Levin Report: Say a Prayer for the MarLago Busboys: Donald Trump Was Just Fined $1 Million for His Very Frivolous Clinton Lawsuit

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Something you might have picked up on over the last half decade is that Donald Trump has issues with Hillary Clinton and also loves to file frivolous lawsuits. (He’s also been on the receiving end of many a not frivolous suit, but that’s another story for another time.) Anyway, these two things collided last March when the ex-president sued his 2016 opponent and claimed—in actual court documents—that Clinton had attempted to “destroy his life.” Yes, the kind of accusation more typically made by hormonal teenagers when their parents don’t allow them to get a cell phone or go to the mall. In the 108-page suit, Trump alleged that Clinton and others (the Democratic National Committee, former FBI director James Comey, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, etc.) had “orchestrated an unthinkable plot” to undermine his 2016 campaign and subsequently his administration, by “weav[ing] a false narrative” that Trump “was colluding with a hostile foreign sovereignty,” i.e. Russia. While the allegations were both broad and baseless, the essential premise was that Clinton and her pals had attempted to take Trump down through illegal espionage and other schemes. Trump and his attorneys claimed the alleged conspiracy fell under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act—i.e. the law that was originally passed to prosecute the Mafia—and demanded more than $72 million in damages.

Unfortunately for the former guy, a federal judge did not believe the lawsuit was worth the paper it was printed on, and on Thursday let him know. In a 46-page ruling, US district judge Donald Middlebrooks wrote: “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.” Making it abundantly clear that he has the ex-president’s number, Middlebrooks added: “Mr. Trump is a prolific and sophisticated litigant who 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.”

In addition to having his ass handed to him by a member of the judiciary, Trump and the lawyer who filed the case for him, Alina Habba, were fined $937,989.39.

If the name Habba sounds familiar to you, it’s because she’s been working on some of Trump’s most high-profile cases—cases that no respectable attorney wanted to touch with a million-foot poll. Following the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago in August, Habba went on TV and suggested the government had planted evidence, a claim neither she nor her boss have been able to back up. She was also present while Trump was deposed last October in the E. Jean Carroll rape case, and had to explain to the 45th president that a photo of his accuser was not, in fact, his second ex-wife, Marla Maples.

Neither a spokesman for Trump nor Habba responded to The New York Times’ request for comment, though if we know our ex-president— and we think we do!—he’s busy putting the final touches on a fully unhinged statement re: “Crooked Hillary,” the deep state, Russia, and witch hunts to be released on Truth Social in short order.

In related news

On Friday, Trump withdrew his lawsuit against New York attorney general Letitia James, which the judge presiding over the Clinton suit has cited as an example of his flagrant abuse of the courts. Which would mean he might—might!—have read the room for the first time in his life.

Per Politico:

Trump’s attorneys on Friday withdrew a lawsuit against James filed in Florida last November that sought to block her access to a Sunshine State-based trust that holds many of his business assets…. Trump has blasted the suit, including after James won a judicial order in November that installed an independent monitor over his business dealings as the New York case proceeds. That case is ongoing.

In a statement, the NY AG’s office pointed out that Trump withdrew the suit on the same day his “reply to our motion to dismiss this case was due.” (Apparently he couldn‘t come up with something more compelling than “I’m suing you because I can.”)

Tucker Carlson is just gonna gloss over that whole “he committed a crime” part of the story

It’s not clear that Fox News understands you want the number to be smaller here

Former Trump secretary of state claims Jared and Ivanka were in cahoots to shiv Mike Pence

One of the objectively funniest moments of the period between 2016 and 2020 was when departing UN ambassador Nikki Haley used her 2018 resignation announcement to tell reporters: “Jared [Kushner] is such a hidden genius that no one understands.” If you missed it in real time, you really must take a moment to watch and listen as the words come out of her mouth:

At the time, Kushner’s career highlights included paying $1.8 billion for an aging Midtown skyscraper on the eve of the financial crisis; passing a crank call from a comedian pretending to be a Democratic senator onto his father-in-law, the president; and was registered to vote as a woman. Since then, his achievements have been convincing Donald Trump to fuel the longest government shutdown in history; reportedly shrugging his shoulders at the coronavirus because it was initially only hurting blue states; and cutting “the doctors” out of the federal response to the pandemic.

In other words, no one understood what Haley was talking about. Had she recently fallen and suffered a head injury? Did she know that, behind the scenes, Kushner’s Saudi ass-kissing and murder-excusing would pay off in the form of a $2 billion check? Was there another explanation for her deeply flattering and wholly unsubstantiated comment? A new book by one of her former administration colleagues suggests as much!

Per The Guardian:

In a new memoir peppered with broadsides at potential rivals in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state, accuses Nikki Haley of plotting with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump to be named vice-president, even while she served as Donald Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations. Describing his own anger when Haley secured a personal Oval Office meeting with Trump without checking with him, Pompeo writes that Haley in fact “played” Trump’s then chief of staff, John Kelly, and instead of meeting the president alone, was accompanied by Trump’s daughter and her husband, both senior advisers.

“As best Kelly could tell,” Pompeo writes, “they were presenting a possible ‘Haley for vice-president’ option. I can’t confirm this, but [Kelly] was certain he had been played, and he was not happy about it. Clearly, this visit did not reflect a team effort but undermined our work for America.”

It’s not clear if Jared and Ivanka were hoping to swap Haley for then VP Mike Pence before Trump’s first term was done, or if they wanted to do so for a second one. (On Thursday, Haley called Pompeo’s assertions “lies and gossip to sell a book.”) As The Guardian notes, Pompeo’s claim is bolstered by contemporaneous reporting that Trump was looking to dump Pence for Haley on a 2020 ticket, which the then president felt the need to deny. In June 2021, Jared and Ivanka reportedly spent a weekend with Haley at her Kiawah, South Carolina, home. A month later, my colleague Gabriel Sherman reported that Jared Kushner’s parents had hosted a private lunch at their Jersey Shore house for friends to meet Haley, where Kushner‘s father, Charles, predicted that Haley would be “the first woman president.”

Elsewhere!

The Supreme Court Leak Probe Seems to Have Left Exactly Nine Stones Unturned (VF)

Kevin McCarthy’s debt ceiling standoff is yet more Republican madness (The Guardian)

Yellen warns of “global financial crisis” if US debt limit agreement isn’t reached (CNN)

Why Biden’s Easy Path to Renomination Is Good for Democrats (Intelligencer)

Google parent Alphabet to cut 12,000 jobs, citing “economic reality” (NBC News)

Here}s what’s in Ivana Trump’s will, who gets her $34 million in assets (Insider)

Bank Worker Who Led Secret Life After $500,000 Heist Caught 25 Years Later (Bloomberg)

The lights have been on at a Massachusetts school for over a year because no one can turn them off (NBC News)

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