Trump Beseeches Supreme Court for More Time To Revive Racketeering Case Against Hillary Clinton for ‘Unthinkable Plot’

President Trump is requesting that the Supreme Court extend his effort to revive a civil racketeering case against Hillary Clinton, underscoring the 47th president’s refusal to abandon a longshot case that the former first lady has called a “political stunt.”The petition for a delay in the filing of a writ of certiorari, docketed on Monday, comes one month after Justice Clarence Thomas gave the 47th president an initial 30-day extension. Mr. Trump now cites “numerous direct-appeal briefing, trial court, and hearing deadlines” as justification for pushing off the deadline yet again. Mrs. Clinton and her co-defendants were sued for $24 million in connection with the “Russiagate” scandal.Mr. Trump’s attorneys write that in the latest filing that “granting additional time will greatly serve the interest of justice, assist in preparing a clear, concise, and comprehensive petition for certiorari for the Court’s review, and reduce any interruption of the work of the President in his full-time and vital role as Chief Executive.” The previous extension ran through September 9. The issue was presented first to Justice Thomas because he handles appeals from the 11th United States Appeals Circuit. Mr. Trump is now requesting a deadline of October 9. His lawyers vow that they will use the extra time to conduct “substantial legal research” over the next month on “exceptionally important” questions that could eventually lead to a reversal. Mr. Trump narrowly defeated Mrs. Clinton for the presidency in 2016. Mr. Trump filed the underlying racketeering suit against Mrs. Clinton in 2022. It alleges that Mrs. Clinton and dozens of others — including the former director of the FBI, James Comey, the Democratic National Committee, the law firm Perkins Coie, and the former FBI employees, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page — conspired in an “an unthinkable plot” to damage Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign for president and hobble his presidency by propagating the accusation of “a sinister link” to Russia.The federal trial judge, Donald Middlebrooks — an appointee of President Obama — dismissed the case as “frivolous” and being levied in “bad faith.” His ruling thundered that the case was brought “to advance a political narrative through lawsuits without factual basis or any cognizable legal theory” and that the complaint amounts to a “political manifesto outlining” Mr. Trump’s “grievances.”Judge Middlebrooks, finding that the suit amounted to a “settling of scores” rather than a coherent legal case, ordered that Mr. Trump and his lawyer, Alina Habba — later appointed acting United States attorney for New Jersey — pay $1 million in sanctions. That draconian penalty was warranted, Judge Middlebrooks reckoned, for a “lawsuit that should never have been filed, which was completely frivolous, both factually and legally, and which was brought in bad faith for an improper purpose.”Mr. Trump and Ms. Habba appealed the dismissal and the sanctions to a panel of the 11th Circuit, which last year refused to disturb Judge Middlebrooks’s ruling and then also denied Mr. Trump’s request for an en banc hearing, meaning consideration by a full complement of the circuit. Both Judge Middlebrooks and the 11th Circuit referred to the case as a “shotgun lawsuit,” legal shorthand for a pleading that is so disorganized and vague that it does not provide the adversarial litigants with fair notice.While Mr. Trump’s policies have often prospered before the high court, he has been less successful when petitioning the justices on more private matters. In the days before his second inauguration Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined with their liberal colleagues to deny his request that his sentencing in the criminal hush money case be delayed until 2029. In the event, he was sentenced by Judge Juan Merchan to only an “unconditional discharge,” meaning no further punishment was ordered.Earlier this month the Supreme Court dealt a final rejection to Mr. Trump’s request for reconsideration of the $5 million judgment levied against him in the sexual abuse and defamation case brought by the advice columnist E. Jean Carroll. An appeal of a separate $83 million defamation verdict is pending before the justices.

Trump Beseeches Supreme Court for More Time To Revive Racketeering Case Against Hillary Clinton for ‘Unthinkable Plot’

Trump Beseeches Supreme Court for More Time To Revive Racketeering Case Against Hillary Clinton for ‘Unthinkable Plot’

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