Tag: judge
Judge Slaps Down Trump's Frivolous Lawsuit Against Clinton

Judge Slaps Down Trump's Frivolous Lawsuit Against Clinton

While Donald Trump managed to find a highly unqualified judge who was willing to work hand in hand with his attorneys to grant his “special master” request, his court shopping isn’t always so effective. Back in March, Trump filed a sprawling, 108-page conspiracy theory-laden lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and others, claiming that he was the victim of a “conspiracy to commit injurious falsehood” and basically that people had the audacity to try and stop him from winning the 2016 election. Clinton’s name may be at the top of the list, but the actual suit includes 35 named defendants, 10 John Does, 10 corporations, and the government. The list of charges is even longer.

Over the last few months, Trump’s legal team has responded to questions about the filing by making it even longer, padding it with more rambling pages, even more claims, and with complaints that Federal District Court Judge Donald Middlebrooks was also part of this grand conspiracy. On Thursday, Middlebrooks spent 65 pages explaining everything wrong with Trump’s ludicrous suit before dismissing “with prejudice” the charges against Clinton and others. The judge also sliced and diced claims from Trump that he was being nickeled and dimed over legal technicalities.

The inadequacies with Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint are not “merely issues of technical pleading,” as Plaintiff contends, but fatal substantive defects that preclude Plaintiff from proceeding under any of the theories he has presented. 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-hundred-page political manifesto outlining his grievances against those that have opposed him, and this Court is not the appropriate forum.

What makes this extra fun is that Trump really thought he might get something out of this despite the fact that the lawsuit reads very much like a transcription of one of his rambling, paranoia-filled rally speeches and includes an amazing list of charges against Clinton, the government, and everyone who opened their mouth to point out that Trump was, without a doubt, the worst candidate ever to stand for any office. Christopher Steele? In there. Peter Strzok? Of course. James Comey, Lisa Page, Fusion GPS, Bruce and Nelly Ohr, the DNC … Oh, the gang’s all here.

All of them are terrible, because not only does Donald Trump think that the only way he can lose an election is if someone cheated, he also believes that running against him in an election is a crime.

Why did Trump think any of this would work? Because Trump did with this suit did just what he did with the special master request: He filed it in a location where he knew there was a right-wing judge he had appointed. When his special master request reached Judge Aileen Cannon, she didn’t throw it back for not being properly filed or formed, she helped Trump’s attorney’s revise the document to get it over the transom. And when Trump failed to even make a request for injunction or relief that was okay because Cannon filled those those things in for him.

Trump certainly expected the same kind of loving care on this suit. However, the district court docketing system happened to toss the case to Middlebrooks. Who was appointed by President Bill Clinton. And Middlebrooks proceeded to make a tasty meal of Trump’s nonsense.

Trump tried to put the brakes on this outcome earlier by demanding back in April that Middlebrooks recuse himself because he wasn’t nominated by Trump. Middlebrooks took no time in denying Trump’s demand and explaining how all this is supposed to work.

Every federal judge is appointed by a president who is affiliated with a major political party, and therefore every federal judge could theoretically be viewed as beholden, to some extent or another. As judges, we must all transcend politics.

That would be nice. In this case, Middlebrooks then got on with the business of writing a novella on the silliness behind Trump’s claims.

In his lawsuit, Trump alleges that everyone, just everyone, was involved in a conspiracy in which they sought to “nefariously sway the public’s trust” and that they “worked together with a single, self-serving purpose: to vilify Donald J. Trump.”

If that was a crime, then a few hundred million people in this country would certainly be guilty. Fortunately, trying to win an election is still legal, for now.

Middlebrooks spent considerable time detailing the ways in which everything about Trump’s suit was the worst kind of nonsense. Not only did Trump wait so long in filing the complaint that he was well beyond the legal statute of limitations for such civil claims, this lawsuit repeated exactly the primary failing of his special master claim by failing to note any way in which Trump was actually harmed by any of the actions he described, or why anything said by Clinton and others was not “plainly protected by the First Amendment.”

The judge also made clear—at length—that court was not the place for this kind of dispute, that there was nothing that looked like legal harm to be found anywhere in all Trump’s claims, and that you can’t sue people just because you don’t like them.

In particular, Trump tossed in claims such as “racketeering” but failed to provide a single example of activity that fit such a charge. Middlebrooks actually pointed this out the last time he punted the suit back to Trump’s attorneys, but no one seems to have listened.

Fundamentally, Plaintiff cannot state a RICO claim without two predicate acts, and, after two attempts, he has failed to plausibly allege even one. Plaintiff cannot state an injurious falsehood claim without allegations of harm to his property interests. And Plaintiff cannot state a malicious prosecution claim without a judicial proceeding, but he unsuccessfully attempts to misconstrue, misstate, and misapply the law to do so anyway.

Trump claimed racketeering, but provided no evidence; charged that he was injured without showing any harm; and claimed “malicious prosecution” over something that didn’t even involve a court case. It is all just as foolish as it sounds.

But since, of course, the real purpose of this suit was to generate emails saying “Donald Trump needs $5 FROM YOU by MIDNIGHT or HILLARY Clinton might WIN!” What actually happened in court is of little consequence.

And Trump can now see if he can get such a filing in front of Cannon. She’s so helpful.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Conservative Judge: Trump And Allies Are

Conservative Judge: Trump Is ‘Clear And Present Danger’ To Democracy

Retired Judge J. Michael Luttig testified under oath before the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack on Thursday that the former president, Donald Trump, and his MAGA supporters are a “clear and present danger to American democracy.”

Luttig, a highly-respected conservative attorney and a former federal judge on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, advised then-Vice President Mike Pence that the John Eastman scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election was illegal.

“I have written, as you said, Chairman Thompson, that today – almost two years after that fateful day in January of 2021 – that still, Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy.”

“That’s not because of what happened on January 6. Is because to this very day, the former president, his allies and supporters, pledge that in the presidential election of 2024 if the former president or his anointed successor as the Republican Party presidential candidate were to lose that election that they would attempt to overturn that 2024 election in the same way that they attempted to overturn the 2020 election, but succeed in 2024 where they failed in 2020.”

Luttig goes on to say, “I would have never have spoken those words ever in my life except that that’s what the former president and his allies are telling us.”

“The former president and his allies are executing that blueprint for 2024 and open and plain view of the American public.”

Watch:

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

White House To Appeal Ruling Blocking Obama’s Immigrant Protections

White House To Appeal Ruling Blocking Obama’s Immigrant Protections

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Kathleen Hennessey and Michael Muskal, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

The Obama administration on Tuesday said it would appeal a move by a federal judge in Texas that temporarily stopped the president’s executive actions on immigration, an anticipated judicial roadblock that was greeted with partisan reactions.

In a decision released late Monday night, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen put on hold Obama’s executive action to protect between 4 million and 5 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally from deportation. The first of the actions, expanding a program that protects young immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children, was set to launch on Wednesday.

In a statement released early Tuesday morning, the White House said Obama’s November actions are within the president’s legal authority. The White House argued that the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress have said federal officials can establish priorities in enforcing immigration laws.

“The district court’s decision wrongly prevents these lawful, commonsense policies from taking effect and the Department of Justice has indicated that it will appeal that decision,” the statement said.

The White House would turn to the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. There was not yet an indication when the White House would act and the timing could be complicated by Mardi Gras in New Orleans and snow in Washington.

Hanen issued a preliminary injunction blocking the federal programs from going into effect. He did not rule on the merits of the case brought by a coalition of 26 states, led by Texas.

In a memorandum accompanying the order, Hanen wrote that the suit should go forward. Without a preliminary injunction, he said, the states would “suffer irreparable harm in this case.”

“The genie would be impossible to put back into the bottle,” he wrote, adding that he agreed that legalizing the presence of millions of people is a “virtually irreversible” action.

The government of Mexico on Tuesday said it regretted the court decision.

Mexican nationals make up the largest single group of immigrants who crossed the border illegally. The Mexican government, however, has been careful not to appear to be interfering in U.S. immigration policy.

“We reiterate that these programs mean just migratory relief for millions of families and could make possible contributions by Mexican migrants to the U.S. economy and society,” the Mexican Foreign Relations Ministry said in a statement.

“The Foreign Ministry calls on the Mexican community to remain informed about the development of the judicial-review process through official sources,” the statement added, cautioning Mexican nationals against possible fraudulent efforts by unscrupulous immigration brokers.

But most of the reaction to the court’s action was along partisan lines.

“The Texas court decision reached last night is a major turning point in the fight to stop Obama’s lawless amnesty,” said Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), a conservative who has been fighting the Obama administration on immigration. “This is a major victory for the rule of law; the District Court’s ruling states that President Obama must now stop implementing these policies in ‘any and all aspects.’ Last summer we saw a humanitarian crisis on our southern border that was a direct consequence of Obama’s previous amnesty. Republicans are now standing together to try to ensure that it never happens again.”

Congress, which is on recess this week, has been stymied in dealing with legislation that links a repeal of Obama’s actions to the funding for the Department of Homeland Security. Republicans in the House passed legislation linking the issues, but the bill has been blocked in the Senate where Democrats have called for a clean funding bill and a separate debate on immigration.
Speaker John A. Boehner (R-OH) indicated that in the House the GOP would continue pushing for a bill linking immigration and funding.

“The president said 22 times he did not have the authority to take the very action on immigration he eventually did, so it is no surprise that at least one court has agreed,” Boehner said in a prepared statement. “We will continue to follow the case as it moves through the legal process. Hopefully, Senate Democrats who claim to oppose this executive overreach will now let the Senate begin debate on a bill to fund the Homeland Security Department.”

Groups that represent undocumented immigrants condemned the Texas ruling and said it would only delay what they consider to be important actions by the Obama administration to deal with the complex issues of immigration reform.

“We disagree with the court’s decision and believe a higher court will reaffirm the legitimacy of administrative relief, siding with countless legal scholars that the president was well within his authority to act,” said Janet Murguia, president and chief executive of the National Council of La Raza, a leading advocacy group.

Obama’s executive actions “are among the only commonsense solutions on immigration that have emerged in the last two decades. Detractors of these programs may try to paint this as a fight with the president, but make no mistake: Attempts to dismantle these programs are attacks on American families. They are attacks on U.S. citizen spouses and children who are seeing their families torn apart because some of our lawmakers refuse to do what is necessary to fix our immigration system,” Murguia said.

Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott tweeted praise for the judge’s order late Monday, saying it “stops the president’s overreach in its tracks.”

“We live in a nation governed by a system of checks and balances, and the president’s attempt to bypass the will of the American people was successfully checked today,” Abbott wrote.
The White House, in a statement from Press Secretary Josh Earnest, said “the Department of Justice, legal scholars, immigration experts, and the district court in Washington, D.C., have determined that the president’s actions are well within his legal authority.”

The ruling “prevents these lawful, commonsense policies from taking effect,” the statement said.

The judge’s order bars federal immigration officials from implementing “any and all aspects” of the program that Obama announced in November.

After the White House and the GOP couldn’t reach agreement on comprehensive immigration reform, Obama announced that he would act on his own and used his executive authority to defer deportation for about 4.7 million immigrants illegally in the United States.

DAPA includes more than 4 million people who have lived in the United States for at least five years and are the parents of U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents.

Obama also expanded DACA, which allows young people brought into the United States as children to apply for deportation deferrals and work permits.

The 26 states promptly sued, arguing that Obama had overstepped his constitutional authority by acting without congressional approval.

The administration has argued that Obama acted within his constitutional powers, a position supported by four lawyers who formerly served as general counsel to the immigration agency. The administration also argues that the states lack legal authority, known as standing, to challenge the immigration order in court.

“This injunction makes it clear that the president is not a law unto himself, and must work with our elected leaders in Congress and satisfy the courts in a fashion our Founding Fathers envisioned,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement late Monday.

Don Reay, executive director of the Texas Border Sheriff’s Coalition, called it “a very good decision.”

“This is something that should be handled legislatively — it’s too big of an issue for one person to dictate it,” Reay said, adding that he hopes the decision will “make Congress realize they need to start doing something — they need to work together. Maybe this will precipitate something, not further the chasm.”

The president has been supported by about a dozen states, led by Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson. Groups representing cities — including Los Angeles New York, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia — have filed friend-of-the-court briefs supporting Obama.

(Staff writer Tracy Wilkinson in Mexico City contributed to this report.)

Photo: U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during a meeting with a group of young undocumented immigrants in the Oval Office of the White House on Feb. 4, 2015 in Washington, D.C. The five immigrants, known as “dreamers,” who meet with the president have received protections from deportation under a program Obama implemented in 2012. (Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press/TNS)