President Trump asked the Supreme Court on Friday to reopen his dismissed lawsuit against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He challenged lower-court decisions that rejected his claims and imposed nearly $1 million in sanctions. His attorneys say the courts punished them for advancing legal positions they considered legitimate, and argue the justices should intervene to protect the presidency and its advocates.
The Appeal and the Sanctions
Trump filed the appeal after a federal judge dismissed the case and ordered Trump and his former attorney, Alina Habba, to pay nearly $1 million in sanctions. In 2025, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld both the dismissal and the sanctions. Trump's attorneys told the Supreme Court that the lower courts improperly punished them for pursuing legitimate legal claims, Reuters reported.
The attorneys described the lower-court decisions as part of “a deeply troubling trend of federal courts using sanctions and disciplinary threats to punish the president and his lawyers for legitimate legal positions that those courts (erroneously) reject.” They argued that Supreme Court intervention was necessary “to protect the presidency, and to prevent judicial disagreement from becoming a license to punish its advocates.” The filing places the lawsuit dispute alongside a broader argument by Trump's lawyers about how courts treat the president and attorneys representing him.
As of late Friday night, the case appeared on the Supreme Court's online docket system, but the page didn't yet list the reported filing. The most recent document available in the legal challenge was an application filed in late August seeking more time to submit the appeal. Justice Clarence Thomas approved the request and extended the deadline to Friday, Oct. 9.
What the Lower Courts Decided
Trump filed the lawsuit in 2022 against Clinton, former FBI Director James Comey, the Democratic National Committee and others. He accused them of conspiring to undermine his presidential bid by bolstering allegations that his campaign colluded with Russia.
U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks dismissed the case in September 2022, finding the claims legally insufficient and some filed too late. Middlebrooks later sanctioned Trump and Habba. He called the lawsuit a “two-hundred-page political manifesto” and accused Trump, who wasn't in office at the time of the challenge, of using the courts to advance political grievances.
Trump appointee Andrew Brasher sat on the unanimous three-judge appeals court panel that upheld the decisions. The panel found many of the lawsuit's arguments “frivolous.” Its ruling left the dismissal and sanctions in place before Trump asked the Supreme Court to review the case.
Trump's Public Comments
The appeal followed Trump's recent comments that he could have taken action against Clinton and former Presidents Obama and Biden but chose not to out of respect for the presidency. While discussing the possibility of facing another impeachment if Democrats regained control of Congress, Trump told reporters: “I could have done very bad things to Hillary Clinton. I could have done very, very bad things to Joe Biden.” The Supreme Court filing asks the justices to reopen the lawsuit and review how the lower courts handled it.