Donald Trump has refiled his $15 billion defamation lawsuit against The New York Times after a federal judge shredded his original filing for being too long, too repetitive, and too self-congratulatory.
President Trump submitted a new 40-page amended complaint in Florida federal court, following U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday’s Sept. 19 order to slash the original 85-page claim.
The revised complaint drops one reporter, Michael S. Schmidt, but keeps three others, The New York Times, and Penguin Random House in the frame for the $15 billion.
Merryday gave the president 28 days to try again—and made clear what he thought of the first attempt.
“Alleging only two simple counts of defamation, the complaint consumes 85 pages,” the judge wrote in last month’s ruling. “Count one appears on page 80, and count two appears on page 83 … Even under the most generous and lenient application of rule 8, the complaint is decidedly improper and impermissible.”
Merryday went further, noting the “many, often repetitive, and laudatory (toward President Trump) but superfluous allegations,” and “much more, persistently alleged in abundant, florid, and enervating detail.”
After the rebuke, Trump and his legal team went back to the drawing board and tried again—halving the length of the original filing.
The revised effort drops Schmidt, but keeps investigative journalists Suzanne Craig, Russ Buettner, and Peter Baker on the hook, along with Penguin Random House and the Times itself.
The new complaint sticks closely to the same themes as the first, alleging that the defendants defamed Trump in reporting tied to the book Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success, by Craig and Buettner, as well as a series of Times articles about Trump’s finances and his role on The Apprentice.
The filing again demands $15 billion in compensatory damages and seeks “punitive damages in an amount to be determined upon trial of this action.”
A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team told the Daily Beast, “President Trump is continuing to hold the Fake News responsible through this powerhouse lawsuit against The New York Times, its reporters, and Penguin Random House.”
Penguin has also been contacted for comment.
A New York Times spokesperson said, “As we said when this was first filed and again after the judge’s ruling to strike it: this lawsuit has no merit. Nothing has changed today.
“This is merely an attempt to stifle independent reporting and generate PR attention, but The New York Times will not be deterred by intimidation tactics.”
The lawsuit disputes reporting that Trump was “discovered” as a television personality during The Apprentice, arguing that he was already world-famous, and takes particular issue with the book’s characterization of his inherited wealth as the product of “fraudulent tax evasion schemes.” It also challenges reporting that his father, Fred C. Trump, built his fortune by “twisting the rules” of postwar federal programs meant to help veterans.
