Donald Trump’s $15billion lawsuit against The New York Times has been thrown out just four days after it was filed by a judge who said the filing was too long and too petty.
The president now has 28 days to refile the defamation claim after Judge Steven D. Merryday of the US District Court for the Middle District of Florida said the suit was ‘florid and enervating.’
Any future filings must be limited to 40 pages, The New York Times reported.
A Times spokesperson told the Daily Mail in a statement: ‘We welcome the judge’s quick ruling, which recognized that the complaint was a political document rather than a serious legal filing.’
Judge Merryday – who was appointed by President George H.W. Bush – blasted the president for waiting until the 80th page of his lawsuit to formally accuse the paper of defamation.
He also suggested Trump had used the filing as a soapbox to air grievances against the paper of record, arguing: ‘A complaint is not a public forum for vituperation and invective – not a protected platform to rage against an adversary.’
The jurist added: ‘A complaint is not a megaphone for public relations or a podium for a passionate oration at a political rally or the functional equivalent of the Hyde Park Speakers’ Corner.’
He also told Trump that, despite being president, plaintiffs are supposed to ‘fairly, precisely, directly, soberly, and economically’ tell defendants in complaints why they are being sued.
Trump sued the Times this week over articles he claimed cast doubts on his reputation in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election.
The paper said after the initial filing that it intended to fight the suit.
Four Times reporters and publisher Penguin Random House were also named as defendants.
The tossed complaint had revolved around three articles and a book by two of the reporters.
One of the articles, penned in October of last year, was singled out for claiming Trump ‘got an early start learning how to cut corners’ after knowingly borrowing a friend’s dress jacket with a dozen medals to wear for his yearbook photo while attedning New York Military Academy as a boy.
Times White House Correspondent Peter Baker wrote Trump was ‘in effect appropriating medals that he did not win himself’ with the move.
A spokesperson for Trump said he will ‘continue to hold the Fake News accountable through this powerhouse lawsuit.’
Whether or not the suit will be refiled remains unclear.
Trump has repeatedly used the courts against media companies since his second presidential election win last year.
He has sued The Wall Street Journal for publishing a seedy birthday drawing the paper accused him of sending to late pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, and also secured $16 million settlements from CBS and ABC after suing both stations.
The CBS settlement was paid out after the president accused the network’s flagship newsmagazine 60 Minutes of deceptively editing an interview with his 2024 rival Kamala Harris.
ABC was forced to hand over the eight-figure sum after Good Morning America host George Stephanopoulos incorrectly stated the president had been found civilly-liable for the rape of E. Jean Carroll following a court cast in 2023.
Trump had actually been found civilly-liable for the sexual abuse of Carroll, during an incident in the changing room of NYC department store Bergdorf Goodman in the mid ’90s.
