Judge throws out Trump's 'improper' $15bn lawsuit against The New York Times

A FEDERAL JUDGE in Florida has thrown out US President Donald Trump’s $15 billion defamation lawsuit against The New York Times.

In a scathing ruling, US District Judge Steven Merryday ruled that the lawsuit was overly long and was full of “tedious and burdensome” language that had no bearing on the legal case.

Trump filed the case on Monday, adding to his growing list of legal attacks on news organisations he accuses of bias against him.

He claimed in a post on his Truth Social platform that the newspaper had “engaged in a decades long method of lying about your Favorite President (ME!), my family, business, the America First Movement, MAGA, and our Nation as a whole”. 

The complaint named several articles and one book written by two of the publication’s journalists and published in the lead up to the 2024 election, saying they are “part of a decades-long pattern by The New York Times of intentional and malicious defamation against President Trump”.

The Times dismissed Trump’s case as having “no merit.”

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Judge Merryday did not rule on the merits of the complaint today, but he took exception to its florid writing, repetitive and laudatory praise of Trump and its excessive 85-page length, describing it as “improper and impermissible”. 

“A complaint is a short, plain, direct statement of allegations of fact sufficient to create a facially plausible claim for relief,” the judge wrote in a four-page order. 

A complaint is not a public forum for vituperation and invective,” he said, and “not a protected platform to rage against an adversary.”

He gave Trump’s lawyers 28 days to refile it “in a professional and dignified manner” that should not exceed 40 pages. 

The Republic has intensified his long-established hostility toward the media since his return to the White House, repeatedly badmouthing journalists critical of his administration, restricting access and bringing lawsuits demanding huge amounts of compensation.

Talk show host Jimmy Kimmel was indefinitely suspended by Disney-owned ABC this week after the head of the Federal Communications Commission threatened to cancel broadcasting licenses over comments Kimmel made about the killing of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.

Trump has also sued media magnate Rupert Murdoch and The Wall Street Journal for at least $10 billion after it reported in July on the existence of a birthday letter he allegedly sent to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

With reporting from AFP

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