- A federal judge dismissed Trump's lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and ex-FBI officials.
- Trump originally filed the lawsuit against Clinton and others last March.
A federal judge in Florida dismissed former President Donald Trump's lawsuit against 2016 Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and former FBI officials, rejecting Trump's allegations that Democrats rigged the election and conspired to undermine his presidential campaign by linking him to Russia.
US District Judge Donald Middlebrooks said in his ruling on Thursday that Trump's lawsuit had "glaring structural deficiencies."
"Plaintiff cannot state a malicious prosecution claim without a judicial proceeding, but he unsuccessfully attempts to misconstrue, misstate and misapply the law to do so anyway," Middlebrooks said in the ruling.
The ruling comes after Trump filed a lawsuit in March against 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, her top campaign advisers and others, alleging that they conspired "to commit injurious falsehood" against him.
Defendants in the lawsuit also included former FBI Director James Comey, Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, who led one of the impeachment trials against Trump, and other FBI officials that investigated whether Trump's campaign coordinated with Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential elections.
In the Thursday ruling, Middlebrooks wrote that Trump is not seeking "redress for any legal harm" but instead is "seeking to flaunt a two-hundred-page political manifesto outlining his grievances against those that have opposed him."
Alina Habba, an attorney for Trump, said that Trump will "immediately move to appeal this decision."
"We vehemently disagree with the opinion issued by the Court today. Not only is it rife with erroneous applications of the law, it disregards the numerous independent governmental investigations which substantiate our claim that the defendants conspired to falsely implicate our client and undermine the 2016 Presidential election," she said in a statement.
Clinton's legal counsel in April asked the judge to dismiss the case, arguing that the lawsuit had no merit. David Kendall, a attorney representing Clinton, applauded the ruling, saying "the court's opinion meticulously and comprehensively devastates Trump's allegations."