By A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld nearly $1 million in sanctions levied against President Donald Trump and his former attorney, Alina Habba, reaffirming a lower court’s conclusion that the pair pursued a meritless lawsuit accusing Hillary Clinton, former FBI Director James Comey, and dozens of others of engineering a political conspiracy.
In a unanimous decision, a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Trump’s attempt to revive the sprawling 2022 racketeering suit and backed the sanctions imposed for what judges described as an abuse of the judicial system. Chief Judge William H. Pryor Jr., writing for the court, said bluntly that “many of Trump’s and Habba’s legal arguments were indeed frivolous.” Judge Andrew Brasher and Judge Embry Kidd joined him, wrote Politico.
The panel’s 36-page ruling endorsed U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks’ assessment that Trump had displayed a “pattern of misusing the courts,” a factor Middlebrooks cited in ordering Trump and Habba to pay roughly $938,000 in attorneys’ fees and costs, along with a $50,000 penalty. Middlebrooks had dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice in January 2023 after finding it lacked legal or factual grounding.
The original complaint had accused Clinton and other defendants of orchestrating a vast scheme to manufacture allegations of collusion between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia, a narrative the suit claimed had prompted investigations such as the Mueller probe. Legal experts widely criticized the filing at the time as lacking merit.
Wednesday’s decision marks the second time in a week that the Atlanta-based court has rebuffed efforts by Trump to revive high-profile litigation targeting media organizations or political rivals. Earlier, a separate panel—one that also included two Trump-appointed judges—refused to reinstate a defamation case against CNN.
A spokesperson for the president’s personal legal team told The Hill that Trump “continues to fight back against all Democrat-led Witch Hunts, including the ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ hoax and un-Constitutional and un-American weaponization of our justice system” by the Biden administration.
The president will “continue to pursue this matter to its just and rightful conclusion,” the spokesperson added.
The case, filed in March 2022 in the Southern District of Florida, has now effectively reached its end—its dismissal intact, its sanctions affirmed, and its central allegations rejected at every stage.
Habba has since been appointed by the president to be acting U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey in July.
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