Donald Trump has filed an amended $15bn defamation lawsuit against the New York Times, book publisher Penguin Random House and two reporters, after a federal judge threw out his initial complaint last month. The 40-page amended complaint was lodged on Thursday in a Florida federal court.
US district court judge Steven Merryday had given Trump 28 days to refile after dismissing the original suit on 19 September. The amended complaint names investigative reporters Suzanne Craig and Russ Buettner, as well as former White House correspondent Peter Baker, but drops Michael S Schmidt, who was named in the initial lawsuit.
The new filing includes an itemised list of dozens of allegations tied to specific publications and statements. Trump is again seeking $15bn in compensatory damages, plus punitive damages to be determined at trial. The case relates to articles in the New York Times about Trump's work on The Apprentice and the book Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father's Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success, by Craig and Buettner.
In his initial ruling, Judge Merryday criticised the original 85-page complaint for violating federal rule 8(a), which requires a short and plain statement of the claim. He noted that the two counts of defamation did not appear until pages 80 and 83, and described the complaint as containing 'many, often repetitive, and laudatory (toward President Trump) but superfluous allegations'. The judge's order did not address the truth of the allegations or the validity of the claims.
The lawsuit argues that the New York Times falsely described Trump as having been 'discovered' as a potential host for The Apprentice, when he was already famous. It also challenges reporting that Trump's multimillion-dollar inheritance from his father, Fred C Trump, resulted from 'fraudulent tax evasion schemes' and that his father had 'twisted the rules' of federal programmes for war veterans.
