Former US President Donald Trump is suing journalist Bob Woodward for publishing recordings of conversations he had with the Republican in 2019 and 2020 in an audiobook.
The lawsuit, which seeks compensation of US$ 49.98 million (R$ 254.6 million), also affects the publisher responsible for the publication, Simon & Schuster, and its parent company, Paramount Global.
In January, Woodward released the audiobook “The Trump Tapes” (Trump’s recordings), with 20 interviews with the republican. Lawyers maintain that the material was subject to usage and distribution limitations.
“By usurping, manipulating and exploiting the material, Woodward acted in conjunction with Simon & Schuster, which brings material from diverse authors to hundreds of countries and territories, and Simon & Schuster’s parent company, Paramount,” the lawyers argue. . “These entities systematically, egregiously, and illegally usurped Trump’s copyright, contractual, and interviewee rights.”
In a note, the publisher and the journalist stated that the lawsuit “has no merit” and promised to “defend aggressively” in the lawsuit. “All interviews were given on condition of anonymity and recorded with Trump’s agreement. Additionally, it is in the public interest to have the President’s historical record in his own words. We are confident that the facts and the law are in our favor. .”
Executive editor of The Washington Post, Woodward won two Pulitzer Prizes throughout his career, one of the most important in journalism. He was responsible, along with Carl Bernstein, for revealing the Watergate scandal in 1972, which overthrew then-President Richard Nixon two years later.
Before releasing the audiobook with the interviews, the journalist published a series of three books, between 2018 and 2021, about Trump’s visit to the White House, entitled “Fear”, “Anger” and “Danger”.
The lawsuit against the journalist has clippings of the interviews and the allegation that the published result, “far from being a raw recording”, was edited. “Responses were manipulated to alter Trump’s language, as well as sustain the narrative desired by Woodward, Simon & Schuster and Paramount.”
According to the lawsuit, Trump told the reporter several times that the interviews were to be used in the “written world.” “At no time did Woodward ask Trump to expand content licenses or provide authorization to use the interview recordings for an audiobook or other derivative work, as is customary in the book publishing and recording industries,” the piece reads.
In an excerpt from one of the conversations transcribed in the lawsuit, Trump asks Woodward if the interview would only be for the book. “Again, this is for the book that will come out before the elections”, the journalist would have replied. “Rage” was published two months before the 2020 election, in which Trump lost to Joe Biden.
Suing journalists and newspapers has become a common strategy for the former president in recent years. In October, he filed a lawsuit against CNN for defamation. At the time, he asked to be compensated in US$ 475 million (R$ 2.45 billion) for news that, according to him, would be false and biased.
In the 29-page lawsuit, Trump’s lawyers accuse CNN of trying to undermine an eventual presidential candidacy in 2024 and of destabilizing the future election in favor of the left. They argue that the vehicle refers to the former president “with a series of scandalous, false and defamatory labels, such as ‘racist’, ‘Russia’s lackey’, ‘insurgent’ and, ultimately, ‘Hitler'”.
Trump is trying to make himself viable for 2024 while facing several crises, ranging from the disappearance of confidential White House documents to the attempt to tamper with the election and suspected fraud.
In December, the US House of Representatives committee investigating the January 6, 2021 invasion of Congress by Trump supporters recommended indicting the Republican on four counts: obstruction of official procedure; conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to make a false statement; and inciting, assisting, or aiding insurrection.
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