How the Trump campaign is highlighting the need for stronger First Amendment protections across the country
The Trump campaign’s lawsuit earlier this year against the New York Times for an opinion piece published by Max Frankel on March 27, 2019, shows more than his apparent reelection strategy of suing the media. It also demonstrates profound holes in First Amendment protections at both the state and federal level. Trump and his lawyers are certainly aware that this lawsuit is highly unlikely to succeed on the merits, as opinion is generally not grounds to be held liable for defamation, but they filed the lawsuit anyway – and they did so in New York – a state that currently has a very weak anti-SLAPP law.
Yet even before he ran for president, Donald Trump was no stranger to filing SLAPPs. In fact, a 2016 study by USA TODAY identified more than 4,000 lawsuits filed by or against Donald Trump and his companies, and 7 of those were speech related suits filed by Trump or his companies.
When speaking about one of these lawsuits from 2011, Trump said, “I spent a couple of bucks on legal fees, and they spent a whole lot more. I did it to make his life miserable, which I’m happy about.” In that case, Trump had demanded $6 billion in damages from a book author and publisher who alleged that he was “only” worth between $150 million to $250 million.
And as a presidential candidate, Donald Trump noted that he wanted to “open up our libel laws”:
I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money…So when The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace…we can sue them and win money…we’re going to have people sue you like you’ve never got sued before.
Of course, he didn’t have the authority to “open up” our libel laws as President, but that hasn’t stopped his reelection campaign from filing these lawsuits regardless. In addition to the meritless lawsuit against the New York Times over an Op-Ed, the Trump campaign filed a similar lawsuit against the Washington Post and CNN as well – all over opinion pieces. It appears that suing the press is one part of the Trump campaign’s reelection strategy.
And it hasn’t stopped there. In the wake of his response to the coronavirus, Trump filed a lawsuit against a local TV station in Wisconsin because they aired an ad by the Priorities USA PAC that criticized Trump’s handling of his response to this pandemic.
What is significant about the newest lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign are that they appear to be part of a reelection strategy of filing “fake lawsuits” to fight what Trump calls “fake news.” What is also significant is that the recent lawsuits were filed in courts where there are no or only weak anti-SLAPP laws in place.
Ironically (as Mike Masnick recently wrote about), when Trump was recently sued in California, his attorney argued in favor of broad anti-SLAPP laws:
a defamation standard that turns typical political rhetoric into actionable defamation would chill expression that is central to the First Amendment and political speech.
So maybe somewhat unsurprising, Donald Trump appears to support broad anti-SLAPP laws, but only when they protect him.