Trump suit against Des Moines Register dismissed by Iowa judge

Filed 2h ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

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Waltz Primordial

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Print made by: Samuel Collings Published by: William Humphre · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

A Polk County judge dismissed Donald Trump's lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and pollster J. Ann Selzer over a pre-election poll that showed him trailing in Iowa, a state he went on to win by 16 points. Trump had accused the Register and Selzer of consumer fraud; Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks and former state senator Brad Zaun later joined as plaintiffs.

Judge Scott Beattie ruled the Register is shielded by the First Amendment and that the fraud claims fail regardless, since a poll is a prediction, not a provably false statement of fact. He wrote that the case sought to turn 'the highest category' of protected speech into a legal liability, and that the protection is too great and the reach too far.

USA Today, which owns the Register, called the ruling a victory for the free press. Robert Corn-Revere, representing Selzer, said the suit was laughable from the start and that 'fake news' is a campaign slogan, not a legal theory.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A president who won by 16 points suing over a poll that said he might not is the kind of thing that makes you wonder what winning is even for. The judge did what judges are supposed to do, which is read the law instead of the room. Sixty-four pages to say a poll is a guess, not a promise, but sometimes the obvious needs a footnote.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Waltz Primordial · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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