Trump Misses Filing Deadline In Conspiracy Suit Against Clinton

 Trump Misses Filing Deadline In Conspiracy Suit Against Clinton

In an effort to prevent the United States from being dropped as a defendant in a lawsuit in which the former president claimed that Hillary Clinton and other authorities colluded against him during the Russia investigation, Donald Trump's attorneys missed a crucial filing deadline.

The U.S. government, one of many defendants in the lawsuit brought under a civil racketeering law, filed a motion to dismiss on August 31, and U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks stated on Friday that Trump did not reply by September 1 to that motion. Middlebrooks, a Clinton appointment, gave Trump a deadline extension until September 6 but issued a caution to the former president.

“I caution plaintiff that if no response to the United States’ motion is timely filed by the extended deadline, then I will evaluate the merits of the United States’ motion without the benefit of counterargument, and I will grant the motion if I am satisfied that there is a sufficient legal basis to do so,” the judge wrote. 

Trump’s lawyers said in a statement that the missed deadline was the result of a procedural misunderstanding about the type of response they were filing, and that the document would be filed soon. 

Clinton and other defendants have also filed motions to dismiss. The case is Trump v. Clinton, 22-cv-14102, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida.