AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
A federal judge in Florida has dismissed President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against The New York Times, bluntly declaring it to have “unmistakably and inexcusably” violated the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure with its “decidedly improper and impermissible” length and “repetitive” and “often repetitive, and laudatory (toward President Trump) but superfluous allegations.”
Trump announced he was suing the Times for defamation and demanding $15 billion in damages in a Truth Social post late Monday evening. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, was widely scorned by First Amendment experts as legally meritless, but the president has been able to get other media companies to bend the knee for previous lawsuits with similarly shaky arguments — not to mention the political points he scores with his MAGA base when he attacks the media.
Politico senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney reported on the dismissal, noting that U.S. District Judge Steven D. Merryday’s order called Trump’s complaint “essentially, garbage.”
Merryday’s four-page order included numerous parenthetical references that took swipes at Trump’s legal team. The very first sentence referenced Rule 8 from the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that requires complaints to be “simple, concise, and direct” with “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief,” calling that a rule that “every member of the bar of every federal court knows (or is presumed to know).”
The order continued, taking issue with the extreme length and complexity of Trump’s complaint, which, despite “[a]lleging only two simple counts of defamation,” still “consumes eighty-five pages.”
“Even under the most generous and lenient application of Rule 8, the complaint is decidedly improper and impermissible,” wrote Merryday, shredding the a “tedious and burdensome aggregation” of “many, often repetitive, and laudatory (toward President Trump) but superfluous allegations,” that were “persistently alleged in abundant, florid, and enervating detail.”
The judge again swiped at Trump’s legal team for their seeming ignorance about basic federal trial practice, writing:
As every lawyer knows (or is presumed to know), a complaint is not a public forum for vituperation and invective — not a protected platform to rage against an adversary. 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.
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.
This complaint stands unmistakably and inexcusably athwart the requirements of Rule 8. This action will begin, will continue, and will end in accord with the rules of procedure and in a professional and dignified manner.
Merryday ordered the complaint to be struck in its entirety. Trump has 28 days to file an amended complaint, but the judge added a requirement that it “must not exceed forty pages, excluding only the caption, the signature, and any attachment.”
A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team sent the following statement to Mediaite:
President Trump will continue to hold the Fake News accountable through this powerhouse lawsuit against the New York Times, its reporters, and Penguin Random House, in accordance with the judge’s direction on logistics.
This is a breaking news story and has been updated.
The post Judge Tosses Trump’s Lawsuit Against NYT in Scathing Order: A Complaint Is ‘Not a Protected Platform to Rage’ first appeared on Mediaite.
