Trump lawyer torched for bragging about being sanctioned nearly $1 million over "frivolous" lawsuit

Trump lawyer Alina Habba took to the stage of an ultra-conservative convention over the weekend to brag about being sanctioned nearly $1 million by a Florida-based federal judge earlier this year. 

While delivering a speech at the four-day America Fest in Phoenix, Arizona, on Sunday, Habba recounted the outcome of a lawsuit she filed on behalf of former President Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton and dozens of federal officials that was assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Donald Middlebrooks, a Clinton-appointee, and dismissed in January of this year.

"What do you think happened? Nobody's heard of the case, right?" Habba asked the crowd. "It's 'cause it's gone. I never met the judge. I never walked into the courtroom."

Trump brought the sprawling lawsuit against Clinton and 30 other defendants, including FBI and Justice Department officials such as former FBI Director James Comey, in March of 2022, accusing the group of conspiring to spread false allegations of collusion between his campaign and Russia during the 2016 White House contest.

Middlebrooks dismissed the lawsuit that September in a scathing order, saying that the suit was “seeking to flaunt a two-hundred-page political manifesto outlining his grievances against those that have opposed him,” CNBC reported.

In her Sunday speech, Habba went on to recall the "probably 50 lawyers representing all of the radical left" in the case before returning to the lawsuit's dismissal. 

"It got dismissed, and me and President Trump got sanctioned a million dollars for going against crooked Hillary," Habba said, punctuating her claim with shakes of her right hand. 

Someone yelled, "What?" in apparent shock from the crowd, and Habba continued.

"You didn't know that, did you?" Habba replied. "Fake news, folks. Fake news. They won't report it.

"But guess what? We paid that million and we're gonna keep on fighting," she concluded with a deep nod as the audience erupted in applause and cheers. 

Legal experts were quick to note online that Habba's use of her legal penalty to rally support was questionable, also pointing out that news outlets had followed the lawsuit throughout its duration.

"Lawyer is sanctioned by a federal judge for bringing a frivolous case and blames the media for . . . not giving the sanction ruling enough attention. (P.S. it got a lot of attention ... )," Orin Kerr, a U.C. Berkeley law professor tweeted, linking to a report from The Associated Press covering Habba and Trump's sanction.

National security attorney Mark Zaid called Habba's boast "very strange."

"Apparently she wants publicity about how unethical a lawyer she is," he wrote on X. "It is incredibly hard to be sanctioned under Rule 11. It actually takes work! #egomaniac #FullOfOneSelf #MAGA (Make America Get Attorneys)."

"Parking garage lawyer who brought a case so frivolous she got sanctioned by the judge is now whining about it," national security attorney Bradley Moss added, referring to Habba's previous job as general counsel for a parking garage company.

In a scorching 46-page order filed in January, Judge Middlebrooks blasted Trump as a “mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process" and ordered him and Habba to pay $938,000 to cover the legal fees of the 31 defendants in the suit, Politico reported. 

“Here, we are confronted with a lawsuit that should never have been filed, which was completely frivolous, both factually and legally, and which was brought in bad faith for an improper purpose,” Middlebrooks wrote. “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.“

January's fine marked the second time Trump and Habba were sanctioned in the lawsuit, following the $50,000 sanction sought by a single defendant, Charles Dolan, in November 2022. The second sanction was sought by the remaining defendants. 

In the January order, Clinton received the biggest award of fees out of all the defendants, amounting to a $172,000 payout for Trump and his lawyer. 

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

The sanction kicked off Trump's year of legal setbacks in 2023, in which he accrued 91 charges across four criminal cases, related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and retain national security documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort club after leaving the White House. 

Middlebrooks' ruling provided a point-by-point rundown of the flaws in the former president's initial lawsuit, highlighting that it often misstated, distorted or cherrypicked from key documents he claimed supported his accusations against Clinton and the Justice Department that they were targeting him for criminal prosecution.