“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government
Thomas Jefferson
without newspapers, or newspapers without a government,
I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
“Libel” is what lawyers call a “reputational tort.” In plain English, you run a risk if you make a false statement that injures a person’s or a business’s reputation. Under a series of 20th-century Supreme Court decisions, the First Amendment provides speakers with considerable, though not absolute, protection. It isn’t enough that someone made a false statement. You have to show at least some fault on the part of whoever wrote or broadcast the damaging words.
How much fault depends on the target of the words. Private individuals need to show only that the speaker was negligent. But public officials face a higher burden. They must prove by “clear and convincing” evidence that the speaker actually knew the defamatory statement was false or was recklessly indifferent to whether it was true or false.
In the 1964 New York Times v Sullivan case, the Supreme Court explained that the First Amendment rests on “a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.” According to Yale Law Professor Owen Fiss, the New York Times case helped cement “the free speech traditions that have ensured the vibrancy of American democracy.”
In 2016, when he was running for President for the first time, Donald Trump vowed to “open up our libel laws … so that when the New York Times writes a hit piece, which is a total disgrace … we can sue them.”
American libel laws have not “opened up” over the last nine years, but Trump has carried out his threat. On July 14, 2025, the Wall Street Journal reported that a letter bearing Trump’s name appeared in a birthday book marking Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday. The next day, Trump sued for $10 billion, claiming that the letter is a “fake.”
Then, on September 15, 2025, he filed an 85-page complaint captioned “President Donald J. Trump v. New York Times Company.” The complaint seeks damages of $15 billion.
Three lawyers’ names appear on the signature page, so I guess they wrote the document. It reads, however, more like one of Trump’s unscripted speeches than a legal document.
According to the complaint, “President Trump secured the greatest personal and political achievement in American history.” The next paragraph describes the New York Times as “a full-throated mouthpiece of the Democrat Party.”
And so it goes. “Deranged endorsement of Kamala Harris;” “desperate need to defame with a partisan spear rather than report with an authentic looking glass;” “the cultural magnitude of President Trump’s singular brilliance, which captured the zeitgeist of our time” (referring to “The Apprentice”); Trump’s “transcendent ability to defy wrongful conventions”— these are just samples, but you get the gist.
The complaint embraces Trump’s other lawsuits. “President Trump has also brought a powerhouse defamation suit against The Wall Street Journal, arising out of a July 17, 2025, article falsely claiming that he authored, drew, and signed a card to wish the late—and utterly disgraced—Epstein a happy fiftieth birthday.”
It goes on to say that Trump has been “extraordinarily successful” in winning lawsuits. “Vitally, on August 21, 2025, the New York Appellate Division vacated an unconstitutional civil fraud penalty of over $520,000,000 … handed down by a biased judge as a result of a sham lawsuit brought by Democrat New York Attorney General Letitia James.” Trump called this “TOTAL VICTORY” on Truth Social.
Total? The New York appellate court ruled that the financial penalty was “excessive,” but the court upheld the finding that Trump committed fraud by submitting deceptive business records to banks, insurance companies, and the City of New York. The court also upheld the multi-year ban on holding any corporate leadership position in New York.
The last word isn’t in yet. Both Trump and Attorney General Letitia James are appealing to New York’s highest court from the portions of the ruling unfavorable to them.
Also missing from Trump’s complaint against the Times is any reference to E. Jean Carroll, who has twice won libel cases against Donald Trump. One jury awarded her $5 million and the second awarded over $83 million. This year the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld both verdicts, citing Trump’s “reprehensible” conduct.
No doubt the Times would have moved to dismiss Trump’s latest lawsuit, but Judge Steven Merryday, whom President George W. Bush appointed to the Tampa, Fla., federal court in 1991, beat them to it. On Sept. 19, 2025, he dismissed the case “sua sponte,” meaning on his own initiative.
Judge Merryday’s Order describes the complaint as “decidedly improper and impermissible,” filled with “repetitive and laudatory (toward President Trump) but superfluous allegations.” “A complaint is not a public forum for vituperation and invective” but is supposed to be written in “a professionally constrained manner consistent with the dignity of the adversarial process.” This document, he states, “extends far beyond the outer bound” of what is permitted.
The judge did not rule on the merits of Trump’s lawsuit, and the lawyers have 28 days to file an amended complaint. I expect they will do so, and we will then see whether the New York Times, relying on the 1964 case that bears its name, succeeds on a motion to dismiss, or whether the case gets bogged down in the discovery process.
CBS and ABC recently chose to settle Trump’s lawsuits to clear the way for favorable treatment by the Trump administration of business deals requiring federal approval. Like Paul Weiss and several other law firms, they chose the bottom line over constitutional principles. All of us, conservatives and liberals alike, should hope that the Wall Street Journal and the Times hold their ground. If they don’t stand up for the freedom of speech and press that belongs to all of us, who will?
Attorney Joseph D. Steinfield lives in Keene and Jaffrey. He can be reached at joe@joesteinfield.com. Copyright 2025