ABA declines to publish report referring to Trump as a "libel bully"
A new report that was commissioned by a committee of media lawyers at the American Bar Association (ABA) calls Donald Trump a “libel bully” and outlines seven free-speech related lawsuits he or his companies have previously filed.
The 15-page report, which was made public by the Media Law Resources Center, was prepared by former journalist and First Amendment lawyer Susan E. Seagar.
“Donald J. Trump is a libel bully. Like most bullies, he’s also a loser, to borrow from Trump’s vocabulary,” the report says.
The ABA, however, refused to publish the report because it feared that Trump would sue it, according to The New York Times. The Times’ report said a spokeswoman for the ABA denied that fear of a libel suit had anything to do with the decision to withhold the report.
Seagar examined seven free speech-related lawsuits that Trump or his companies had filed. The lawsuits targeted a book author and his publisher for saying Trump wasn’t a billionaire, Bill Maher, a former Trump University student, a former Miss Pennsylvania, an architecture critic and his newspaper two labor unions and a network executive.
Trump lost four of the suits, withdrew two and obtained one default judgment, said the report, which also said that Trump and his companies have been involved in 4,000 lawsuits over the last 30 years.
The report said that more “anti-SLAPP” statutes are needed. The acronym stands for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation.
“State legislatures should enact more anti-SLAPP statutes allowing defendants to quickly dismiss meritless lawsuits targeting speech about matters of public concern,” the report says.
In recent weeks, Trump has threatened to sue The New York Times over its story featuring two women who have accused Trump of touching them inappropriately. He has also threatened to sue women who have accused Trump of sexually assaulting them.
