President Donald Trump has sued Penguin Random House, the New York Times, and the authors of the book Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success for defamation, the Washington Post reports.
Trump is seeking $15 billion in damages in the suit, which he filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. In addition to the publisher, newspaper, and authors of the book, Trump is also suing Times reporters Peter Baker and Michael S. Schmidt.
Lucky Loser, written by Times investigative reporters Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig, was published by Penguin Press last September. The book questions Trump’s claims that he parlayed a “small loan” from his father into a massive business empire; a critic for Kirkus wrote of it, “Two investigative reporters turn the Trump origin story on its head.”
In the suit, Trump’s attorneys refer to “a malicious, defamatory, and disparaging book written by two [Times] reporters and three false, malicious, defamatory, and disparaging articles, all carefully crafted by Defendants, with actual malice, calculated to inflict maximum damage upon President Trump.”
The Times responded to the suit with a statement that reads in part, “This lawsuit has no merit. It lacks any legitimate legal claims and instead is an attempt to stifle and discourage independent reporting.”
In a news release, the literary nonprofit group PEN America said, “This latest lawsuit is striking in its hypocrisy, and continues the broader goal of creating a climate of fear and retaliation while claiming to champion free speech.…This kind of weaponized litigation not only threatens an independent press but also erodes the foundation of the First Amendment.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
