On Thursday of this past week, U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks followed up his earlier dismissal of former President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and others by placing sanctions of nearly one million dollars on Trump and his lawyers, charging that they had filed a “revenge” lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and some of her political associates. Middlebrooks was appointed to the southern district of Florida in 1997 by Hillary’s husband, President Bill Clinton.
The ruling by Middlebrooks illustrates a continuing problem, as not only agencies of the executive branch, such as the Department of Justice, but in many cases the courts as well have been “weaponized” against those who do not toe the progressive line.
Trump’s federal RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) suit was filed in March 2022 in Miami, Florida, in reaction to the actions of Hillary Clinton and others in what is now known as the Russia Collusion hoax. For about two years, the hoax, driven by the Clinton campaign in 2016 and aided by the FBI, the Department of Justice, and allies in the mainstream media, undermined first Trump’s presidential campaign, and then his presidency. The hoax almost certainly led to the switch of the House of Representatives from Republicans to Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections.
In his lawsuit, Trump asked for treble damages of expenses and losses of more than $24 million. The suit argued, “Defendants, blinded by political ambition, orchestrated a malicious conspiracy to disseminate patently false and injurious information about Donald J. Trump and his campaign, all in the hopes of destroying his life, his political career, and rigging the 2016 Presidential Election in favor of Hillary Clinton.”
The evidence in favor of Trump’s assertions seems overwhelming. In federal court, Clinton’s former campaign manager, Robby Mook, testified that Hillary Clinton personally approved of her campaign’s scheme in the fall of 2016 to give to a reporter the story that there was a back channel between Trump and a top Russian bank.
Mook said he attended a meeting with other senior campaign officials where they learned about strange cyberactivity that suggested a relationship between the Trump organization and Alfa Bank, which is based in Moscow. The group decided to share the information with a reporter, and Mook subsequently ran that decision by Clinton herself.
“We discussed it with Hillary,” Mook said, later adding that “she agreed with the decision.”
One would think that Trump’s lawsuit against those who orchestrated the Russia Collusion hoax would merit at least being heard by a federal jury. After all, the massive lie that Donald Trump colluded with Russian President Vladimir Putin to rig the 2016 presidential election not only caused great harm to Trump, it poisoned American political discourse for most of his presidency. It could be argued that this poisoning caused permanent damage to the country.
Yet, Judge Middlebrooks has opted not only to dismiss the case, but to fine Trump and his lawyers who brought the suit. Middlebrooks, in a ruling dripping with vitriol, charged that Trump “is not attempting to seek redress from any legal harm. Instead, he is seeking to flout a two-hundred page political manifesto outlining his grievances against those who have opposed him and this Court is not the appropriate forum.”
Middlebrooks’ ruling is not surprising, considering his longtime Democratic Party ties. He is not just some disinterested judge, but rather a strong partisan. He was the general counsel for Governor Reubin Askew of Florida (a Democrat) from 1974-1977. Askew was the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention that nominated Senator George McGovern in 1972, and was even strongly considered as McGovern’s running mate. Askew even flirted with the idea of running against President Ronald Reagan in 1984.
In other words, Middlebrooks, before he was elevated to the federal bench by the husband of the woman whose case he was considering, along with longtime Clinton political allies John Podesta, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), and others, was a staunch Democratic activist himself.
This weaponization of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the federal court system is a problem for anyone who opposes the progressive movement. If the DOJ, led now by Merrick Garland, who carries his own grudge over being blocked from a post for the Supreme Court in 2016, decides to bring a case against someone in the District of Columbia, the grand jury pool will be drawn from a community that regularly votes well over 90 percent Democratic in elections. An indictment for just about anything is a near-guarantee for anyone who is even just a moderate Republican.
And then, if the person is indicted, he or she will face a trial jury that will be drawn from the same political demographic.
Even if the indictment does not result in a conviction, or if the conviction is subsequently overturned on appeal, the person will no doubt be ruined politically, and probably socially and economically as well. We could expect the media to treat any such indictment and resulting conviction — even if later overturned — as proof that the person charged is really guilty.
On the other hand, if someone is favored by the political Left, it is highly unlikely that he will be even charged by the DOJ, much less indicted or convicted.
And, Judge Middlebrooks is sending a signal to others who resort to the court system to obtain some measure of justice after going through anything similar to what Trump endured, unfairly, for two years. If you dare to bring a case before a judge like him, expect to be punished for that.
In a civil society, we settle our differences with the ballot box and with the jury box. But if we cannot trust the election system to be run fairly, or that the courts are fair and impartial, we have a very serious problem.
