Former President Donald Trump has dropped his lawsuit against New York Attorney General Letitia James just a day after she was ordered to pay nearly $1 million in sanctions for what a federal judge called a “frivolous” lawsuit against Hilary Clinton.
Trump “voluntarily dismisses his claims in this action against the Defendant, LETITIA JAMES, without prejudice,” a brief filed Monday morning with U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks said.
Trump hit James with a lawsuit in November, accusing him of waging a “crusade” against him and “big, good businesses that have done nothing wrong.”
The lawsuit is in response to James’ civil suit against Trump and his three children over an alleged years-long tax fraud scheme. James is asking for $250 million in restitution.
“Donald Trump falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars to unfairly support himself and cheat the system, thereby cheating us all,” James said at a press conference in September.
Trump dropped his countersuit against James just a day after Middlebrooks — who is also overseeing Trump’s lawsuit against James — hit Trump and his lawyers with nearly $1 million in sanctions for what a judge called a “pattern of judicial abuse” of false filings. a lawsuit for political purposes against former 2016 presidential rival Clinton.
“Here, we are faced with a lawsuit that should not have been filed, that is frivolous, factually and legally, and brought in bad faith for an improper purpose,” Middlebrooks wrote in his decision.
In Thursday’s ruling, Middlebrooks warned Trump and his lawyers that they could face sanctions over the lawsuit against James. Trump withdrew his claim the next day.
″[Trump] is the mastermind of the strategic abuse of the judicial process, and he cannot be seen as a litigant blindly after the advice of the lawyer, “wrote Middlebrooks, according to ABC News. “He is very aware of the impact of his actions.”