{"id":137869,"date":"2025-11-30T18:04:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T02:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/11\/30\/trump-and-habba-must-pay-million-dollar-stupid-tax-court-confirms\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T18:04:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T02:04:12","slug":"trump-and-habba-must-pay-million-dollar-stupid-tax-court-confirms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/11\/30\/trump-and-habba-must-pay-million-dollar-stupid-tax-court-confirms\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump And Habba Must Pay Million Dollar Stupid Tax, Court Confirms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just in time for Thanksgiving, the Eleventh Circuit finally weighed in on Donald Trump\u2019s appeal<\/a> that hoped to set aside the massive sanctions<\/a> slapped upon the president and his lawyers in the Florida conspiracy case against Hillary Clinton and most of D.C. In a unanimous opinion<\/a>, the panel reviewed Trump\u2019s deranged Hillary-Clinton-RICO fanfic and said: Absolutely not, you clowns owe the million dollars.<\/em><\/p>\n

Before the inevitable Truth Social posts blasting the George Soros-funded, radical, activist, soyboy circuit judges, we note that the opinion is authored by Chief Judge William Pryor, a man whose jurisprudence is generally best described as \u201cwhat if Federalist Society swag bags could vote<\/a>?\u201d Joining Pryor in the opinion were Judge Andrew Brasher \u2014 a Trump judge and Pryor\u2019s former clerk \u2014 and Biden-appointed Judge Embry Kidd. So, we\u2019re dealing with a deeply conservative majority here, and nonetheless upheld the sanctions with a brand of judicial deadpan usually reserved for telling a toddler to stop sticking forks into electrical outlets.<\/p>\n

This case began as a Trump shotgun manifesto disguised as a RICO complaint<\/a> alleging that Hillary Clinton conspired with James Comey, Perkins Coie, Marc Elias, the Tooth Fairy,\u00a0Jake Sullivan, the Democratic Party, and a series of John Does to cook up the Russia investigation and ruin his life. <\/p>\n

A conspiracy so damaging that Trump won the election.<\/p>\n

The case was assigned to Judge Donald Middlebrooks, who jettisoned the complaint<\/a>, warning ominously that he was reserving \u201cjurisdiction to adjudicate issues pertaining to sanctions.\u201d Those sanctions came in to the tune of a million dollars. Trump appealed, hoping for a friendly panel. As a partisan matter, it couldn\u2019t have gotten much friendlier\u2026 and he still lost. <\/p>\n

And Trump\u2019s favorite fantasy novel \u2014 The Durham Report \u2014 didn\u2019t change the matter:<\/p>\n

\n

We do not doubt that, in the light of the Durham Report, President Trump has concerns about some defendants\u2019 conduct during the 2016 election. The investigation by Special Counsel Durham found that some defendants played a role in orchestrating unverified allegations of him colluding with Russia. And it found that key allegations in the Steele Dossier, relied on by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the press, were never corroborated. Some appeared to be fabricated. The Special Counsel\u2019s investigation found that Bureau officials appeared to favor Clinton and that their investigation decisions reflected that preference. And it found that the Crossfire Hurricane investigation began without \u201cany actual evidence of collusion.\u201d Yet, those findings do not cure the deficiencies in Trump\u2019s racketeering claims.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Steele Dossier, a privately commissioned piece of opposition research, included some wild and probably untrue claims. But the right answer for any campaign looking over those allegations was to flag the issue for the FBI. The Durham Report can\u2019t change that the whole case was time-barred, unsupported, incoherent, and stitched together from misquoted sources and \u201cknowingly false or made with reckless disregard for the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Many of Trump\u2019s and Habba\u2019s legal arguments were indeed frivolous. Even setting aside the tolling arguments, the district court ruled that Trump brought several frivolous claims, including a \u201cmalicious prosecution claim without a prosecution,\u201d and a \u201ctrade secret claim without a trade secret.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Habba, of course, continues to fail upward. Having walked Trump into a million dollars worth of sanctions, she\u2019s presently cosplaying as the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey. Now that they\u2019ve lost the appeal, she\u2019s presumably on tap to take over as Attorney General.<\/p>\n

And life just got a million dollars more expensive for Donald Trump. This Trump economy is really hurting everyone, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

(Check out opinion on the next page\u2026)<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The post Trump And Habba Must Pay Million Dollar Stupid Tax, Court Confirms<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Just in time for Thanksgiving, the Eleventh Circuit finally weighed in on Donald Trump\u2019s appeal<\/a> that hoped to set aside the massive sanctions<\/a> slapped upon the president and his lawyers in the Florida conspiracy case against Hillary Clinton and most of D.C. In a unanimous opinion<\/a>, the panel reviewed Trump\u2019s deranged Hillary-Clinton-RICO fanfic and said: Absolutely not, you clowns owe the million dollars.<\/em><\/p>\n

Before the inevitable Truth Social posts blasting the George Soros-funded, radical, activist, soyboy circuit judges, we note that the opinion is authored by Chief Judge William Pryor, a man whose jurisprudence is generally best described as \u201cwhat if Federalist Society swag bags could vote<\/a>?\u201d Joining Pryor in the opinion were Judge Andrew Brasher \u2014 a Trump judge and Pryor\u2019s former clerk \u2014 and Biden-appointed Judge Embry Kidd. So, we\u2019re dealing with a deeply conservative majority here, and nonetheless upheld the sanctions with a brand of judicial deadpan usually reserved for telling a toddler to stop sticking forks into electrical outlets.<\/p>\n

This case began as a Trump shotgun manifesto disguised as a RICO complaint<\/a> alleging that Hillary Clinton conspired with James Comey, Perkins Coie, Marc Elias, the Tooth Fairy,\u00a0Jake Sullivan, the Democratic Party, and a series of John Does to cook up the Russia investigation and ruin his life. <\/p>\n

A conspiracy so damaging that Trump won the election.<\/p>\n

The case was assigned to Judge Donald Middlebrooks, who jettisoned the complaint<\/a>, warning ominously that he was reserving \u201cjurisdiction to adjudicate issues pertaining to sanctions.\u201d Those sanctions came in to the tune of a million dollars. Trump appealed, hoping for a friendly panel. As a partisan matter, it couldn\u2019t have gotten much friendlier\u2026 and he still lost. <\/p>\n

And Trump\u2019s favorite fantasy novel \u2014 The Durham Report \u2014 didn\u2019t change the matter:<\/p>\n

\n

We do not doubt that, in the light of the Durham Report, President Trump has concerns about some defendants\u2019 conduct during the 2016 election. The investigation by Special Counsel Durham found that some defendants played a role in orchestrating unverified allegations of him colluding with Russia. And it found that key allegations in the Steele Dossier, relied on by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the press, were never corroborated. Some appeared to be fabricated. The Special Counsel\u2019s investigation found that Bureau officials appeared to favor Clinton and that their investigation decisions reflected that preference. And it found that the Crossfire Hurricane investigation began without \u201cany actual evidence of collusion.\u201d Yet, those findings do not cure the deficiencies in Trump\u2019s racketeering claims.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Steele Dossier, a privately commissioned piece of opposition research, included some wild and probably untrue claims. But the right answer for any campaign looking over those allegations was to flag the issue for the FBI. The Durham Report can\u2019t change that the whole case was time-barred, unsupported, incoherent, and stitched together from misquoted sources and \u201cknowingly false or made with reckless disregard for the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Many of Trump\u2019s and Habba\u2019s legal arguments were indeed frivolous. Even setting aside the tolling arguments, the district court ruled that Trump brought several frivolous claims, including a \u201cmalicious prosecution claim without a prosecution,\u201d and a \u201ctrade secret claim without a trade secret.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Habba, of course, continues to fail upward. Having walked Trump into a million dollars worth of sanctions, she\u2019s presently cosplaying as the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey. Now that they\u2019ve lost the appeal, she\u2019s presumably on tap to take over as Attorney General.<\/p>\n

And life just got a million dollars more expensive for Donald Trump. This Trump economy is really hurting everyone, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

(Check out opinion on the next page\u2026)<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The post Trump And Habba Must Pay Million Dollar Stupid Tax, Court Confirms<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just in time for Thanksgiving, the Eleventh Circuit finally weighed in on Donald Trump\u2019s appeal that hoped to set aside the massive sanctions slapped upon the president and his lawyers in the Florida conspiracy case against Hillary Clinton and most of D.C. In a unanimous opinion, the panel reviewed Trump\u2019s deranged Hillary-Clinton-RICO fanfic and said: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":137671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Headshot-300x200-GyrEIe.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}