President Trump has asked the Supreme Court to reinstate his 2022 lawsuit accusing Hillary Clinton of a coordinated smear against his first campaign after lower courts tossed the case and imposed nearly $1 million in sanctions.
On Friday, President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to reinstate a lawsuit he filed in 2022 against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others over claims tied to his first presidential run. The suit alleged that Clinton conspired with the FBI and other power players to sabotage that campaign.
A federal judge in Florida threw the case out in 2022 and ordered Trump’s team to pay nearly $1 million in sanctions. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals backed that ruling last year. Trump is now taking the fight higher, seeking to put the dismissed claims back before a court.
The Washington Examiner reported that Trump’s lawsuit accused Clinton of coordinating with then-FBI Director James Comey and the Democratic National Committee to fabricate claims meant to damage his 2016 campaign. Those are Trump’s allegations as framed in the case he wants revived.
The Florida dismissal and the appeals court decision left the lawsuit dead in the lower federal courts. Sanctions near the $1 million mark added a steep price to the loss. Trump’s petition asks the Supreme Court to undo that result and let the case proceed.
That move tracks other recent legal pushes from Trump’s side to keep high-stakes political fights alive, including when Trump petitioned the Supreme Court on related Clinton litigation over 2016 Russia claims.
Named in the original action were Clinton, Comey in his then-role as FBI director, the FBI itself, and the Democratic National Committee. Trump’s core charge was a conspiracy to smear his campaign through fabricated Russia-related claims. The lower courts did not let those claims go to trial.
Clinton has stayed active in Democratic politics even as Trump returns to the White House and keeps pressing old grievances through the courts. Her recent moves include when Hillary Clinton backed a Minnesota Democrat in an early 2026 Senate endorsement fight.
She has also drawn conservative pushback for public comments on messaging and policy, from conceding that a GOP “communist” label may stick to objecting to a Trump executive action on Lake Ontario. None of that resolves the 2022 lawsuit. It does show why a revived case against her still carries political weight for Trump’s base.
Trump has prepared for continued Democratic legal and investigative pressure as well, including steps to set aside PAC millions as Democrats threatened family investigations after the midterms. His Supreme Court ask fits a pattern of refusing to treat dismissed political cases as finished business.
The verified timeline is short and hard. Trump filed in 2022. A Florida federal judge dismissed the suit that same year and imposed nearly $1 million in sanctions on his team. The 11th Circuit affirmed last year. On Friday, Trump asked the Supreme Court to reinstate the case.
No case number, judge’s name, or full defendant list appears in the available reporting. No verbatim excerpts from the petition, the sanctions order, or the appeals ruling were published in the seed coverage. What is clear is the ask: reopen a lawsuit that lower courts shut down and hit with heavy financial penalties.
Clinton’s own recent commentary has sometimes handed Republicans easy openings, including when Clinton conceded a GOP “communist” label would land and warned Democrats they were not ready. Separate conservative mockery followed her Lake Ontario objection to a Trump action. Those episodes are political weather. The lawsuit is a formal claim about 2016 conduct that courts so far have refused to hear.
Taxpayers and voters spent years living with the Russia collusion narrative that dominated cable news, congressional hearings, and federal investigations after 2016. Trump’s suit called that narrative a coordinated smear. Judges in Florida and at the 11th Circuit said the case could not go forward and made his side pay. The Supreme Court now gets the chance to say whether that was the last word.
Accountability does not end because a trial court and one appeals panel closed the file. If the claims about Clinton, Comey, the FBI, and the DNC have merit, the highest court should let them be tested. If they do not, the public still deserves a clear final ruling rather than a sanctions bill and a locked door.
