Trump to file $15bn defamation lawsuit against New York Times

Washington: US President Donald Trump sued the New York Times, four of its reporters, and publisher Penguin Random House for at least $15 billion on Monday, claiming defamation and libel, and citing reputational damage, a Florida court filing showed.

Trump's suit cites a series of New York Times articles, one an editorial before the 2024 presidential election, which said he was unfit for office, and a 2024 book published by Penguin titled “Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success”.

“Defendants maliciously published the Book and the Articles knowing that these publications were filled with repugnant distortions and fabrications about President Trump,” according to the filing lodged on Monday in the US District Court, Middle District Florida.

The New York Times and Penguin did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.

The publications have harmed Trump's business and personal reputation, thereby causing massive economic damage to his brand value and significant damage to his future financial prospects, Trump's lawyers said in the filing.

“The harm to the value of TMTG (Trump Media and Technology Group) stock is one example of how the Defendants’ defamation has injured President Trump,” said his lawyers, citing “a precipitous decline in the stock price”.

TMTG stock has been under pressure in recent months fueled by worries about the end of a so-called lock-up period related to its stock market debut in March.

The filing comes after Trump threatened last week to sue the New York Times for its reporting on an allegedly sexually suggestive note and drawing given to Jeffrey Epstein.

Epstein, the disgraced financier and sex offender, died by suicide in a New York jail cell in 2019.

Trump has said he parted ways with Epstein before the financier's legal troubles became public in 2006.

“Today, I have the Great Honor of bringing a $15 Billion Defamation and Libel Lawsuit against The New York Times,” Trump said earlier on Monday in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.

In his post, Trump accused the paper of lying about him, his family and businesses, as well as Republican-led movements and ideologies such as the America First Movement, and Make America Great Again, or MAGA.

In his second term, Trump has intensified his crackdown against media companies. Earlier this year he sued the Wall Street Journal and its owners, including Rupert Murdoch, for at least $10 billion over the newspaper's report that his name was on a 2003 birthday greeting for Epstein.

In July, CBS parent company Paramount agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by Trump alleging that the CBS news program ‘60 Minutes’ deceptively edited an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris that the network broadcast in October.

SOURCE: REUTERS