President Trump asked the Supreme Court on Friday to revive a dismissed 2022 lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, his lawyers say courts used sanctions to punish him.
Newsmax reported that the Friday filing asks the justices to restore a 2022 case lower courts already rejected. Defendants included Hillary Clinton, former FBI Director James Comey, and the Democratic National Committee.
The complaint accused them of conspiring to tie Trump’s 2016 campaign to Russia. Trump’s lawyers asked the justices to intervene, and they argued that judicial disagreement should not become a license to punish his lawyers.
Former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele was named in the same complaint. The petition now puts that Clinton lawsuit fight before the nation’s highest court.
The case never reached a trial. A district judge dismissed it, and an appeals court later agreed.
U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks dismissed the lawsuit in September 2022. In January 2023, he ordered Trump and then-attorney Alina Habba to pay nearly $1 million in sanctions, a court penalty tied to the filing.
Judge Middlebrooks described the complaint as a:
"two-hundred-page political manifesto"
The penalty hit after the case had already been thrown out. It landed on the president and on the lawyer who had handled the suit.
In November 2025, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a federal appeals court based in Atlanta, affirmed the dismissal and the sanctions. Both of Middlebrooks’s rulings stayed in force.
A three-judge panel unanimously upheld the dismissal and the penalty. Andrew Brasher, a Trump appointee, sat on that panel.
The panel stated:
"many of Trump's and Habba's legal arguments were indeed frivolous."
Clinton was Trump’s Democratic opponent in 2016 and remains a named defendant. Readers following her running public battles will see the same names still locked in court.
In court, frivolous means the judges concluded the arguments had no serious legal basis. That label is now part of the record Trump wants the Supreme Court to reopen.
Justice Clarence Thomas twice extended the president’s deadline to seek Supreme Court review. The most recent deadline was Oct. 9.
Trump’s attorneys then asked the justices to step in. They pointed to what they called "a deeply troubling trend" of federal courts using sanctions to punish the president.
Friday’s request came two days after Trump spoke with reporters in the Oval Office. He discussed Clinton and former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Trump told reporters he:
"could have done very bad things"
He said he chose to respect the presidency. He also predicted Democrats would try to impeach him if they retake Congress.
Clinton is still at the center of the case he wants revived. It is the same long conflict that has produced other Clinton objections since.
The justices now have a dismissed 2022 complaint, a nearly $1 million penalty, and an appeals court ruling that left both intact. Trump wants that whole chain unwound.
His impeachment warning was aimed at Democrats if they retake Congress. Readers watching Clinton’s party comments will hear that warning in the same fight.
Throwing out a case is a judge’s job. Fining the lawyers for bringing it is how a courtroom stops being a neutral forum.