Breaking: Supreme Court Says YES - Hillary Clinton Gets Brutal News After President Donald Trump is Now Taking Legal Battle

Trump Gets More Time to Take His Hillary Clinton Lawsuit to the Supreme Court—But Clarence Thomas Has Not Agreed to Hear the Case

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have spent nearly a decade fighting over what really happened during and after the 2016 presidential election.

That fight may now be headed toward the Supreme Court.

But it is not there yet.

Justice Clarence Thomas granted Trump and several of his attorneys an additional 30 days to file a petition asking the Supreme Court to review the dismissal of Trump’s sprawling lawsuit against Clinton and numerous other defendants.

The new deadline is September 9, 2026.

That is the development.

And the distinction is important.

Thomas did not rule that Trump’s lawsuit has merit.

He did not reverse the lower courts.

He did not erase nearly $1 million in sanctions imposed on Trump.

And the Supreme Court has not agreed to hear Trump v. Clinton.

Thomas approved an extension of time to file the petition that will ask the Court to do those things.

That makes headlines suggesting the “Supreme Court said yes” technically true only in the narrowest possible sense.

The Court said yes to more time.

It has not said yes to Trump’s appeal.

That much is clear from the Supreme Court’s own docket.

Trump and the other applicants submitted their extension request on July 23.

The application originally sought to move their deadline from August 10 to September 9.

Thomas, who handles emergency and administrative matters arising from the Eleventh Circuit, granted that request on July 29.

The next meaningful step belongs to Trump.

His lawyers now have until September 9 to file their petition for a writ of certiorari.

Only after that filing will the Supreme Court face the question of whether it wants to review the Eleventh Circuit’s decision.

That is a much higher hurdle than obtaining a routine deadline extension.

And the decision Trump wants overturned was unusually harsh.

In November 2025, a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit largely upheld the dismissal of Trump’s lawsuit against Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, Perkins Coie, Fusion GPS and numerous other individuals and organizations connected in various ways to the 2016 Russia controversy.

The court also affirmed two sanctions orders arising from the litigation.

One of those required Trump, attorney Alina Habba and Habba’s law firm to pay $937,989.39 in fees and costs.

A separate Rule 11 sanction against Trump’s attorneys included a $50,000 penalty and $16,274.23 in fees for defendant Charles Dolan.

So for Trump personally, the financial liability upheld by the appeals court is just under $938,000.

Across the sanctions orders connected with the litigation, the total exceeds $1 million.

That is what Trump and his lawyers are now preparing to ask the Supreme Court to revisit.

The original lawsuit dates to March 2022.

Trump sued 28 named defendants and alleged that Clinton and others had conspired before the 2016 election to manufacture and spread a false narrative that Trump and his campaign were colluding with Russia.

His amended complaint eventually ran to nearly 200 pages.

Among other things, Trump brought claims under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly known as RICO, as well as Florida-law claims involving injurious falsehood and conspiracy.

Trump’s theory focused heavily on the Steele dossier, the Alfa Bank allegations and information provided to journalists and federal investigators during the 2016 campaign.

His complaint alleged that Clinton allies, lawyers, opposition researchers and others worked together to damage him politically and trigger federal investigations.

Those were allegations in Trump’s civil complaint.

They were not findings entered by the court.

That distinction becomes especially important because later government investigations did find serious problems surrounding portions of the Russia investigation.

The Eleventh Circuit itself acknowledged that history.

In its opinion, the court noted that Special Counsel John Durham found that some defendants had participated in promoting unverified allegations concerning Trump and Russia.

The court also acknowledged Durham’s findings that key portions of the Steele dossier were never corroborated, that some allegations appeared fabricated and that FBI officials demonstrated preferences that affected investigative decisions.

That part of the appellate opinion matters.

The court was not saying everything Trump complained about was imaginary.

In fact, Chief Judge William Pryor expressly wrote that the court did not doubt Trump had legitimate concerns about some conduct exposed by the Durham investigation.

But the panel immediately drew another distinction.

Evidence of questionable conduct during the Russia investigation did not automatically create a legally viable civil RICO case years later.

That became the central problem for Trump.

The Eleventh Circuit concluded that his civil racketeering claims were filed too late.

Civil RICO claims generally carry a four-year limitations period beginning when a plaintiff discovers or should have discovered the relevant injury.

According to the court, Trump was aware of the underlying conduct and his claimed injuries by October 2017.

He did not file the lawsuit until March 2022.

That placed the filing about five months beyond the limitations period calculated by the court.

Trump did not primarily dispute that timeline.

Instead, his lawyers argued that the limitations clock should have been paused.

That issue is now likely to form one of the central questions in his Supreme Court petition.

Trump argued that ongoing government investigations involving related conduct should have tolled the limitations period.

He pointed to proceedings involving Michael Sussmann, Igor Danchenko and former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith, as well as Federal Election Commission action involving Clinton campaign spending.

The Eleventh Circuit rejected that theory.

It said those proceedings were not sufficiently related to the racketeering enterprise alleged in Trump’s lawsuit to trigger the tolling rule he invoked.

The court emphasized that none of those proceedings was itself a RICO case and that the overlap involved only pieces of the broader conduct Trump alleged.

Trump advanced a second argument.

He said the limitations period should be equitably tolled during his first presidential term.

His lawyers argued that filing the lawsuit while president—particularly while the Mueller and Durham investigations were underway—could have appeared to interfere with executive-branch law enforcement.

In other words, Trump said his responsibilities and institutional position as president provided an extraordinary reason for waiting.

The Eleventh Circuit was not persuaded.

The panel relied partly on Clinton v. Jones, the landmark Supreme Court case in which Bill Clinton unsuccessfully argued that a sitting president should be protected from private civil litigation concerning conduct outside his official duties.

The appeals court reasoned that if a president can be required to defend private litigation while in office, presidential duties do not automatically prevent him from filing private litigation of his own.

The panel also seized on Trump’s own explanation for waiting.

Trump said he made a presidential decision to place his constitutional obligations ahead of bringing the lawsuit.

For equitable tolling, however, the court said the obstacle generally must be outside the litigant’s control.

A deliberate choice not to sue therefore did not satisfy that standard.

That is precisely the issue Trump now wants the Supreme Court to reconsider.

His July extension application says the forthcoming petition will ask whether the limitations period for a president’s private civil claims should be equitably tolled while he is serving in office and related matters are being investigated by executive-branch agencies.

It also says Trump will ask whether a tolling provision derived from federal antitrust law can apply to civil RICO claims when government prosecutions concern related underlying conduct.

Those questions are much narrower than asking the Supreme Court to decide whether Hillary Clinton “created Russiagate.”

That difference matters.

Supreme Court review generally focuses on legal questions presented by the lower-court judgment.

Trump’s extension application itself concentrates heavily on statutes of limitation, tolling principles and how those doctrines should apply when the plaintiff is president.

His lawyers portray those questions as nationally significant.

They argue the Eleventh Circuit’s approach could force future presidents to file private civil lawsuits while serving in office simply to preserve their claims before limitations periods expire.

They also invoke the Supreme Court’s 2024 presidential-immunity decision as part of their argument about the unique constitutional position occupied by a president.

The Eleventh Circuit saw the issue very differently.

Its position was essentially that serving as president does not automatically freeze ordinary civil deadlines.

And more importantly, the appeals court did not rest its judgment solely on timing.

It described Trump’s remaining claims as both untimely and otherwise meritless.

That language creates another obstacle for Trump.

Even if the Supreme Court eventually disagreed with the Eleventh Circuit about tolling, Trump could still confront independent problems with the substance of the causes of action he pleaded.

The district court had concluded, among other things, that the RICO claims lacked valid predicate acts, a qualifying pattern, an enterprise and a legally sufficient injury.

It also found problems with Trump’s Florida-law claims.

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the claims before it, with one jurisdictional exception involving Orbis Business Intelligence.

As to Orbis, the appeals court said the district court lacked personal jurisdiction and therefore should have dismissed those claims without prejudice rather than with prejudice.

That was a technical victory for Trump.

It did not revive the broader lawsuit against Clinton and the other defendants.

Then there are the sanctions.

Those are potentially as important as the underlying lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks had concluded that the litigation crossed the line from aggressive advocacy into abuse of the judicial process.

One sanctions ruling cited what the district court viewed as knowingly false factual allegations, frivolous legal theories and bad-faith litigation conduct.

The appeals court upheld those findings.

It concluded that Trump and his attorneys had engaged in sanctionable conduct and had forfeited or failed on their procedural objections to the sanctions.

That left the $937,989.39 award against Trump, Habba and Habba’s firm intact.

The sanctions against the attorneys concerning Charles Dolan tell part of the story.

The original complaint incorrectly described Dolan as a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

His attorneys warned Trump’s lawyers that the allegation and several related claims were false and threatened Rule 11 sanctions if the errors were not corrected.

Dolan remained in the amended complaint.

The district court eventually found several allegations involving him were knowingly false or made with reckless disregard for truth and imposed sanctions.

Trump’s attorneys later pointed to the Durham Report in an effort to reopen parts of the case.

Again, the Eleventh Circuit acknowledged that Durham’s findings could support concerns about some conduct surrounding the 2016 investigation.

But it said those findings did not cure the legal defects in Trump’s pleading and did not justify disturbing the sanctions.

That is an important point because it prevents both sides from oversimplifying the ruling.

The appellate court did not conclude that every allegation associated with the Steele dossier was accurate.

It explicitly acknowledged serious concerns exposed by Durham.

But it also concluded that those concerns did not transform Trump’s particular lawsuit into a timely, properly pleaded RICO action.

Trump now wants the Supreme Court to separate those issues differently.

His application characterizes the sanctions as extreme and argues that the courts improperly punished him and his lawyers for pursuing claims they believed were legitimate.

His lawyers say the Eleventh Circuit’s tolling analysis creates important questions concerning the presidency itself.

Those are the arguments Trump intends to make.

The Supreme Court has not endorsed them.

That is why Clarence Thomas’s July 29 order must be understood for exactly what it is.

An extension.

Thomas did not write an opinion.

He did not comment on whether the Eleventh Circuit was right or wrong.

He did not order Hillary Clinton to respond to Trump’s underlying allegations.

And he did not stay or reverse the sanctions.

The Supreme Court docket records only that the deadline to file the certiorari petition was moved to September 9.

That is normal Supreme Court procedure.

Parties routinely request additional time to prepare certiorari petitions, particularly in large cases with extensive lower-court records.

Granting that time does not predict whether the justices will ultimately accept the case.

Trump’s own lawyers naturally argue that their forthcoming petition deserves review.

In the application, they say the issues are exceptionally important and contend the petition is likely to be granted.

That is advocacy from the applicants—not a prediction issued by the Supreme Court.

Clinton therefore has not received a substantive Supreme Court defeat.

At least not yet.

Her position remains the one created by the lower-court rulings:

Trump’s claims against her and nearly all of the other defendants remain dismissed, and the sanctions affirmed by the Eleventh Circuit remain in place.

That could change only if Trump successfully persuades the Supreme Court to intervene and ultimately wins some form of relief.

He has several steps to clear before that happens.

First, the petition has to be filed.

Then the justices must decide whether the legal questions are significant enough to warrant Supreme Court review.

And even if review were granted, that would only begin the merits stage.

A grant of certiorari would not mean Trump had won the lawsuit either.

It would mean the Court agreed to hear his arguments.

That distinction is especially important because Trump has several separate Supreme Court matters moving at the same time.

One involves CNN.

Trump sued the network over its use of the phrase “Big Lie” in coverage of his claims about the 2020 election.

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed dismissal of that defamation action in November 2025, concluding that Trump had not adequately pleaded a false factual statement.

Thomas later granted Trump additional time to prepare a Supreme Court petition in that case, eventually extending the deadline through August 14, 2026.

Again, those extension orders did not mean Thomas had voted to hear Trump’s CNN appeal.

They meant Trump received more time to ask.

The E. Jean Carroll litigation illustrates the difference even more clearly.

On June 29, the Supreme Court denied Trump’s petition seeking review of the approximately $5 million verdict stemming from the 2023 Carroll trial.

Trump then filed a petition for rehearing on July 8.

The Supreme Court docket shows that rehearing request was distributed on July 23.

As of the Court’s current docket, no order granting that rehearing appears.

So it is inaccurate to say the Supreme Court “agreed to reconsider” the case merely because Trump filed a rehearing petition.

Filing and distribution are procedural steps.

Granting rehearing would require a separate Court action.

There is also a separate Carroll case involving the much larger $83.3 million defamation judgment.

Trump filed a new certiorari petition in that case on July 28, and the Supreme Court docket lists Carroll’s response deadline as August 31.

Those overlapping cases help explain why headlines involving Trump and the Supreme Court can become confusing.

Trump has petitions.

He has applications.

He has deadline extensions.

He has rehearing requests.

He has emergency applications in unrelated presidential matters.

Each procedural action means something different.

A justice granting additional filing time is among the least consequential of those actions when it comes to predicting the final outcome of a case.

That does not make Trump v. Clinton unimportant.

If Trump files the promised petition, he will be asking the Supreme Court to revisit a lawsuit rooted in one of the most politically divisive events of the last decade.

The case touches the Steele dossier.

It touches Crossfire Hurricane.

It touches Durham’s findings.

It touches the Clinton campaign.

And it asks a potentially broader legal question about whether a president’s time in office should affect deadlines for private civil claims.

Trump also has a substantial financial interest in overturning the sanctions.

Nearly $938,000 in fees and costs were assessed jointly against him, Habba and her law firm in the major sanctions order.

That is not a symbolic penalty.

But Trump faces a difficult appellate record.

A three-judge Eleventh Circuit panel unanimously affirmed nearly all of the dismissal.

It upheld the major sanctions.

It rejected his statutory-tolling theory.

It rejected his presidential equitable-tolling theory.

And when Trump and the other applicants sought rehearing, the Eleventh Circuit denied that request on May 12, 2026.

That denial is what started the clock for the Supreme Court filing.

Trump’s original deadline was August 10.

His lawyers argued they needed more time because of the enormous record, the complexity of the legal issues, the president’s responsibilities and the schedules of his attorneys.

Thomas gave them the requested 30 days.

Nothing more has happened in the Supreme Court case yet.

That makes the actual story both less dramatic and more legally interesting than the viral headline.

Clarence Thomas did not hand Trump a victory over Hillary Clinton.

He gave Trump time to ask the Supreme Court for one.

Whether the Court accepts that invitation will depend on the petition Trump has promised to file.

And if it does accept the case, the dispute may focus less on relitigating every political accusation from 2016 than on a narrower legal problem with implications beyond Trump and Clinton:

Should serving as president—or parallel government investigations—pause the deadline for a president to bring private civil claims?

The Eleventh Circuit said no.

Trump says that answer could damage future presidents and wants the Supreme Court to reconsider it.

For now, Hillary Clinton has not lost anything at the Supreme Court.

Trump has not won anything on the merits.

The sanctions remain intact.