Last
night,
Donald
Trump
filed
yet
another
media
trollsuit.
As
usual,
he
took
full
advantage
of
the
ad
damnum
clause
to
juice
the
news
cycle.
“Today,
I
have
the
Great
Honor
of
bringing
a
$15
Billion
Dollar
Defamation
and
Libel
Lawsuit
against
The
New
York
Times,
one
of
the
worst
and
most
degenerate
newspapers
in
the
History
of
our
Country,”
he
screeched
on
his
social
media
platform.
“The
New
York
Times
has
been
allowed
to
freely
lie,
smear,
and
defame
me
for
far
too
long,
and
that
stops,
NOW!”
The
suit
names
the
Times,
reporters
Susanne
Craig,
Russ
Beuttner,
Peter
Baker,
and
Michael
Schmidt,
along
with
Penguin
Random
House,
LLC.
In
reality,
most
of
the
“defamatory”
statements
are
located
in
Craig
and
Buettner’s
book
Lucky
Loser:
How
Donald
Trump
Squandered
His
Father’s
Fortune
and
Created
the
Illusion
of
Success,
published
by
Penguin
Random
House
on
September
17,
2024
—
just
inside
New
York’s
one-year
statute
of
limitations
for
defamation!
But
like
Trump’s
social
media
bleeting,
the
complaint
is
focused
almost
solely
on
the
perfidy
of
the
Times
whose
“editorial
routine
is
now
one
of
industrial-scale
defamation
and
libel
against
political
opponents.”
As
always,
Trump
characterizes
his
demand
for
cash
as
a
fight
for
the
little
guy.
Contrary
to
the
Times’
and
its
reporters’
apparent
impression,
the
First
Amendment
has
never
furnished
the
Times—or
Penguin,
or
anyone
else—with
an
unqualified
privilege
to
make
false,
malicious,
and
defamatory
statements
about
its
opponents
in
order
to
try
and
ruin
their
lives
and
livelihoods.
President
Trump
brings
this
suit
to
highlight
that
principle
and
to
clearly
state
to
all
Americans
exhausted
by,
and
furious
at,
the
decades
of
journalistic
corruption,
that
the
era
of
unchecked,
deliberate
defamation
by
the
Times
and
other
legacy
media
outlets
is
over.
Over
82
frothy
pages,
the
lawsuit
praises
“President
Trump’s
sui
generis
charisma
and
unique
business
acumen,”
“his
name’s
association
with
excellence,
luxury,
and
elegance,”
his
“brilliant
business
acumen
and
unique
real
estate
abilities.”
It’s
a
little
lighter
on
actual
law.
The
dozens
of
supposedly
defamatory
statements
are
a
hodgepodge
of
protected
opinion
(“Good
things
happened
to
Donald
Trump.
He
did
not
earn
most
of
those
good
things”),
attributed
quotes
(“He
likewise
cheated
to
get
into
college,
according
to
his
estranged
niece,
Mary
L.
Trump,”)
and
verifiable
facts
(“the
first
thing
Burnett’s
producers
noticed
when
they
arrived
on
the
twenty-sixth
floor
of
Trump
Tower
was
the
stink,
a
musty
and
moldy
carpet
smell
that
seemed
to
emanate
from
every
corner.”)
Actual
malice
is
waved
away
with
conclusory
allegations
that
the
reporters
were
well
aware
of
Trump’s
greatness
(“At
the
time
of
publication,
Craig,
Buettner,
and
Penguin
knew
that
President
Trump
paid
appropriate
attention
to
the
finances
of
his
businesses,”)
as
well
as
…
whatever
this
is:
Defendants
each
desire
for
President
Trump
fail
politically
and
financially.
Each
feels
actual
malice
towards
President
Trump
in
the
colloquial
sense:
that
is,
each—Craig,
Buettner,
Baker,
and
Schmidt,
as
individuals,
and
the
Times
and
Penguin’s
relevant
executives
as
corporations—subjectively
wishes
to
harm
President
Trump,
and
each
wish
to
manipulate
public
opinion
to
President
Trump’s
disadvantage
to
worsen
his
current
and
future
political
and
economic
prospects.
Put
bluntly,
Defendants
baselessly
hate
President
Trump
in
a
deranged
way.
And
the
fantastical
damage
demand
is
undercut
by
the
very
first
paragraph,
which
touts
Trump’s
2024
electoral
win
and
“resounding
mandate
from
the
American
people.”
Larding
your
complaint
with
numerous
mentions
of
the
plaintiff’s
wildly
successful
social
media
and
crypto
businesses
is
a
weird
way
to
show
he’s
been
harmed
to
the
tune
of
$15
billion,
plus
punis!
This
isn’t
even
the
first
time
Trump
sued
the
Times
and
these
reporters.
In
January
of
2024,
he
was
ordered
to
pay
$392,000
in
legal
fees
to
the
paper
over
earlier
stories
about
his
family’s
sharp
business
practices.
After
his
niece
Mary
Trump
handed
the
reporters
tax
returns
and
other
financial
statements
revealing
the
family’s
extravagant
looting
of
Fred
Trump’s
estate,
Trump
sued
the
paper
for
tortious
interference
with
a
contract
—
namely
the
confidentiality
agreement
Mary
signed
pursuant
to
her
settlement
with
said
estate.
Noting
that
the
plaintiff
had
not
disputed
any
of
the
facts
alleged
in
the
article
based
on
those
tax
returns,
New
York
Supreme
Court
Justice
Robert
Reed
dismissed
the
case
and
ordered
Trump
to
pay
the
Times’s
legal
fees
under
the
state’s
anti-SLAPP
law.
The
prior
suit
was
filed
by
the
ubiquitous
Alina
Habba,
who
only
asked
for
a
modest
$100,000,000.
But
Habba
is
off
pretending
to
prosecute
cases
in
New
Jersey,
and
so
the
task
falls
to
a
now
familiar
cast
of
characters:
Alejandro
Brito,
Edward
Paltzik,
and
Daniel
Epstein
(no
relation
to
that
guy
Trump
drew
birthday
boobs
for).
Between
them,
they’ve
represented
Trump
in
trollsuits
against
CNN,
Michael
Cohen,
the
Wall
Street
Journal,
and
the
Des
Moines
Register
(with
hilarious
results).
None
of
these
dumb
turkeys
went
anywhere
in
court.
Their
only
success
came
in
leveraging
the
power
of
the
presidency
to
extort
settlements
from
CBS
and
ABC
—
which
they
made
sure
to
mention
in
this
current
complaint,
adding
Trump’s
social
media
post
exulting
in
his
big
victory
over
“George
Slopadopoulos.”
And
perhaps
they’ll
manage
to
arm
twist
the
Times
into
something
similar.
It
seems
pretty
unlikely
that
the
president
will
go
through
with
a
trial
that
would
require
him
to
sit
for
depositions
about
his
family’s
creative
tax
strategies
and
force
“Apprentice”
producer
Mark
Burnett
to
go
under
oath
to
discuss
their
association.
But
if
Trump
hopes
to
extract
some
quick
cash
and
more
sycophantic
coverage,
he
may
well
wind
up
disappointed.
So
far,
he’s
had
no
success
forcing
Rupert
Murdoch
to
knuckle
under,
and
his
paper
isn’t
even
the
one
that
established
the
Sullivan
standard.
Liz
Dye lives
in
Baltimore
where
she
produces
the
Law
and
Chaos substack and podcast.