{"id":6943,"date":"2025-12-27T17:12:41","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T17:12:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/?page_id=6943"},"modified":"2026-02-11T14:43:51","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T14:43:51","slug":"trumps-libel-suits","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/trumps-libel-suits\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump’s libel suits"},"content":{"rendered":"

We need a special category for President Donald Trump’s libel suits <\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0because he has filed so many for so little reason. This litigation was\u00a0 unprecedented in US history.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Trump posted this ai-generated video of himself with a crown to mock “No Kings” protesters in 2025.<\/p><\/div>\n

The underlying theory in these lawsuits appears to be the archaic concept of \u00a0l\u00e8se-majest\u00e9\u00a0<\/a> (defamation against the dignity of his majesty), also known as seditious libel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is why protests about Trump’s activities were often framed around the “No Kings” idea, and also the reason why Trump mocked them in a video he posted Oct. 19, 2025.<\/p>\n

Background<\/h3>\n

Seditious libel prosecutions were relatively rare in the US after the John Peter Zenger case in 1735 and the short-lived Alien & Sedition Acts of 1798.\u00a0 Only in the WWI-era Sedition Act of 1917 were any significant numbers of people\u00a0 jailed by the federal government for protesting. As we have seen in Section 4, this was affirmed as a “clear and present danger” in the Schenck case (1919), incorporated in the Abrams case (1925), and challenged by a dissent in the Whitney case (1927). The Schenck standard was finally overturned in the \u00a0Brandenburg v Ohio<\/a> case (1969), which greatly narrowed the definition of criminal sedition to “imminent lawless action,”\u00a0 leaving open many avenues of criticism of government and leaders as perfectly legal under the First Amendment.<\/p>\n

Only once has any other US president sued a newspaper for libel\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"

US president Teddy Roosevelt<\/p><\/div>\n

Teddy Roosevelt sued the \u00a0New York World<\/a> \u00a0newspaper and ordered federal attorneys to file criminal libel suits against newspapers\u00a0 all over the country on Dec. 15, 1908.\u00a0 A grand jury had brought charges against the World for criminal libel because the\u00a0 newspaper alleged that while serving as president, Roosevelt had approved corrupt payments<\/a> to speed the sale of the Panama Canal from the French to the US government.<\/p>\n

Roosevelt was a lame duck, and only two months away from stepping down as president.\u00a0\u00a0The announcement of the suit prompted laughter on the floor of the US Senate<\/a> and resignations in US attorneys offices.\u00a0 The suit was considered to be far beneath the dignity of the office.<\/p>\n

Informed of the lawsuit, World publisher Joseph Pulitzer famously responded:\u00a0 “He cannot muzzle the World.”<\/strong>\u00a0 (See Pulitzer’s Reply Dec. 16, 1908).<\/a> \u00a0\u00a0According to Columbia University<\/a>:<\/p>\n

In addition to fighting for freedom of the press throughout the United States, Pulitzer fought what he considered Roosevelt\u2019s attempts \u201cto re-establish the principle of the odious Alien and Sedition laws and to create here the doctrine of lese-majesty.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The US Supreme Court ruling in\u00a0<\/span>US v Press Publishing<\/a> was relatively short, and simply sustained an objection by the defendants that “the court has no jurisdiction in this case, because there is no statute of the United States authorizing the prosecution.”<\/span><\/p>\n

The decision in the 1911 case was (until recently) considered the “last gasp” of seditious libel prosecutions,<\/a> and \u201ca landmark<\/a>, one of the substantial guarantees of the continued freedom of the press.\u201d\u00a0 Given this history, no other sitting president since Roosevelt seriously considered filing libel suits.\u00a0 Even outright <\/span>allegations of murder<\/a> in 1994 did not tempt President Bill Clinton to wield the cudgel against critics like Jerry Falwell.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Which brings us to Donald Trump,<\/strong> the president who defied so many expectations in so many ways.<\/p>\n

Trump 2025-26 lawsuits\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

JPMorgan Chase <\/a>\u00a0—<\/strong> Jan. 22, 2026 — Trump sued the bank and its CEO, Jamie Dimon, for “trade libel,” claiming they “debanked” him (closed his bank accounts) for political reasons.<\/span><\/p>\n

British Broadcasting Corp<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>\u2014 Dec. 15, 2025\u00a0 \u2014 Donald Trump sued the BBC\u00a0 for $10 billion, accusing the news organization of a\u00a0 \u201cdefamatory \u2026 depiction of President Trump\u201d<\/a> simply because of the way a video of one of his speeches was edited.\u00a0 He also claimed it was an \u201cattempt to interfere in and influence\u201d the 2024 U.S. presidential election. The 33-page brief is essentially a litany of opinionated complaints without much of a legally grounded argument about defamation.\u00a0 There is only a half-hearted\u00a0 attempt to meet the Sullivan actual malice standard, for example (p 15).\u00a0 The main argument is that selective editing of a video of Trump\u2019s speech on Jan. 6, 2021 gave the impression that he called for violent action in the hours before \u00a0the violent takeover of the US Capitol by his followers.\u00a0 (This same impression was widely shared and, for example, led to his de-platforming on Facebook and Twitter on Jan. 8, 2021.) In January 2026, BBC asked a Florida state court to dismiss the suit.<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC and CBS News<\/strong> — Dec. 14 2024 and July 1,\u00a0 2025 — Trump also filed lawsuits against ABC News<\/a><\/span> (which ABC settled for $15 million<\/a> Dec. 14, 2024) and and CBS News\u2019 \u201c60 Minutes\u201d\u00a0 (which CBS settled<\/a> July 1, 2025 for $16 million). The settlements should be seen against the backdrop of\u00a0 proposed mergers by parent corporations that needed approval of the Trump administration’s Federal Trade Commission. The libel suits themselves would have been easily defeated by the news organizations, but their capitulations were called a “big fat bribe<\/a>” by Late Night host Stephen Colbert (who was then fired by CBS)<\/p>\n

\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/span><\/strong> —\u00a0 July 2025 — Trump sued after the newspaper published a story reporting on his ties to wealthy financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n

NY Times lawsuits<\/strong> — Sept. 15, 2025, Trump filed a $15 billion defamation lawsuit<\/a> that targets four New York Times journalists over a book and three articles published just before the 2024 election.\u00a0 On Sept. 19, 2025 a <\/span>Federal judge dismissed the lawsuit<\/a>.\u00a0 A month later, Trump refiled the lawsuit<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Meta (Facebook)<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0 — January 2025 — FB settled a lawsuit brought by Trump for $25 million after allegations that Trump was unfairly de-platformed by the social media service.<\/p>\n

Pulitzer Prize Committee <\/strong>— 2024 — The Russia suits (against the NY Times and Washington Post in 2020) were revived in a libel case Trump brought against the Pulitzer Prize Committee, which had awarded prizes to the Post and Times for the Russia articles. Trump complained that the Pulitzer committee\u00a0 turned down his demands to rescind the prizes. In July, 2024, <\/span>the suit survived a motion to dismiss,<\/a> a minor victory for Trump.\u00a0 In December, 2025, the Pulitzer committee filed discovery motions asking for Trump’s medical records.\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

New York Times –<\/strong>– January, 2024 —\u00a0 Another Trump libel suit against the New York Times and its coverage of his family’s wealth was dismissed by a New York court<\/a>, and Trump was ordered to pay nearly $400,000 in legal costs.<\/p>\n

CNN<\/strong> — In 2023, a judge also threw out his defamation lawsuit<\/a> against CNN, in which he alleged the network had likened him to Adolf Hitler.<\/p>\n

Twitter \/ X — 2022 — Case brought by Trump about unfair de-platforming was dismissed by US Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

NY Times, Washington Post <\/strong>— 2020 — Trump lost a\u00a0 libel suit against\u00a0 the New York Times <\/a>\u00a0on Feb. 26, 2020, and lost a related suit against\u00a0the Washington Post,<\/a> on March\u00a0 3, 2020. In the suits, Trump claimed that an opinion article about Trump\u2019s relationship with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin involved a libelous assertion that there was a \u201cquid pro quo\u201d with the Russians in return for their help in the 2016 election.\u00a0 (The plaintiff\u2019s petition can be read here.)<\/a> This \u201cquid pro quo\u201d was\u00a0 described in \u00a0an op-ed\u00a0<\/a>written by former New York Times editor Max Frankel<\/a>\u00a0and published March 27, 2019.\u00a0<\/a> In the op-ed, Frankel rejected\u00a0 small concerns about \u201ccollusion\u201d with Russia in the Trump campaign. The much larger issue, he said, involved the relationship between Trump and Putin.\u00a0 Both of these suits were dismissed.<\/p>\n

Trump’s previous libel suits<\/h3>\n

\"\"2005 — TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald<\/a><\/b>\u00a0was a 2005 biography of Donald Trump was the subject of a $5 billion lawsuit against author Timothy L. O’Brien.\u00a0 It\u00a0 was dismissed in 2009, and an appeals court affirmed the decision in 2011.<\/p>\n

2010 — Trump University filed a libel suit<\/a> against Tarla Makaeff, a former student, who initially sued to recover money\u00a0 shew paid to the private “university.”\u00a0 The case was dismissed in 2014 and Trump “U” was ordered to pay Makaeff’s legal costs.<\/p>\n

2014 — Trump sued “Miss Pennsylvania,” a woman<\/a> who alleged his Miss USA 2012 beauty pageant was rigged.Trump\u00a0 also sued the Chicago Tribune in 1984 for criticizing his taste in architecture — and lost. He sued a former student at the former Trump university for saying it’s not really a university — and lost.\u00a0 (Susan Seager at the Media Law Resource Center has details)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trump v E. Jean Carroll <\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/b>One of Trump’s biggest losses in a libel suit involved columnist E. Jean Carroll. The suit was filed in 2019 after Trump was convicted in civil court of sexual assault and then, when he kept lying about the case, Carroll sued for libel in a second trial.\u00a0 \u00a0On January 26, 2024, a jury deliberated for three hours and awarded Carroll $7.3 million in emotional damages, $11 million in reputation-related damages, and $65 million in punitive damages, totaling $83.3 million. The jury found Trump had committed sexual abuse and forcible touching, two of the three elements of Carroll’s battery claim.<\/p>\n

And the question is …<\/h3>\n

Why does Trump file so many libel suites?\u00a0 These are political tactics, not serious lawsuits, and Trump certainly knows enough about libel to know that the suits are frivolous. ProPublica president Richard Tofel saw it this way<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“What is happening here is a cynical play to establish a talking point. Now, whenever the nation\u2019s leading newspaper reveals some new abuse of power or malfeasance in office, Trump can point out he is suing the Times. Perhaps, he may hope, the Times news pages will even pull a punch or two to avoid being seen as a presidential adversary.” Tofel goes on to say “I hope and trust they will not.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cDonald J. Trump is a libel bully,\u201d explains\u00a0Susan E. Seager in the Media Law Resource Center,<\/a>\u00a0who has kept count of Trump\u2019s 4,000 plus lawsuits over 30 years.<\/p>\n

Katie Fallow<\/a> at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University said:<\/p>\n

\n

These shameful episodes illustrate two troubling trends … First, Trump has wielded the enormous power of the federal bureaucracy, including the power of the purse and regulatory oversight of businesses, to silence critics and control the viewpoints of private speakers. These actions fly in the face of the fundamental First Amendment principle that the government should not be permitted to use its power to censor viewpoints or distort public discourse.<\/p>\n

Second, far too often these speakers have folded in the face of the Trump administration\u2019s threats rather than use the strong protections of the First Amendment to vindicate their right to free speech. The First Amendment, as powerful as it is, can only be a shield to those who are willing to use it as one.\u00a0 It is hard to muster much sympathy for corporations that have chosen to capitulate needlessly. But the real loser here is the ability of the press and other speakers to criticize powerful figures and expose wrongdoing by government and corporate entities.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Trump’s overall plan<\/a><\/strong> was originally to dismantle libel laws and make it easier to sue media organizations for unfavorable coverage. But only the US Supreme Court\u00a0 could change the law of libel, and decisions in cases during the 2023 – 2025 period, showed that a majority wanted to leave the bedrock Sullivan standard in place.<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s not possible for Trump himself to legally change libel law. According to First Amendment Watch:<\/p>\n

“There is little that the President can actually do to change the libel laws. There is no federal law on libel. State laws control libel, and all such laws are subject to\u00a0 stringent First Amendment protections for the press and other speakers that the Supreme Court has imposed through cases such as the landmark New York Times v. Sullivan<\/em> decision in 1964. “<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Trump’s immature partisan attacks on political rivals\u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n