Fox defamation suit shows why Trump will lose his [View all]

By Stephen L. Carter / Bloomberg Opinion

There’s a certain irony in the fact that President Donald Trump announced his silly $15 billion defamation suit against The New York Times scant days after a federal appellate court dismissed a similar claim against Fox News. That lawsuit was filed by Nina Jankowicz, the former head of the Biden administration’s short-lived Disinformation Governance Board.

The lawsuits suffer from a common defect: They seek to turn hyperbolic criticism of a government official into grounds for civil damages. The court was right in tossing Jankowicz’s suit; Trump’s should meet a similar fate; and quickly. It should be exceptionally difficult for those who serve in government to sue their critics; for presidents, it should be hardest of all.

The Trump lawsuit is leading the news, and it’s easy to see why. He seeks $15 billion in damages for a litany of grievances against the Times, which, in his telling, has been “spreading false and defamatory content” about him, during both his terms and in between. Yet on even a quick reading of the lengthy complaint, nearly everything cited is either fair comment, opinion or for other reasons not actionable.

To understand the problem with Trump’s suit, it might be helpful to turn first to last Friday’s opinion by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which affirmed the dismissal of Jankowicz’s claim that she’d been defamed by Fox News. The Disinformation Governance Board — could one imagine a more Orwellian name? — was an advisory committee to the Department of Homeland Security, announced with fanfare in April 2022, and then, in the wake of fierce criticism, was “paused” the following month and dismantled that August.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-fox-defamation-suit-shows-why-trump-will-lose-his/