You should pay attention to the pattern. Donald Trump or one of his companies files a public lawsuit against a major news outlet. The lawsuit has huge numbers and angry language, but then, out of the blue, the judge throws it all out. It happened once more last week in Florida, this time with The Washington Post and the Trump Media and Technology Group.
After reviewing the Trump Media’s $3.8 billion defamation lawsuit against the Post, a federal judge decided that the company did not provide enough evidence to take the case to a jury. Thomas Barber, a US District Judge who was appointed by Trump, said that Trump Media could not show that the Post acted with “actual malice,” which is what the law calls it. In order for public figures to win defamation claims, they have to show that the defendant either knew the statement was false or didn’t care about how true it was. That’s a high bar. It was too messy for Trump Media to fix.
A 2023 article in the Washington Post looked into a possible financial link between a trust connected to an adult entertainment-friendly bank and Trump’s new Truth Social platform at the time. A group representing Trump called it a “egregious hit piece” and said the newspaper had been on a “years-long crusade” against the president. The lawsuit asked for damages that would have been one of the biggest ever in a case of defamation in the media. The Post’s lawyers said, and Judge Barber finally agreed, that the reporter who wrote the story had done a lot of research on the subject and was sure of what they were writing.
It’s important to note that the Post did issue a correction in May, admitting that two specific factual claims in the original story were wrong based on what the lawsuit’s discovery showed. The Trump media jumped on that correction and said it was proof. But corrections and malice are two very different legal issues, and Barber’s decision made it clear how important that difference was in this case.
It’s not the first time that Trump Media has lost a court case. A similar defamation suit against The Guardian was thrown out in November of last year, and the company dropped the whole thing rather than filing a new complaint. A different federal judge threw out Trump’s personal defamation suit against The Wall Street Journal in April, but he filed it again in May. There are also lawsuits coming up against the BBC, The New York Times, and the Des Moines Register. It’s a long list.
As I watch all of this happen, I get the impression that the legal strategy is used for more than just winning cases. Lawyers’ cases make the news. The news organizations are seen as enemies by them. They let some people know that the fight is still going on, even though the courts keep giving the same verdict. For a business like Trump Media, which made less than $1 million in sales in the first quarter of this year and trades at prices that don’t quite reflect that, the courtroom may be more of a stage than a place for legal proceedings.
Though it didn’t say much, The Washington Post liked the ruling. Someone from the newspaper said they were happy with the court’s decision and would wait for the full written opinion. There was no victory lap; just a calm statement from a newsroom that has been going through its own rough patch.
It remains to be seen if Trump Media works. The company would “evaluate” that choice, and a spokesperson said they would “continue to hold the media accountable.”” The way the words are used keeps the story going without committing to anything. At this point, it’s really not clear if any of these cases will ever lead to a meaningful legal outcome. The bigger picture is less clear; so far, the courts have kept ruling the same way.
