A judge in Florida, for now, tossed out President Trump\u2019s $15-billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times days after it was filed, finding the president\u2019s lawyers failed to follow court rules requiring \u201cshort, plain, direct\u201d claims.<\/p>\n
U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday issued an order Friday concluding that Trump\u2019s lawsuit \u201cunmistakably and inexcusably\u201d violated the court\u2019s rules by featuring \u201crepetitive,\u201d \u201csuperfluous\u201d and \u201cflorid\u201d allegations and details, but said that his lawyers could refile an edited version within the next month.<\/p>\n
Trump filed a lawsuit in federal court in Tampa, Fla., earlier this week against the New York Times Co. and Penguin Random House LLC, accusing the paper of serving as a \u201cmouthpiece\u201d for the Democrats, pitting himself against one of the world\u2019s oldest and most prominent news organizations.<\/p>\n
The 85-page complaint featured language and information that Merryday said went far beyond the limits of what the court\u2019s rules allow. Even under a \u201cgenerous and lenient\u201d interpretation, the judge wrote, the lawsuit was \u201cdecidedly improper and impermissible.\u201d <\/p>\n
The judge criticized what he called \u201claudatory\u201d statements included in the lawsuit about Trump, such as his \u201chistoric\u201d election win and the \u201ccultural magnitude\u201d of his \u201csingular brilliance.\u201d The judge also called out Trump\u2019s recitations of his business and media track records, as well as negative language used to describe the Times\u2019 coverage, such as \u201cnew journalistic low.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even if all of the allegations in Trump\u2019s lawsuit are true, the initial complaint wasn\u2019t an appropriate place \u201cfor the tedious and burdensome aggregation of prospective evidence, for the rehearsal of tendentious arguments, or for the protracted recitation and explanation of legal authority,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s personal attorneys handling the case did not immediately respond to a request for comment shortly after the order was released Friday afternoon. The New York Times also didn\u2019t immediately respond to a message seeking comment.<\/p>\n
The New York Times has denied wrongdoing and said in a statement in response to the lawsuit that it \u201chas no merit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Merryday gave Trump\u2019s team 28 days to present a new version of the lawsuit, this time limiting it to 40 pages.<\/p>\n
Alleged defamation<\/p>\n
The suit, which was filed Monday, claims Trump\u2019s reputation was harmed by the 2024 book \u201cLucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father\u2019s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success\u201d and by three Times articles that were published in the run-up to the 2024 election. <\/p>\n
Trump claims the book and articles are part of a \u201cdecades-long pattern by the New York Times of intentional and malicious defamation\u201d against him. The suit raises numerous disputes with the Times, including its \u201cderanged\u201d front-page endorsement of former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, that are not included in his legal claims.<\/p>\n
The case was one of Trump\u2019s running battles with the press. In July, he sued Dow Jones & Co., News Corp. and Rupert Murdoch for libel, seeking $10 billion in damages after the Wall Street Journal published a story alleging that Trump once sent a suggestive birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein. House Democrats later released the alleged birthday note as part of a trove of documents received by the House Oversight Committee.<\/p>\n
Trump reached a settlement with Paramount Global in July over a lawsuit tied to CBS news network\u2019s \u201c60 Minutes\u201d interview with then-Vice President Harris. In December, ABC agreed to give $15 million to Trump\u2019s future presidential foundation or museum to resolve a separate defamation claim. <\/p>\n
Tillman writes for Bloomberg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A judge in Florida, for now, tossed out President Trump\u2019s $15-billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":239571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,6517,13140,128212,27947,7033,128211,6616,5991,2961,224,5337,128214,128210,8145,5996,128215,128213,277],"class_list":{"0":"post-239570","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-case","11":"tag-comment","12":"tag-court-rule","13":"tag-defamation-lawsuit","14":"tag-democrats","15":"tag-election-win","16":"tag-judge","17":"tag-july","18":"tag-la","19":"tag-los-angeles","20":"tag-losangeles","21":"tag-merryday","22":"tag-new-york-times-suit","23":"tag-order","24":"tag-part","25":"tag-recitation","26":"tag-times-article","27":"tag-trump"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115232456271715040","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}