In late July 2026, Trump signaled he will ask the Supreme Court to revive the racketeering lawsuit he filed in March 2022 against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, and more than two dozen others over the Steele dossier and the Russia investigation. In a filing dated July 23 and made public July 28, his lawyers asked for more time to file a petition, saying it would raise “exceptionally important” issues. Justice Clarence Thomas, who handles such routine requests from the 11th Circuit, granted the extension on July 29, moving the deadline to September 9. That is an extension to file, not a decision to hear the case and not a ruling on its merits.
The suit has lost at every level. U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks dismissed it in September 2022, and in January 2023 he imposed nearly $1 million in sanctions on Trump, his lawyer Alina Habba and her firm, writing that Trump “is the mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process.” In November 2025 a unanimous 11th Circuit panel found the claims untimely and meritless and upheld the sanctions; Chief Judge William Pryor rejected Trump's argument that his presidency should have paused the statute of limitations, writing, “This argument gives away the game.” On May 12, 2026, the full court denied rehearing, with no active judge asking for a vote.
Trump's lawyers say the case “involves a series of fundamental legal errors by the district court and the court of appeals,” and that the petition will raise questions about whether the statute of limitations is tolled for claims by a sitting president. The move keeps a president pursuing a long-dismissed lawsuit against his 2016 opponent after courts sanctioned his side for filing it.
Update (October 2, 2026): In late August, Trump's lawyers asked for a second 30-day extension, citing “the press of urgent business by the lead Petitioner, President of the United States” and his “vital role as Chief Executive.” Thomas granted it, making the petition due October 9.
Correction (October 2, 2026): An earlier version said Judge Middlebrooks called Trump “a mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process” when he dismissed the suit in September 2022. That language comes from Middlebrooks's sanctions ruling, which Bloomberg dates to January 2023; the entry now places it there and quotes it as written (“the mastermind”). It also said the deadline moved “from August 10”; no source in the entry states the original date, so that detail was removed.
Update (October 12, 2026): Trump's lawyers filed the petition on October 9. It asks whether a president's official duties pause the deadline to sue and whether he and his lawyers can be sanctioned for arguing that they do. His lawyer Richard Klugh wrote that the lower court's ruling “wrongly forces Presidents to choose between their public responsibilities and private claims,” SCOTUSblog reported; the court is likely to act on it this winter. The Supreme Court's docket for the extension requests shows the original deadline was August 10, 2026.
Update (October 29, 2026): on October 27 the Supreme Court asked Clinton to respond to Trump's petition, MS NOW reported. She and her co-defendants had waived their right to respond, and had the Court not asked, the petition would all but certainly have been denied. Her brief is due November 27, after which the justices will decide at a private conference whether to take the case. It takes only one justice to request a response and four to grant review, so the request does not by itself signal that the Court will hear it.