict of interest, but when it's a Trump appointed judge from just a year and a half ago that goes out of her way to protect him it's all perfectly above board, no conflict of interest at all, nothing to see here...
Rightwing conservative hypocrisy truly knows no bounds.