Judge throws out Donald Trump’s $25.6b ‘rage’ lawsuit against the New York Times

District Judge Steven Merryday said Donald Trump's complaint against the New York Times, as submitted, was "improper and impermissible". Photo / Getty Images

A federal judge, in a scathing ruling, has tossed out US President Donald Trump’s US$15 billion ($25.6b) defamation lawsuit against the New York Times.

District Judge Steven Merryday said Trump’s complaint, as submitted, was “improper and impermissible” and he gave his lawyers 28 days to refile it “in a professional and dignified manner”.

Merryday, an appointee of Republican president George HW Bush, did not rule on the merits of the complaint against the newspaper but he took exception to its florid writing, repetitive and laudatory praise of Trump and its excessive 85-page length.

“A complaint is a short, plain, direct statement of allegations of fact sufficient to create a facially plausible claim for relief,” Merryday said.

“Although lawyers receive a modicum of expressive latitude in pleading the claim of a client, the complaint in this action extends far beyond the outer bound of that latitude,” he said.

“A complaint is not a public forum for vituperation and invective,” the judge said, and “not a protected platform to rage against an adversary”.

Trump filed the lawsuit against the Times on Monday, adding to his growing list of legal attacks on news organisations he accuses of bias against him.

Trump, 79, has intensified his long-established hostility toward the media since his return to the White House, repeatedly badmouthing journalists critical of his administration, restricting access and bringing lawsuits demanding huge amounts of compensation.

Talk show host Jimmy Kimmel was indefinitely suspended by Disney-owned ABC this week after the head of the Federal Communications Commission threatened to cancel broadcasting licences over comments Kimmel made about the killing of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.

‘No merit’

In his suit filed in federal court in Florida, Trump accused the Times of a “decades-long pattern” of smears driven by feelings of “actual malice”.

“The Times has become a leading, and unapologetic, purveyor of falsehoods against President Trump on the legacy media landscape,” it said.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, the Republican President said “The New York Times has been allowed to freely lie, smear, and defame me for far too long, and that stops, NOW!”

The lawsuit also named four Times reporters and the publisher Penguin Random House as defendants.

The Times dismissed Trump’s case as having “no merit”.

“It lacks any legitimate legal claims and instead is an attempt to stifle and discourage independent reporting. The New York Times will not be deterred by intimidation tactics,” the newspaper said in a statement.

Trump’s lawsuit alleged that the Times deviated from industry best practices when covering him, writing articles “in the most antagonistic and negative way” and not giving him sufficient time to respond before publishing.

“Put bluntly, Defendants baselessly hate President Trump in a deranged way,” the complaint read.

The court was asked to grant compensatory damages of not less than US$15b and additional punitive damages “in an amount to be determined upon trial”.

While broad constitutional protections exist for US media, Trump has found success in similar lawsuits brought against other news organisations, winning multi-million dollar settlements from ABC and Paramount-owned CBS.

The settlements in those cases – which are to be paid to Trump’s future presidential library – were seen as being motivated by the desire of the news organisations’ parent companies to stay in Trump’s good graces.

Trump has also sued media magnate Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal for at least US$10b after it reported in July on the existence of a birthday letter he allegedly sent to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

– Agence France-Presse