Donald Trump once famously boasted he'd 'open up' libel laws to make it easier to sue news organizations, but on Tuesday, he took a step in the opposite direction
Donald Trump once famously boasted he'd "open up" libel laws to make it easier to sue news organizations, but on Tuesday, he took a step in the opposite direction thanks to the overriding interest of his own self-preservation. At the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, his attorney argued that a federal judge was within his authority to throw out a defamation complaint filed against him by porn star Stormy Daniels.
Back in 2018, Daniels was attempting to get out of a "hush deal" concerning her alleged affair with Trump when her then-attorney Michael Avenatti released a sketch of a man who threatened Daniels into remaining silent back in 2011. In response, Trump tweeted, "A sketch years later about a nonexistent man. A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools !"
Trump's tweet became the basis of Daniels' defamation claim, and in Oct. 2018, U.S. District Court Judge S. James Otero concluded that Daniels had failed to establish a prima facie case for defamation. The judge saw "con job" as "rhetorical hyperbole" outside the scope of something that could be disproven. What's more, Daniels had failed to demonstrate "actual malice," meaning Trump had knowledge of falsity or recklessly disregarded the truth.
Clark Brewster made arguments for Daniels in her effort to overturn a "knockout [that] was swift and punishing," plus a result meaning she'd be responsible for paying $293,000 of Trump's legal bills. Brewster said this was a case of first impression, meaning the legal issue at play is novel. While appellate circuits have come to conflicting conclusions about applying SLAPP laws in federal circuit, this case involves a California judge applying Texas' anti-SLAPP statute.
"Given that the Fifth Circuit doesn't apply the TCPA [Texas' anti-SLAPP statute] in federal court, why should we apply it here?" asked Ninth Circuit judge Kim Wardlaw of Harder.
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