The petition

On Friday, 9 October, President Donald Trump asked the US Supreme Court to revive his lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, his 2016 Democratic rival. The petition follows the dismissal of the case by a federal judge, who also imposed nearly $1 million in sanctions on Trump and one of his lawyers for bringing what the judge called a "frivolous" suit. A US appeals court subsequently upheld both the dismissal and the sanctions. In the appeal, Trump's lawyers argue that Supreme Court review is necessary to protect the presidency. They contend that the lower-court decisions reflect a troubling trend of federal courts using sanctions and disciplinary threats to punish a president and his lawyers.

What the 2022 lawsuit alleged

Trump filed the suit in 2022, after losing the 2020 election, in federal court in Florida. It names Clinton, former FBI Director James Comey, former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, the Democratic National Committee and numerous others. The complaint alleges that in the lead-up to the 2016 election, Clinton conspired with allies to discredit Trump with a "false narrative" that he and his campaign colluded with Russia. It also alleges "racketeering" and a "conspiracy to commit injurious falsehood", among other claims. Trump has called the idea of Russian interference a "hoax". An investigation led by former FBI chief Robert Mueller documented extensive contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives who sought to influence the election in his favor.

Dismissal and sanctions

US District Judge Donald Middlebrooks dismissed the suit, citing numerous inadequacies, including that Trump waited too long to bring some of the claims. He likened the complaint to a "two-hundred-page political manifesto outlining his grievances against those that have opposed him". Middlebrooks later ordered Trump and his lead attorney in the case, Alina Habba, to pay nearly $1 million in fees and costs. He said the case was intended "to dishonestly advance a political narrative". The ruling described some statements in the complaint as knowingly false and some legal arguments as baseless, and it faulted Trump and his lawyers for repeated abuse of the judicial system.

Appeal and the Supreme Court

Trump pursued an appeal, and the federal appeals court in Atlanta upheld the dismissal and the sanctions in 2025. The appeals court found that a number of legal arguments made by Trump and Habba were indeed baseless. Trump's petition to the Supreme Court on Friday seeks to reopen that outcome at the highest level of the US judiciary. The sanctions remain part of the order that the petition challenges, with the nearly $1 million in fees and costs still attached to the case.

The Russia backdrop

A later report by special prosecutor John Durham, issued in 2023, found that the FBI investigation into links between the Trump campaign and Russia was opened on thin grounds, including claims from Steele. The Steele dossier, published by some media during the 2016 campaign, contained unconfirmed allegations that Russians held compromising material on Trump, and those claims were not confirmed by the investigations. Trump has consistently described the whole affair as a hoax.