Trump Lawyers Fined $50K for ‘Shotgun’ Russia Dossier Filing

At least four of former President Donald Trump’s attorneys were ordered to pay $50,000 plus legal fees to one of the 29 defendants named in his RICO suit against Hillary Clinton. The lawsuit, which a lower court had already deemed ‘frivolous,’ claimed Clinton directed the production of a dossier alleging Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia. But there were several glaring falsehoods in the filings — including a reference to one defendant, Charles Dolan, as a “close associate” of Clinton’s (they had never met) and a “former chairman” of the DNC (a job he never held). Dolan later filed a motion for sanctions against the attorneys — Alina Habba, Peter Ticktin, Michael Madaio and Jamie Alan Sasson — and their respective firms. In his ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Donald Middlebrooks deemed it a ‘shotgun lawsuit’ that ‘deliberately misrepresented public documents’ — and ordered the lawyers to pay up.