President Donald Trump has signaled that he plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to revive his dismissed civil lawsuit accusing Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee and other political opponents of conspiring to damage his 2016 campaign with allegations of ties to Russia. The development became public after Justice Clarence Thomas granted Trump additional time to submit a petition seeking Supreme Court review.
The proposed appeal concerns a case Trump filed in federal court in Florida in March 2022. He alleged that Clinton and numerous other defendants coordinated a false narrative linking his presidential campaign to Russia. U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks dismissed the complaint in September 2022, concluding that its claims did not belong in court and that several legal theories were unsupported.
Middlebrooks later imposed nearly one million dollars in sanctions on Trump and one of his lawyers, Alina Habba. The judge described the lawsuit as frivolous and brought for an improper purpose. The sanctions and the dismissal are separate rulings, but together they established the legal record that Trump has continued to challenge through the federal appellate system.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit rejected Trump’s effort to revive the underlying lawsuit. According to the appellate record and current legal reporting, his anticipated Supreme Court petition is expected to focus on the appeals court’s conclusion that he waited too long to sue. A grant of extra filing time is an administrative step and does not indicate that the justices will hear the case or agree with Trump.
The dispute returns a major conflict from the 2016 election to the courts while Trump is serving a second presidential term. It also places another personal legal matter involving the president before a Supreme Court with a six-member conservative majority. Thomas’s extension permits a petition, but at least four justices would still have to vote to accept the appeal for full review.
Trump’s lawyers must now file the promised petition and identify the precise federal questions they want the justices to decide. Clinton and the other defendants may respond if the court requests an answer. Until the Supreme Court acts, the Eleventh Circuit’s decision remains in place and the original lawsuit remains dismissed.
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