Florida
Trump lawsuit claims Woodward audiobook violates copyright
PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit Monday against journalist Bob Woodward, claiming he never had 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 attorneys are seeking nearly $50 million in damages.
Simon & Schuster and Woodward released a joint response saying Trump’s lawsuit is without merit, and they will aggressively defend against it.
“All these interviews were on the record and recorded with President Trump’s knowledge and agreement,” the statement said. “Moreover, 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 claims that Trump consented to being 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. violated 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 attorneys, ordering them to pay nearly $1 million for filing what the judge said was a bogus lawsuit against Trump’s 2016 rival Hillary Clinton and others.
U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks accused Trump in a 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 “amounts 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 litigant” who uses the courts “to seek revenge on political adversaries.”
California
Judge denies LIV plea to expand discovery to Augusta members
A federal judge denied a request by LIV Golf to expand discovery in its antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour to include communication with 10 Augusta National members, including former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
LIV Golf had issued subpoenas to five PGA Tour board members and Tim Finchem, the retired PGA Tour commissioner. It wanted all communications between them and “any member of Augusta National” relating to a new tour, but not limited to LIV Golf, the Saudi-funded rival league that launched last year.
In a redacted filing last week, LIV alleged Rice and Arkansas banking executive Warren Stephens “apparently attempted to influence” the Justice Department not to investigate the PGA Tour.
LIV also alleged Stephens was “apparently asked by tour employees” to push Sen. Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, to lobby against LIV.
In her ruling Monday, U.S. Magistrate Susan van Keulen said LIV’s request for 10 additional Augusta National members and the Masters Committee “is overly burdensome on the Subpoenaed Parties and not in proportion to the needs of the litigation.”
Communication with the additional 10 members would have gone beyond what she described as “agreed-upon targets.” Those were four Augusta National employees, including Chairman Fred Ridley, and seven members. The members include Brian Roberts, CEO of Comcast, which owns Golf Channel.
LIV Golf attorneys argued in last week’s filing that part of the PGA Tour’s attempt to snuff out competition from the new tour was to threaten players, other tours, broadcasters, vendors and any other third party if they worked with LIV.
“Discovery has shown that the tour delivered these threats not only through its own executives and employees, but by dispatching other influential persons on its behalf,” LIV attorneys wrote in the filing.
The judge said any connection based on the documents LIV cited is “highly speculative.”
“The cited documents do not implicate in any way the Subpoenaed Parties,” she wrote in her order. “Nor do they reflect communications by or between the identified additional targets. Indeed, for the most part, the identified targets appear merely as names on lists or in other oblique references made by others.”
Tour attorneys previously had argued that LIV accusations of the tour leaning on Augusta National to block LIV Golf players from competing in the Masters was baseless because the Masters announced in December that everyone eligible would be able to play.
The 16 LIV Golf players eligible for the Masters include Bryson DeChambeau, who remains one of three players still listed as a plaintiff in the antitrust lawsuit.
North Carolina
Group: Request for redistricting rehearing ‘frivolous’
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — An advocacy group that sued over redistricting lines in North Carolina told state Supreme Court justices Monday that previous rulings that blocked legislative and congressional district maps as illegal partisan gerrymanders should be left intact.
Common Cause filed a response to Republican General Assembly leaders’ request earlier this month that the state’s highest court rehear redistricting lawsuits.
In December, when a majority of the seven justices were registered Democrats, the court struck down a state Senate map the legislature drew and upheld congressional boundaries drawn by trial judges but opposed by Republicans. The rulings stemmed from a similar 4-3 decision in February 2022 that declared GOP legislators violated the state constitution by approving lines that deprived Democrats of voting power substantially equal to their support in the state.
Republican legislators argue no such contingency is found in the constitution. With the GOP winning November judicial elections and achieving a majority on the court, Republican legislators asked the court to reconsider those decisions.
Hilary Klein, an attorney for Common Cause, wrote that the rehearing petition is “frivolous.” She referred specifically to House Speaker Tim Moore’s public statement that another look at the cases was needed because the “people of North Carolina sent a message election day” to reject the ruling of the “outgoing (judicial) majority.”
The petition “is therefore motivated by improper purpose and grossly lacking in the requirements of propriety,” Klein wrote.
Common Cause was one of many plaintiffs in the redistricting lawsuits.
Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger also have separately asked for a rehearing of another Supreme Court decision last month that invalidated a 2018 law requiring photo identification to vote. The GOP leaders contend the proper legal standard was not applied.
