Trump takes suit against Hillary Clinton over 2016 election to Supreme Court

(COMBO) This combination of pictures created on October 09, 2016 shows Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during the second presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri on October 9, 2016. / AFP / Paul J. Richards (Photo credit should read PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)

U.S. President Donald Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to revive his dismissed lawsuit against his 2016 Democratic rival Hillary Clinton accusing her of conspiring along with former FBI director James Comey and others to rig that year’s election by linking his campaign to Russia.

The Republican president filed his appeal after a federal judge threw out the case and imposed nearly US$1 million in sanctions against Trump and one of his lawyers for bringing a “frivolous” suit. A U.S. appeals court subsequently upheld the dismissal and sanctions.

Trump’s lawyers wrote in the appeal that Supreme Court review of the case is needed in order to protect the presidency. They wrote that the decisions by the lower courts reflect “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.”

In 2022, when he was out of office after losing the 2020 election, Trump sued Clinton, Comey, former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, the Democratic National Committee and numerous others in a lengthy complaint filed in federal court in Florida.

Trump, who has a history of suing adversaries, alleged that in the lead-up to the 2016 election, Clinton conspired with allies to discredit him with a “false narrative” that he and his campaign colluded with Russia. The lengthy suit alleged “racketeering” and a “conspiracy to commit injurious falsehood,” among other claims.

Trump defeated Clinton in that election, despite losing the national popular vote, and served his first term in office from 2017 to 2021.

U.S. government officials have accused Russia of meddling in the 2016 election, and 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. Trump has called the idea of Russian interference a “hoax.”

Since losing to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, Trump has made false claims of widespread voting fraud in that year’s election. Trump regained the presidency by defeating Democrat Kamala Harris in 2024, and has continued to make those false claims.

‘Political manifesto’

U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks dismissed Trump’s lawsuit against Clinton, citing numerous inadequacies, including that Trump waited too long to bring some of the claims. The judge likened Trump’s lawsuit 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 US$1 million in fees and costs, imposing the sanctions for bringing a case that the judge said was intended “to dishonestly advance a political narrative.” The judge also faulted Trump and his lawyers for a “continuing pattern of misuse of the courts.”

Middlebrooks found that the lawsuit used abusive litigation tactics, contained “knowingly false” factual allegations and asserted “frivolous” legal theories.

The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the judge’s rulings in 2025, including the sanctions.

“Many of Trump’s and Habba’s legal arguments were indeed frivolous,” the 11th Circuit stated.

In Friday’s filing, lawyers for Trump and Habba said the time limit for filing the lawsuit should have been extended because he chose to defer suing during his first term in office in order to carry out his constitutional responsibilities as president.

“This court’s intervention is necessary to protect the presidency, and to prevent judicial disagreement from becoming a license to punish its advocates,” the filing stated.

Mueller, serving as a special counsel appointed by the Justice Department, issued a 2019 report on his investigation. The report stated that Russia “interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion,” but also stated that “the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

Mueller said in his report that he found “numerous links” and that the Trump campaign “expected it would benefit” from Russia’s effort to tilt the ballot in Trump’s favour.

Trump’s then-Attorney General William Barr appointed a different special counsel, John Durham, in 2019 to look into potential missteps by the FBI.

In a 2023 report, Durham concluded that the FBI lacked “actual evidence” to investigate Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and relied too heavily on tips provided by Trump’s political opponents to fuel the probe.

Trump’s Justice Department last year indicted Comey, one of several adversaries of the president hit with criminal charges, accusing him of making false statements and obstructing Congress after he was accused of lying about authorizing leaks to the news media. A federal judge subsequently dismissed the indictment, finding that the prosecutor who Trump handpicked to prosecute Comey had been unlawfully appointed.

Steele, working for an opposition research firm that was hired by a law firm on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, produced a dossier that alleged ties between Trump’s campaign and Russia as well as other salacious accusations, all of which Trump denied.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)

Andrew Chung, Reuters