Trump’s SLAPP-happy reign of terror in the courts

Last July, President Trump sued The Wall Street Journal for defamation after it published a story about him sending a 50th birthday card with a lewd drawing to Jeffrey Epstein. In April, the court dismissed Trump’s suit because “the complaint comes nowhere close” to demonstrating that the Journal published what it did with “actual malice” — the standard for defamation cases involving public figures such as Trump.

In other words, Trump’s lawsuit had come up far short of demonstrating that the Wall Street Journal knew or should have known that the birthday card was fake, as Trump claims it is. 

So naturally, Trump simply re-filed the same lawsuit, this time beefed up with some additional complaints about things that The Wall Street Journal did not do but also was not required to do in reporting its story.

This lawsuit was meritless the first time it was filed, and it has not improved with age. The fundamental problem is that it would be impossible for Trump to demonstrate that The Wall Street Journal acted with actual malice. That’s because, contrary to Trump’s claims in court that “no authentic letter or drawing exists,” it actually does — the Epstein estate produced it in response to a subpoena.

When the press is defending itself from a defamation claim brought by a public figure, the key question is whether the defamatory statement was published “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”

That’s it. There is no requirement for journalists to do in-depth testing or conduct exhaustive investigations proving claims beyond........

© The Hill