Donald Trump is suing Bob Woodward, claiming the journalist’s audiobook infringes copyright

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Bob Woodward: Trump “a threat to democracy”

Bob Woodward calls former President Trump “a threat to democracy” 03:45

Former President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit Monday against journalist Bob Woodward, alleging that he did not have permission to publicly release interview recordings made for the book “Rage.”

The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Pensacola, Florida, against Woodward, his publisher Simon & Schuster Inc., and the publisher’s parent company Paramount Global. Trump’s lawyers are asking for nearly $50 million in damages.

FILE: Bob Woodward speaks at the Robert A. Caro symposium at the New-York Historical Society on Oct. 24, 2021, New York City. Taylor Hill/Getty Images

Simon & Schuster and Woodward issued a joint response saying Trump’s lawsuit has no merit, and they will aggressively defend against it.

“All of these interviews were on the record and recorded with the knowledge and consent of President Trump,” the statement said. “Furthermore, it is in the public interest to have this historical record in Trump’s own words. We are confident that the facts and the law are in our favor.”

The lawsuit alleges that Trump agreed to be recorded for a series of interviews between December 2019 and August 2020, but only for a book Woodward was working on. “Rage” was published in September 2021. Trump claims Woodward and Simon & Schuster Inc. infringed. his copyright by releasing the audio recordings in November 2022 as “The Trump Tapes: Bob Woodward’s Twenty Interviews with President Donald Trump.”

The copyright lawsuit comes just weeks after a federal judge in West Palm Beach sanctioned Trump and one of his lawyers, ordering them to pay nearly $1 million for filing what the judge said which is a bogus case against Trump’s 2016 rival Hillary Clinton and others.

US District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks accused Trump in the Jan. 19 filing of a “pattern of abuse of the courts” for filing frivolous lawsuits for political purposes, which he said “undermines the rule of law” and “equivalent to obstruction of justice .”

Citing Trump’s recent legal action against the Pulitzer Prize board, the New York attorney general, big tech companies and CNN, Middlebrooks described Trump as “a prolific and sophisticated litigator” who uses the courts “to seek revenge to political opponents.”

Simon & Schuster is owned by CBS parent company Paramount Global.

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