A federal judge has thrown out President Donald Trump’s $50 million lawsuit against veteran Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward.
Woodward, world-renowned for breaking the Watergate scandal with his colleague Carl Bernstein, published interviews with Trump in 2022 in an audiobook called The Trump Tapes. The project drew on nearly 20 interviews between Woodward and the president from 2016 to 2020, and included 27 letters exchanged between Trump and North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un.
Trump sued Woodward and Simon & Schuster, which published the tapes, in January 2023, arguing that the tapes violated his copyright. He claimed that he told Woodward that the interviews were meant solely for his book, the 2020 bestseller Rage, rather than an audiobook. Woodward said he never agreed to the restriction.
U.S. District Judge Paul G. Gardephe, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, dismissed the lawsuit on Friday, finding that Trump did not demonstrate that he and Woodward intended to be co-authors or that Trump had any copyright interest. The interviews were conducted on the record.
Gardephe gave Trump the chance to amend and refile his complaint by Aug. 18. But Gardephe said it would be “unlikely” that Trump could “adequately plead a plausible copyright interest.”
Woodward is an investigative journalist who started at the Post in 1971. About 20 percent of his book, Rage, came from the interviews. The book came out in September 2020, and the audiobook and Woodward’s commentary were released in October 2022.
“In another biased action by a New York Court, this wrongful decision was issued without even affording President Trump the basic due process of a hearing,” a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team told NBC News. “We will continue to ensure that those who commit wrongdoing against President Trump and all Americans are held accountable.”
Woodward’s reporting detailed Trump’s response to a series of crises during his first term, including his impeachment trial, efforts to downplay the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, and his rocky negotiations with North Korea.
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