I'm going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money. . . . So when The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace . . . we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they're totally protected. . . . we're going to have people sue you like you've never got sued before."President Donald Trump campaigned, and now governs, with ongoing attacks on the judiciary and the media – two institutions designed by the drafters of our Constitution to provide a check on presidential abuse of power. For those who look to the “original intent,” that was the original intent.
-- Presidential candidate Donald Trump, Rally, Ft. Worth Texas, Friday, February 26, 2016, Hadas Gold, “Donald Trump: We're going to 'open up' libel laws,” Politico, February 26, 2016.
The president’s attack on the media has included the assertion that he is going to “open up our libel laws” so that he can sue newspapers like the New York Times.
Trump can already sue for libel. For starters, he already has the legal right to sue any newspaper or other media outlet for defamation (“libel” if written, “slander” if spoken). Anyone can sue for defamation. That includes the president.
Whether the plaintiff will win involves many elements of a defamation claim, but here’s a summary. There is a statement, about the plaintiff (not always obvious), the meaning of which must be ascertained (not always obvious), as understood by the individuals of relevance (such as customers of the plaintiff, neighbors, or members of the plaintiff’s profession), that was factual in nature (as distinguished from “opinion”), false, and which caused a measurable harm to the plaintiff’s reputation (among those individuals of relevance).
In short, it's simply not true, as Trump has asserted, that the reason he hasn't sued the media is he has "no chance of winning because they're totally protected."
(Many of the president’s tweets and other informal comments attacking and demeaning individuals and institutions would seem to fall within that definition of defamation. But the issues involved when a citizen wishes to sue the president for defamation would require another commentary.)
Different standards for plaintiffs who are public officials. If what Trump meant to say is that, as a public official, he must meet a slightly different standard than you or I to recover a judgment for defamation, he is right. That standard was set in a Supreme Court case.
He wrote,
“[W]e consider this case against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.”Sullivan, the plaintiff, was one of three elected commissioners in Montgomery, Alabama –- and therefore a “public official.” As such, the Court held, he had a right to sue for defamation, but to prevail on the elements just itemized he would need to show not just that the Times story had some factual errors.
He would need to show what the Court called “actual malice” – an unfortunate choice of words, since the everyday meaning of “malice” was no part of the standard. “Actual malice” meant that he would need to show “that the statement was made . . . with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.”
The standard involving plaintiffs who are ordinary citizens focuses on, recognizes and protects the asset value of individuals’ reputations – with the byproduct of reducing remedies involving violence. Unlike the standard involving ordinary citizens, which only requires a false statement, public officials must show a measure of fault on the part of the media. This is because of the First Amendment value of speech involving public policy and public officials – speech that lies at the heart of what the First Amendment was designed to protect.
Balancing the desire to offer citizens a means for protecting their reputations against the value of First Amendment speech, this is where the Court came out.
Constitutional restraints on congressional and presidential law making. Article I of the Constitution lays out what in high school we call, “how a bill becomes law” (in Article I, Section 7). Clearly the president cannot create “law” all on his own; he cannot “open up our libel laws,” or any other laws for that matter.
Nor can Congress make any laws it pleases. Congress only has the power to legislate regarding what the Constitution grants in the 18 clauses within Article I, Section 8 – none of which come remotely close to libel laws. The “interstate commerce clause” (Article 1, Section 8, clause 3: “The Congress shall have power . . . To regulate Commerce . . . among the several States . . ..”) has been stretched pretty wide by the courts. But defamation? Originating in the English “common law” (judicial decisions) at least in the early 17th Century, if not before, has been considered a matter for the U.S. states.
Hopefully, Mr. President, you’ll find this analysis helpful in your quest to “open up our libel laws.”
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