Posted on 05/03/2023 4:24:33 PM PDT by Coronal
A New York judge tossed Donald Trump’s $100 million lawsuit against the New York Times and ordered him to pay all of the paper’s legal fees, according to a ruling Wednesday.
The former president’s claims that the Gray Lady and three of its reporters hatched an “insidious plot” to get his private tax records “fail as a matter of constitutional law,” New York Supreme Court Justice Robert Reed wrote in the decision.
In the 2021 suit, the embattled 45th president alleged that Times reporters Susanne Craig, David Barstow and Russ Buettner schemed with Trump’s niece, Mary, to disclose his 20-year-old documents.
But the paper’s newsgathering — which ultimately exposed Trump’s tax woes in a Pulitzer-winning 2018 article — was “at the very core of protected First Amendment activity,” the judge ruled.
Reed dismissed the case in part because the Times’ reporting was “a matter of high public interest,” he wrote.
“The New York Times is pleased with the judge’s decision today,” a paper spokesperson wrote in a statement to The Daily Beast.
“It is an important precedent reaffirming that the press is protected when it engages in routine newsgathering to obtain information of vital importance to the public.”
Claims against the ex-president’s niece have yet to be ruled upon.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Thought so: A black liberal judge.
https://ww2.nycourts.gov/... Born and raised in Compton, California, Justice Robert R. Reed graduated from Stanford University in 1981, with an A.B. in Political Science, and received his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1984.
Especially when they are bringing in more women who claim he sexually abused them. They are playing dirty.
First amendment protection applies only when liberal media is sued.
Judge must be a Dem appointee.
Lawfair at its best.
They will keep trump tied up in court through the election
NYSC Justices are elected, not appointed.
I think the Judges taxes are of high public interest.
How do you like them apples?
I guees it’s legally open season now for any journalist to steal/bribe/finagle the tax returns of any politician.
That should also apply to stealing and publishing any judge’s tax returns.
I remember how they used lawfair against Sarah Palin.
New York has an odd system, for sure, but those are justices not judges.
Well, as it turns out, Mary Trump is not off the hook.
However...
Here’s the ruling:
“Courts have long recognized that reporters are entitled to engage in legal and ordinary newsgathering activities without fear of tort liability - as these actions are at the very core of protected First Amendment Activity.”
And frankly, I’m inclined to agree that the courts SHOULD protect the press. As was noted in the famous SCOTUS case involving the Pentagon Papers:
“Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people...”
And I will argue that the tax filings are of public interest. They were made so by decades of candidates willingly disclosing their filings. When PDJT chose to buck this trend, he stuck out like a sore thumb. It’s not surprising that people—and the press—started asking questions.
And I believe that this kind of transparency (of releasing tax filings) should not be frowned upon. And I don’t think anyone else here truly believes it should be.
My opinion is that in a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people,...” it is the right of the people to be informed about their government and about the people they choose to govern. (Though I do concede that many people choose not to be.)
When our leaders/public servants make the choice not to be transparent, the press goes to work. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Yeah, we hate what is published by the NYT, Washington Post, CNN,... etc. But if you take away their legal ability to investigate and to publish, you open up a serious can of worms.
Now, I fully expect to get slammed for most of what I just said. I imagine I will be called “anti-Trump.”
I will unabashedly side with a free press every day of the week. Country will definitely come before candidate/office holder with me—any and all candidates.
Also from the ruling on the Pentagon Papers: “In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors.”
Spot on.
Little Miss Mary Trump, on the other hand... she has some answering to do. I don’t see how the court can protect her on this one. The court ruling states that in order to help out the NYT, she considered that she might have to “smuggle” documents out of her lawyer’s office and that her lawyer GAVE HER PERMISSION to take copies. Why would they do that? Did they advise her to break the terms of her confidentiality agreement? Why would they do THAT? It almost seems like they gave her “permission” to help the NYT so that she’d be sued and they’d be ready to charge her for billable hours. She got SCAMMED. (Don’t expect me to feel sorry for her.)
Run away from any Dem state unless you register Dem. Made the mistake of moving to Portland in the late 1990s and registered GOP and was harassed by the goons. Moved back home to Montana after my kids were raised and have never slept better.
Keep in mind that it was Trump who filed this lawsuit in a NY State Court. He chose the Defendants, he chose the venue.
Did the NYT provide her with a burner phone?
The ruling only says that Mary Trump and one of the reporters (Craig) used burner phones. There’s nothing in the ruling that says who supplied the phones.
However, I’m willing to bet that it is neither unusual, nor illegal, for a reporter to supply a potential source w/ a burner phone.
The courts hold that the press is protected from tort liability for “legal and ordinary newsgathering activities.”
If the press had stolen the documents from Ms. Trump’s home or from her lawyers office that would be a different matter.
Did he have other options?
Not being argumentative... seriously. Maybe you know something that I don’t. Always happy to learn something new!
The NYT is headquartered in New York, and I’m pretty sure Mary Trump is a New York resident. What other court would have jurisdiction?
I know that when Dominion filed their defamation suit against Fox, it was filed in Delaware because Fox News Corp. is headquartered there.
Federal court under the doctrine of diversity jurisdiction.
Would that still apply if, at the time of PDJT’s settlement w/ Mary Trump (2001), they were both residents of NY, and the settlement was made through a New York court, AND at the time the NYT published its article (2018), PDJT was a resident of New York?
I know he changed his residency to FL in 2019. It appears that he filed this action in 2021.
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