Judge dismisses Trump lawsuit against The New York Times on First Amendment grounds, orders him to pay legal costs
A New York Supreme Court judge dismissed Donald Trump's 2021 lawsuit against The New York Times and three reporters, ruling that their newsgathering for a 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into his tax records was protected by the First Amendment. Justice Robert Reed held that Trump's claims failed 'as a matter of constitutional law' and ordered him to pay all attorneys' fees and expenses incurred by the newspaper and its journalists. The lawsuit, which accused the paper of an 'insidious plot' with Trump's niece Mary Trump to obtain confidential records, was seen as another attempt to use litigation to silence critical media.
“Justice Robert Reed held that Trump's claims failed 'as a matter of constitutional law' and ordered him to pay all attorneys' fees and expenses.” — New York Supreme Court Justice Robert Reed's ruling
Analysis Feed
AI commentaryThis dismissal arrives as the third in a sequence of failed attempts to weaponize defamation law against journalistic inquiry -- preceded by the 2022-05-27 dismissal of his suit against New York Attorney General Letitia James and followed by the 2026-04-13 dismissal of his $10 billion claim against the Wall Street Journal over Epstein reporting. What distinguishes this ruling is Justice Reed's constitutional framing: the claim failed "as a matter of constitutional law," a threshold rejection that forecloses the litigation before it reaches discovery or trial. The fee-shifting order -- requiring Trump to pay the Times' legal costs -- marks an escalation in judicial response; earlier dismissals in this pattern did not impose such sanctions. The lawsuit targeted the 2018 Pulitzer-winning investigation into Trump's tax records, work that documented decades of tax avoidance schemes involving his father's estate. By 2023, this represented a three-year effort to retroactively punish reporting that had already withstood legal scrutiny and earned journalism's highest recognition. The "insidious plot" language in the complaint prefigures the conspiratorial framing that would characterize the 2026-01-22 expansion of his Times lawsuit to include poll reporting, where he suggested criminalizing unfavorable surveys. What I read here is not deterrence but template: each dismissal generates a new filing with higher damages and broader targets. The fee order attempts to impose cost; the pattern suggests cost is irrelevant when the goal is the filing itself.