President Donald J. Trump is seeking to revive a lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and others over the Russia collusion hoax Democratic politicians incessantly pushed throughout his first term.
Trump originally filed the lawsuit in 2022, which claims that Clinton and her allies engaged in “a coordinated scheme … to undermine his candidacy and Presidency through fabricated accusations of Russian collusion.” Democrats regularly claimed that Trump had conspired with Russian President Vladimir Putin in order to win the 2016 election, a baseless theory that conveniently absolved them of their political failings and allowed them to accuse Trump of treason.
A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2022, and ordered Trump’s legal team to pay approximately $1 million in sanctions. In appealing the dismissal, Trump’s team has argued that the lawsuit was not filed too late, arguing that he had intentionally postponed it so that it would not divert energy from his presidency.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the judge’s ruling and sanctions in 2025, criticizing the legal arguments used by Trump and his attorney Alina Habba. In appealing the case to the Supreme Court, Trump’s lawyer Richard Klugh has argued that the lower court’s decision “wrongly forces Presidents to choose between their public responsibilities and private claims.”
Regardless of any individual lawsuit, though, the fact of the matter is that the Russia collusion theory was a hoax borne out of Democratic desperation. Having been shellshocked following their 2016 loss, the party embarked on a quest to discredit the Trump administration before it even began. Despite regularly claiming to be the voice of science and reason, they were successful in convincing large swaths of the public that Trump was a Russian agent, even while an extensive investigation found nothing.
It would be nice if the people involved in perpetuating this lie were called to task by our political system as a whole. Unfortunately, Democrats started Trump’s second term by moving on to a new conspiracy, repeatedly attempting to tie him to Jeffrey Epstein. And much like the Russia nonsense, we will never hear them admit it was fodder invented to stir up their base.
