A federal appeals court has upheld a judgment against President Donald Trump and Acting United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey Alina Habba over a lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and her allies.
A lower court had previously ordered Trump and Habba to pay almost $1 million in penalties for their “frivolous” lawsuit, according to The Hill.
A federal appeals court upheld nearly $1 million in penalties against President Trump and Alina Habba for filing “frivolous” lawsuits against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), former FBI Director James Comey and others.
William Pryor Jr., the chief judge for the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote Wednesday that the president and Habba committed “sanctionable conduct” by filing suit against the parties in 2022.
The president filed suit against Clinton, the DNC, Comey and 25 others more than three years ago, alleging they conspired to undermine his 2016 presidential campaign by accusing it of colluding with Russia.
The amended complaint alleged that Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee, and her allies attempted to “discredit, delegitimize and defame” Trump by producing false or misleading documents alleging his campaign coordinated with Russia.
NEWS: A federal appeals court panel has upheld the $1 million sanction against Trump and Habba for a "frivolous" lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, Comey, et al.
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) November 26, 2025
"Many of Trump’s and Habba’s legal arguments were indeed frivolous," Judge Pryor wrote.https://t.co/7zdyKHMkC6
However, District Judge Donald Middlebrooks, an appointee of former President Clinton, ruled in January 2023 that Trump’s case “should never have been brought” and ordered the president and Habba, then his personal attorney, to pay nearly $1 million in legal fees to the defendants.
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Pryor, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, wrote Wednesday that the president and Habba “give us no reason to reverse the district court’s ruling that these claims were frivolous.” Pryor’s ruling was co-signed by Circuit Judges Andrew Brasher, a Trump appointee, and Embry Kidd, an appointee of former President Biden.
Trump filed the lawsuit in March 2022 through his then-attorney Alina Habba. The president accused the defendants of conspiring together to damage his reputation by spreading disinformation about his 2016 presidential campaign. Clinton, the DNC, Comey, and their other comrades were instrumental in perpetuating the Russia collusion hoax to deceive the nation into believing that Trump’s campaign collaborated with the Kremlin to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.
Clinton and her allies created deceptive documents to push the hoax, the lawsuit alleged.
However, a federal judge in Florida shot down Trump’s case. In January 2023, he ruled that the lawsuit “should never have been filed” and deemed it frivolous. He further claimed no reasonable lawyer would have filed the case and that Trump was trying to use the court system to exact revenge on his enemies.
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