West News Wire: The former president Donald Trump withdrew his case against the New York Attorney General Letitia James less than a day after getting a warning from a federal judge.
The complaint was withdrawn in a brief letter submitted to U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks on Friday morning after he cautioned Trump’s legal team late on Thursday that it appeared to be frivolous.
The letter stated, “Plaintiff, President Donald J. Trump, today voluntarily dismisses his claims in this case against Defendant, Letitia James, without prejudice, by and through his undersigned counsel and pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(i).”
Trump’s lawsuit against the AG aimed to protect Trump’s revocable trust from James, who is currently suing the Trump Organization for $250 million on fraud-related grounds. James has accused Trump and his family members of “grossly” inflating the former president’s net worth by billions of dollars and of cheating lenders and others with false and misleading financial statements.
Trump, who has denied the allegations, has called the investigation by James, who is black, a politically motivated “witch hunt” by an attorney general he has called “racist.”
Trump’s suit against James accused her “intimidation and harassment” and of making repeated “attempts to steal, destroy or control all things Trump.”
On Thursday, Middlebrooks ordered Trump and his attorney Alina Habba to pay fines of nearly $1 million after determining that Trump’s 2022 lawsuit against Hillary Clinton was frivolous litigation meant only to “seek revenge.”
Trump had sued Clinton in March 2022, for allegedly “acting in concert” with top FBI leadership to invent what became known as the Russia investigation into interference in the 2016 election. Trump had argued that the Russia probe was “prolonged and exacerbated by the presence of a small faction of Clinton loyalists who were well-positioned within the Department of Justice.” Middlebrooks dismissed the lawsuit this past September.
In his Thursday opinion, the judge also cautioned Trump’s attorneys that they could face sanctions over their lawsuit against James.
In the opinion, Middlebrooks called Trump “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,” Middlebrooks wrote.
