Trump Beats Twitter Libel Suit

A New York Supreme Court judge found that President-elect Donald Trump’s tweets at a political strategist were “opinion” rather than violations of libel laws. The suit was brought by Cheryl Jacobus, a political strategist Trump said, in a series of tweets, had “begged” him for a job and then turned “hostile” when she was turned down. “Major loser, zero credibility,” Trump tweeted. Jacobus filed a suit seeking $4 million in damages. Trump’s attorneys moved to dismiss, saying the statements were “pure opinion,” not subject to defamatory meaning because they could not be proved true or false. His legal team also noted the generally hyperbolic nature of Twitter. Ultimately that view prevailed, with New York Judge Barbara Jaffe writing that “Trump’s characterization of plaintiff as having ‘begged’ for a job is reasonably viewed as a loose, figurative, and hyperbolic reference to plaintiff’s state of mind and is therefore, not susceptible to plaintiff’s state of mind and is therefore, not susceptible of objective verification.” She noted, though, that these circumstances “raise some concern that some may avoid liability by conveying positions in small Twitter parcels, as opposed to by doing so in a more formal and presumably actionable manner…”