I reported earlier this morning on former President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against Bob Woodward, Simon & Schuster and Paramount that he filed in federal court here in Pensacola. He is seeking an award of compensatory, punitive damages and disgorgement at minimum, $49,980,000.00, plus legal fees and costs.
In the lawsuit, Trump alleges the defendants “systematically, blatantly, and unlawfully usurped President Trump’s copyright interests, his contractual rights, and the rights he holds as an interviewee through the publication of an audiobook (and other works, as set forth below) predicated upon the subject audio—solely for their own financial gain and without any accounting or recompense to him.”
He states in the filing that after the success of his first book on the Trump administration, “Fear: Trump in the White House,” that “Woodward then sought President Trump’s consent to be recorded for a series of interviews with President Trump and repeatedly informed him that such interviews were for the sole purpose of a book. That book, entitled Rage, was released on September 14, 2021.”
Trump claims that Woodward published the recordings of the interview because “Rage” was “a complete and total failure,” failing to replicate the success of “Fear.”
Read Trump v. Simon.