Robert Reich: Trump’s doomed NY Times lawsuit indebted to 'notorious legal bully'

Donald Trump became the first former president to be convicted of felony crimes as a New York jury found him guilty of 34 felony counts. Seth Wenig/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

On Monday, September 15, President Donald Trump filed a civil lawsuit against the New York Times, claiming that its articles and a book by two Times reporters — Susanne Craig ad Russ Buettner — were specifically designed to undermine his 2024 campaign. The defendants listed in the lawsuit include the New York Times Company, Craig, Buettner, Penguin Random House and Times reporters Peter Baker and Michael S. Schmidt.

Many legal experts are attacking the lawsuit as totally frivolous. But in a September 18 column for The Guardian, liberal economist Robert Reich argues that the suit's lack of merit doesn't make it any less dangerous.

"Donald Trump has sued the New York Timesfor, well, reporting on Trump," Reich explains. "Rather than charging theTimeswith any specific libelous act, Trump's lawsuit is just another of his angry bloviations. The lawsuit says he's moving against 'one of the worst and most degenerate newspapers in the History of our Country, becoming a virtual 'mouthpiece' for the Radical Left Democrat Party.' And so on."

Reich argues that Trump's New York Times lawsuit reflects the ongoing influence of one of his heroes: the late attorney Roy Cohn, who served as chief counsel for Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) in 1954 and was a personal attorney for a young Trump during the 1970s.

Reich, who served as secretary of labor under former President Bill Clinton, warns, "Defamation lawsuits are a longstanding part of Trump's repertoire, which he first learned at the feet of Roy Cohn — one of America's most notorious legal bullies…. But such lawsuits are far worse when a president sues. He's no longer just an individual whose reputation can be harmed. He's the head of the government of the United States. One of the cardinal responsibilities of the media in our democracy is to report on a president — and often criticize him."

The economist/Guardian columnist stresses that Trump's Times lawsuit doesn't begin to meet the "legal standard" for defamation that the U.S. Supreme Court, under Chief Justice Earl Warren, laid out in its landmark 1964 ruling New York Times v. Sullivan — but is nonetheless designed to bully opponents into silence.

"Trump hasn't sued the Washington Post for defamation," Reich observes, "but (owner Jeff) Bezos presumably understands Trump's potential for harming his range of businesses and wants to avoid Trump's wrath. Make no mistake: Trump's efforts to silence media criticism of him and his administration constitute another of his attacks on democracy…. Democracy depends on a fearless press. Trump and the media that have caved in to him are jeopardizing it and thereby undermining our democracy."

Robert Reich's full column for The Guardian is available at this link.

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