President Donald Trump on Thursday refiled his federal lawsuit accusing The New York Times of defaming him in two news articles while he was running for president in 2024. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
Oct. 17 (UPI) — President Donald Trump refiled a dismissed federal lawsuit accusing The New York Times of defaming him during the 2024 election cycle and seeking $15 billion.
The president refiled the lawsuit on Thursday after U.S. District Court for Middle Florida Judge Steven Merryday in September dismissed the original filing.
The judge ruled the initial 85-page filing was too wordy and took too long to detail any formal complaints against the news outlet, The New York Times reported.
Merryday gave Trump 28 days to refile his lawsuit, which the president did on Thursday in the same federal court.
Trump’s revised filing is 40 pages long and accuses The Times’ reporters Peter Baker, Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig of writing “false, malicious and defamatory statements” against him in two news articles, according to NBC News.
Baler and Buettner also wrote a book titled “Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success.”
Trump’s legal team argues that he asked The Times to retract defamatory and false information, which its leadership refused, The Hill reported.
“Defendants rejected President Trump’s reasonable demands for retraction and instead doubled down and expanded on the malicious and defamatory falsehood,” the legal team says.
“These breaches of journalistic ethics are further proven by The Times’ enthusiastic aiding and abetting of the partisan effort to falsely link Russian interference to President Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election,” Trump’s filing says.
The claims of Russian interference on behalf of Trump “is well on its way to becoming one of the most profoundly disturbing criminal political scandals in American history,” Trump’s legal team argues.
Officials for The New York Times in a statement on Friday said the lawsuit lacks merit.
“Nothing has changed today,” the statement said. “This is merely an attempt to stifle independent reporting and generate [public relations] attention.”
The Times’ executive editor Joseph Kahn previously said the news outlet will not settle the case, which other news outlets have done to end similar cases filed by the president.