Federal judge dismissed Trump’s lawsuit against Woodward over 2022 ‘Trump Tapes’ audiobook of interviews

President Donald Trump is certainly no stranger to litigation, and in 2023, he sued author and journalist Bob Woodward for $49 million over the 2022 publication of recorded interviews for Woodward’s 2020 book “Rage.”

On Friday, however, after more than two years, a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit and rejected all of Trump’s claims without holding a hearing on the matter, Newsmax reported.

The president was understandably outraged by the “wrongful decision,” and a spokesperson for his legal team lambasted the “biased” judge for denying him “basic due process.”

Lawsuit filed

According to Reuters, Woodward published an audiobook titled “The Trump Tapes” in October 2022, which was a collection of 19 interviews between Woodward and then-President Trump conducted in 2019 and 2020 in support of the author’s 2020 best-seller “Rage.”

In a Truth Social post at that time, Trump asserted, “As he fully understands, writer Bob Woodward never got my permission to release tapes of my various interviews with him. Those tapes were allowed only for purposes of making sure that he got my quotes & statements correct for ‘the WRITTEN WORD,’ in other words, for his, nevertheless, highly inaccurate book.”

“The tapes are much better than the book, at least if they were not bludgeoned to death by him to make me look as bad as possible, but he & his publisher had NO right to use my ‘VOICE’ or them!” he added.

Just a few months later, in January 2023, Trump further posted, “I am continuing my fight against the corrupt, dishonest, and deranged Fake News Media by filing this lawsuit against a man whose image is far different from the fact, Bob Woodward, his publisher Simon & Schuster, and their parent company, Paramount Global, for misappropriating, manipulating, and wrongfully profiting from my Voice….”

For their part, Woodward and the publisher countered that he was the “sole architect and true author” of the audiobook, that the taped interviews constituted “classic news reporting,” and that the publishing of Trump’s voice was covered under “fair use,” for which Trump deserved no rights or royalties

Lawsuit dismissed

According to The Hill, the case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, who proceeded to essentially sit on the case for more than two years, despite repeated efforts by President Trump’s legal team to prompt action on the lawsuit.

Finally, on Friday, about a year and a half after Woodward and the publisher asked for the case to be dismissed, the judge did exactly that, and flatly rejected not only Trump’s copyright infringement claims but also his state law claims, which the judge insisted were preempted by federal copyright laws.

“There is almost no support in the case law for the notion that an interviewee has a copyright interest in his responses to interview questions, and such a conclusion would run counter to animating principles of the Copyright Act,” Gardephe wrote in the dismissal.

Trump’s team vows to keep fighting

In reaction to the dismissal, Newsmax reported that a spokesperson for President Trump’s legal team said, “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. We will continue to ensure that those who commit wrongdoing against President Trump and all Americans are held accountable.”

Conversely, publisher Simon & Schuster said of the ruling, “We’re very pleased the Court agreed with us and dismissed the case.”

Reuters noted that while Judge Gardephe did dismiss the lawsuit, he gave Trump’s team until August 18 to file a third amended complaint, potentially keeping the case alive, albeit not under copyright law.

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