“As we said when this was first filed and again after the judge’s ruling to strike it: this lawsuit has no merit,” a NYT spokesperson said in a statement (via Variety). “Nothing has changed today. This is merely an attempt to stifle independent reporting and generate PR attention, but the New York Times will not be deterred by intimidation tactics.”
The newly filed suit retains the spirit of the original, with one of the most substantive changes being that it no longer names journalist Michael S. Schmidt as a defendant (reporters Susanne Craig, Russ Ruettner, and Peter Baker are still listed). The suit continues to cry foul about NYT reporting that became the basis of the book Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created The Illusion of Success. The suit states that claims from these reports “wrongly defame and disparage President Trump’s hard-earned professional reputation, which he painstakingly built for decades as a private citizen before becoming President of the United States, including as a successful businessman and as star of the most successful reality television show of all-time—The Apprentice.”
In a statement (via The Washington Post), a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team wrote that the president is “continuing to hold the Fake News responsible through this powerhouse lawsuit against the New York Times, its reporters, and Penguin Random House.” The President is seeking damages of at least $15 billion as well as punitive damages to be determined at trial, plus a “retraction of the defamatory publications and statements” from the paper and publishing house. Trump has had some success shaking down news organizations for money recently, but The New York Times has rarely ever lost a libel case, so perhaps the buck will stop here.
