Trump’s Pensacola lawsuit transferred to New York
It’s a $50M copyright case against famed journalist Bob Woodward
Amid former President Donald Trump’s ever-growing legal trouble in various courts around the country, a Pensacola-based federal judge ruled Trump’s $50 million copyright lawsuit against famed journalist Bob Woodward must be transferred to a New York court.
Federal Judge M. Casey Rodgers ordered that the “venue in this district is ‘wrong’ and ‘improper’” earlier in August, saying Trump’s lawsuit must continue in the Southern District of New York.
“The clerk is directed to transfer this case to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York as the court concludes that district is the most appropriate and convenient forum for the parties and witnesses and the one with the strongest connection to the dispute,” the judge’s order said.
Trump originally filed the lawsuit on Jan. 30, 2023, and asked for nearly $50 million in damages after Woodward conducted interviews with Trump between Dec. 5, 2019, and April 13, 2020, for a book called “Rage.” Woodward released his audio interviews with the former president as a separate audio book called “The Trump Tapes: Bob Woodward’s Twenty Interviews with President Donald Trump.”
Trump’s lawsuit names Woodward, Simon & Schuster Inc. and Paramount Global and claims the defendants violated his copyright by publishing the audio of the interview sessions.
“In usurping, manipulation and exploiting such material, Mr. Woodward has acted in concert with SSI ... and SSI’s parent company, Paramount,” the suit claims. “Individually and collectively, these entities have systematically, blatantly and unlawfully usurped President Trump’s copyright interests, his contractual rights and the rights he holds as an interviewee through the publication of an audiobook.”
Trump’s lawyers from GS2 Law PLLC filed the suit in Pensacola because SSI, Paramount and Woodward “transacts business within this District” either through publishing services to authors or publication of literary materials.
Woodward and his attorneys previously filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit for failure to state a claim, which Rodgers said would need to be taken up by the New York federal court after the case transfers.
Along with the Pensacola suit now transferring to New York, Trump has five major pending cases around the country. Here’s a summary of what Trump is facing.
Georgia conspiracy indictments
The Georgia grand jury’s 98-page indictment accuses Trump and his allies, including former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, of a coordinated plan to have state officials after the 2020 election award the state to Trump despite Biden’s win, focusing on a behind-thescenes pressure campaign on state election workers and harassment of a poll worker Trump falsely accused of fraud.
New York Attorney General Letitia James’ fraud lawsuit
In September 2022, New York Attorney General Letitia James accused Trump — and his children Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump, and senior members of the Trump Organization — of massive fraud in a civil lawsuit after a three-year inquiry into his family business.
James said Trump “falsely inflated his wealth by billions of dollars” to enrich himself and his family and mislead banks, insurers and other financial institutions. The lawsuit seeks to effectively shutter the former president’s namesake business, the Trump Organization. James described an “astounding” pattern of fraud that allegedly represented a “violation of the law.”
One example given was Trump’s estate in Florida, Mar-a-Lago, which was valued as high as $739 million but which the attorney general said was closer to $75 million as the higher figure was “based on the false premise that it was unrestricted property and could be developed and sold for residential use,” which was not true.
Trump gave a deposition for the case in April, where he dismissed it as “ridiculous.”
Jan. 6 trial
A federal grand jury in Washington indicted Trump on four counts related to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.
Special counsel Jack Smith has proposed a Jan. 2 trial date for Trump as “an appropriately speedy trial in the public interest and in the interests of justice.”
Trump’s lawyers have denounced the proposal, accusing the prosecutor of election interference and playing “political games.”
E. Jean Carroll defamation lawsuit
In May of this year, a federal jury found Trump liable in a civil case for sexual abuse and defamation against writer E. Jean Carroll, who said he sexually assaulted her in a New York City department store in 1996 and disparaged her character when he lied about it afterward. The jury awarded her $5 million in damages. Trump has appealed the verdict.
Trump said during a CNN town hall the very next day that Carroll was a “whack job” who told a “madeup story.”
Based on that, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan permitted Carroll to amend her defamation lawsuit to seek additional damages.
Classified documents case
After FBI agents seized hundreds of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago in August last year, Trump was indicted on 37 counts, including willful retention of national defense information under the Espionage Act, conspiracy to obstruct justice and concealing documents. This came more than a year and a half after Trump left the White House.
Prosecutors asked for a December trial, Trump’s lawyers argued it should happen after the 2024 election.
“We need to set a timetable,” U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon said in July. “Some deadlines can be established now.” She scheduled the trial to begin May 20 in Fort Pierce.
C.A. Bridges of USA Today contributed to this report.