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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (CN) — Attorneys for President Donald Trump on Tuesday urged a panel of 11th Circuit judges to revive his racketeering lawsuit accusing Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee of a coordinated conspiracy to fabricate evidence of his collusion with Russia during the 2016 election.
The suit, filed in South Florida federal court in March 2022, was swiftly dismissed by U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks, a Bill Clinton appointee, who branded the 200-page amended complaint a “political manifesto” lacking valid RICO or other claims. In January 2023, Middlebrooks slapped nearly $1 million in sanctions on Trump and his lawyers for filing a “frivolous” action.
Trump blasted Middlebrooks in appellate briefs, accusing him of bias and demanding recusal for “apparent antagonism.” During Tuesday’s oral arguments, attorney Richard C. Klugh zeroed in on the judge’s dismissal of the complaint as a “shotgun pleading.”
But Chief Judge William Pryor — an appointee of President George W. Bush — wasn’t buying it.
“I can read the complaint … . It is a classic shotgun pleading,” Pryor shot back. “It incorporates hundreds of paragraphs into succeeding counts.”
Klugh countered that the shotgun label was only a partial basis for dismissal and that Middlebrooks denied Trump any chance to amend. He then pivoted to the merits of the case, insisting the RICO claims, plus injurious falsehood and malicious-prosecution conspiracy counts, were legally sound.
“Here, the hiding of the motivation, the structure, the payment, the participation and how the participation was organized was crucial to initiating the phony Russia collusion investigation,” Klugh argued. “It was, in our view, absolutely fundamental.”
Klugh also said “over a million dollars” was exchanged between the defendants, “and the money spread out far and wide.”
“In olden times, the lesson was to follow the money. … That was considered the key to unraveling and to establishing the connection or the conspiracy,” he said. “This enterprise has a criminal component to it. It links back to the fundamental purpose of the crimes here, which was to upset the democratic process.”
He said the statute of limitations should have been paused because Trump was president until January 2021 and couldn’t fully pursue the case, while other facts were concealed until as late as 2023, when they were revealed in the Durham Report.
Representing Clinton, attorney David Evan Kendall argued that the legal rules Trump’s team relied on — especially the Clayton Act’s tolling provision — do not apply to the racketeering claims in this case, and no proper parallel government case existed that would allow such pause on the statute of limitations anyway. He emphasized that Trump’s lawsuit failed to show specific, direct business or property damages, which are required for claims like injurious falsehood.
“They’ve pitched their tent on injurious falsehood … and they’ve got to allege that falsehoods were aimed at the plaintiff to deprive [Trump] of property or business,” Kendall said. “Here, the damages alleged are political in nature: injury to reputation, likeability and so forth.”
Kendall agreed the complaint was a shotgun pleading that lumped too many vague accusations together, arguing there is no reason to allow special deadline exceptions for the president.
U.S. Circuit Judge Embry Kidd, a Joe Biden appointee, asked Kendall to “close the loop” on the parties’ disagreement over the statute of limitations. Kendall said there is a “very high bar” for equitable tolling, and “there are no carve-outs” for the president.
Attorney George Doumar argued there was no factual basis for claims his client, Charles Dolan, was involved.
“My client did not have any of these contacts,” Doumar said. “He did not know anybody … He wasn’t part of any conspiracy. Essentially, my client is depicted as some big shot in the Clinton campaign, when nothing of the sort was true.”
Doumar emphasized that he followed proper legal procedure by warning the opposing side through a Rule 11 letter, aiming to have the baseless accusations dropped. He maintained the court was right to issue sanctions against Trump’s legal team for pursuing such unfounded and overly broad claims.
Attorney Anthony Michael Pratt, representing Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd., argued the court lacked personal jurisdiction over his client because it is a British company with no sufficient connections to the U.S. for this case. Orbis was co-founded by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer who was involved in creating the controversial Steele dossier of opposition research on Trump.
The panel also included U.S. Circuit Judge Andrew Brasher, a Trump appointee. Brasher probed whether Trump’s claims met necessary legal standards for specificity, timeliness and damages. He questioned whether parts of the president’s injurious falsehood claims could still go forward despite possible statute of limitations problems, explored what was required to plead “special damages,” and asked if Trump’s legal expenses might count as such damages.
The judges did not indicate when they might issue a ruling.
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