Judge allows Trump to refile $15 billion lawsuit against the New York Times
A federal judge declined to dismiss President Donald Trump’s multibillion-dollar lawsuit against the New York Times on Monday, giving him roughly four weeks to amend his case after the outlet moved to toss it on First Amendment grounds.
District Judge Steven Merryday gave Trump’s legal team until Aug. 27 to amend and refile his $15 billion defamation against the New York Times. The federal judge postponed a ruling on the publication’s motion to dismiss the case in Florida or have it transferred to the Southern District of New York, a development that marked a victory for the president, who celebrated the court’s decision on Truth Social.
“The Failing New York Times, after 10 years of harassment, slander, and libel, just failed again in their desperate attempt to have our powerful Defamation Lawsuit against them dropped,” Trump wrote in a post to the platform. “As we requested, the Highly Respected Judge has called for an updated complaint, which will lay out, in extreme detail, all the ways in which The Times has repeatedly and consistently acted, with actual malice in defaming me, my family, our Great MAGA Movement, and America itself. We will continue to hold The Times and their ‘comrades’ in the Mainstream Media accountable for publishing, promoting, and dealing in Fake News.”
The case is playing out in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida in Tampa. Merryday was nominated by President George H.W. Bush.
Monday’s ruling is not the first time the judge has given Trump an opportunity to amend the lawsuit. Shortly after Trump initially filed the 85-page lawsuit in September, Merryday struck down the complaint but gave the president’s legal team 28 days to file an amended version of the complaint. At the time, he ordered Trump to refile a lawsuit with “simple, concise, and direct” claims, writing that “a complaint is not a public forum for vituperation and invective — not a protected platform to rage against an adversary.”
The lawsuit targets the New York Times’s reporting on the 2024 election and a book published by several of its journalists, accusing it of becoming a “mouthpiece” for the Democratic Party and engaging in a “decades-long pattern” of “intentional and malicious defamation against” the president. It specifically names as defendants the New York Times Company, reporters Susanne Craig, Russ Buettner, Peter Baker, and Michael Schmidt, and Penguin Random House, which published Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success, which Craig and Buettner wrote.
On Monday, Merryday gave the New York Times 21 days to file a response after Trump’s team submits an amended complaint.
The outlet downplayed the latest ruling in a statement this week, arguing that the judge’s decision “makes no statement in support of the frivolous accusations in Mr. Trump’s earlier complaint.”
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“To the contrary, the judge simply gives him yet another chance to draft a complaint that demonstrates any legal merit,” a spokesperson said. “The President has had this chance twice previously and failed each time. The Times stands by our journalism, and the President’s legal pleadings will not change that or deter further reporting. We will continue to defend our reporters’ constitutionally protected rights – and the public’s right to know – and are confident in the laws that underpin them.”
This is not the only lawsuit Trump has brought against major media outlets, accusing them of malicious reporting and spreading lies. He is suing the BBC for $10 billion over how it edited his Jan. 6, 2021, speech, triggering the resignations of two of the BBC’s top executives. Trump also filed a libel lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal last summer, alleging it misrepresented his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
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