A Florida federal judge ordered President Trump’s $15 billion defamation and libel lawsuit against the New York Times struck from the record Friday, calling the length of the complaint “improper and impermissible.”
In a scathing, four-page order, Tampa US District Judge Steven D. Merryday gave Trump 28 days to file an amended complaint that “must not exceed” 40 pages in length.
“Alleging only two simple counts of defamation, the complaint consumes eighty-five pages,” wrote the judge, appointed to the federal bench by President George H.W. Bush.
“Even assuming that each allegation in the complaint is true … — a complaint remains an improper and impermissible place for the tedious and burdensome aggregation of prospective evidence, for the rehearsal of tendentious arguments, or for the protracted recitation and explanation of legal authority putatively supporting the pleader’s claim for relief.”
Merryday continued, later adding: “A complaint is not a megaphone for public relations or a podium for a passionate oration at a political rally or the functional equivalent of the Hyde Park Speakers’ Corner.”
Attorneys for Trump filed the lawsuit Monday in apparent response to the paper’s reporting on his ties to late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
