Court Rejects Trump Bid Against Clinton and Upholds $1M Penalty

A federal appeals court has refused Donald Trump’s attempt to restore his RICO case against Hillary Clinton and has upheld a penalty of nearly $1 million against President Donald Trump and his attorney Alina Habba, finding that they engaged in «sanctionable conduct» by filing a frivolous lawsuit targeting Clinton and former FBI Director James Comey.

In its opinion, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge William Pryor Jr.  added that Trump and Habba’s accusations «were indeed frivolous», echoing the assessment of the previous judge who handled the case.

Trump’s bid sought to reinstate the 2022 lawsuit targeting Clinton, Comey and others over allegations about ties between his 2016 presidential campaign and Russia. For years, Trump has claimed that Clinton orchestrated a broad conspiracy to fabricate false accusations against his 2016 campaign and to trigger investigations such as special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, but he failed to convince the court with the lawsuit he filed in 2022.

But the three-judge appeals panel composed of Chief Judge William Pryor Jr., a George W. Bush appointee, Trump appointee Andrew Brasher and Biden appointee Embry Kidd concluded unanimously that the district court judge who originally ruled against Trump had properly taken into account his «pattern of misusing the courts» when deciding to sanction him. The panel also found that the same standard justified sanctions against his attorney, Alina Habba and leaving in place a penalty of nearly $1 million against them.

In 2022, Trump filed a lawsuit claiming that Hillary Rodham Clinton, James Comey and others conspired to invent allegations of collusion with Russia during the 2016 campaign, which he argued damaged his reputation and business interests. In 2023, U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks, a Bill Clinton appointee, dismissed the case, describing the 193-page complaint as a «shotgun pleading» that was confusing and poorly structured.

Middlebrooks found that the lawsuit failed to identify any coordinated enterprise, did not allege valid criminal acts, did not show concrete financial damages and was filed outside the statute of limitations, concluding that it served a political rather than a legal purpose and writing: «This case should never have been brought. Its inadequacy as a legal claim was evident from the start. No reasonable lawyer would have filed it».

Donald Trump can still seek a rehearing by the full appeals court or ask the Supreme Court to take up the case, and he or the White House could yet comment publicly on the appeals panel’s decision.