The three-judge panel on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that attorneys Alejandro Brito and Daniel Epstein failed to show they would likely win their argument that a Miami federal judge lacked grounds to sanction them. U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Williams had found the two acted in bad faith while handling the civil suit in her courtroom.
The appeals panel also said the attorneys jumped the gun by appealing now. Williams has not yet issued a final ruling on a related request, meaning the sanctions fight is still unresolved at the trial court level.
For Trump's legal team, the ruling means the sanctions stand for now, with no relief from the appeals court while the underlying case grinds on in Miami. Brito and Epstein remain on the hook under Williams' bad-faith finding. They also cannot point to this appellate loss as any sign the sanctions will eventually get tossed, since the trial court fight over their conduct hasn't wrapped up. The $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS continues alongside that separate dispute over how the president's own lawyers pursued it.