During Donald Trump’s New York bank fraud trial, the former president almost made it a sport to attack one of the court’s officers—the law clerk for the judge presiding over the case. Trump particularly complained that the law clerk had made political donations, arguing that such activity barred her from participating in his trial.
As bad faith as that argument may be—court staff aren’t barred from making political donations—one Twitter troll took up Trump’s cause by suing a journalist and the clerk, garnering plenty of media coverage and furthering the narrative that the clerk’s behavior was in some way improper.
But on Friday, this MAGA devotee quietly dropped the lawsuit, seemingly realizing that his case was doomed.
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The controversy all started when the twice-impeached former president, who’s currently facing nearly 91 criminal charges in four different states, tried to lighten the legal load that’s burdening his 2024 presidential run by turning the heat on the court that could cost him more than $250 million and topple his real estate empire.
His target was Allison Greenfield, the right-hand legal adviser to Justice Arthur F. Engoron, who is all but sure to punish Trump for years of lying about property values.
To that end, Trump spread fake accusations about her romantic life by sharing a salacious Twitter post by @JudicialProtest—an account run by Brock Fredin, a Wisconsin man who filed a complaint about Greenfield’s political leanings.
But when the journalist Adam Klasfeld at The Messenger took a closer look at Fredin and exposed his “prolific history of civil and criminal litigation over his harassment of women,” Fredin sued him, The Messenger, and Greenfield for defamation in December.
In later court filings, Fredin added Law360 courts reporter Frank G. Runyeon to the list of defendants, too. The case listed no lawyer, as Fredin went solo—without heeding the old adage, “He who represents himself has a fool for a client.”
Fredin dropped the entire matter on Friday, days before the deadline for the journalists and court lawyer to respond—a notable choice that arguably shows what the lawsuit really was: legal trolling.
“Brock Fredin hereby gives notice that the above-captioned action is voluntarily dismissed, without prejudice,” he wrote.
But there’s good reason Fredin dropped the suit on Friday. Had he waited until next week, the trio could have sought attorney fees if they’d beaten him in court.
Fredin, Greenfield, Klasfeld, and Runyeon did not immediately provide comment.
