US Judge Throws out Donald Trump’s Lawsuit Against New York Times – Donald Trump’s 2021 lawsuit, in which he accused New York Times reporters of engaging in an “insidious plot” to obtain his tax records, has been dismissed by a judge in New York. In addition to the dismissal, the former president has been instructed to pay all legal fees and expenses incurred by the Times and its reporters.
The lawsuit alleged that the newspaper had contacted Mary Trump, Trump’s niece, and encouraged her to unlawfully remove the records from her lawyer’s office. According to an initial report by The Daily Beast, Donald Trump has made accusations against his niece that have yet to be resolved.
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In 2018, The New York Times won a Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles that used information provided by Mary Trump to challenge Trump’s assertion that he was a self-made millionaire, demonstrating instead that he had inherited hundreds of millions of dollars through questionable tax arrangements. The articles also exposed Trump’s history of tax evasion.
Robert Reed, a New York supreme court justice, said that Trump’s claims “fail as a matter of constitutional law”, which allows for reporters to engage in legal, ordinary newsgathering. “These actions are at the very core of protected first amendment activity,” Reed wrote.
Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for the Times, stated: “The New York Times is pleased with the judge’s decision today. It is an important precedent reaffirming that the press is protected when it engages in routine newsgathering to obtain information of vital importance to the public.”
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“We will weigh our client’s options and continue to vigorously fight on his behalf,” Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba said in a statement. In addition to his recent lawsuit against The New York Times, last year Donald Trump also filed a defamation lawsuit against CNN, seeking $475 million in damages.
Furthermore, in 2020, his re-election campaign launched lawsuits against The New York Times and The Washington Post over opinion pieces that linked Trump to Russian interference in the election. However, the cases against each newspaper were ultimately dismissed.
