A New York judge dismissed former President Donald J. Trump’s lawsuit against The New York Times on Wednesday, upholding the news outlet’s First Amendment rights. Justice Robert R. Reed of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan firmly stated that the First Amendment protected the newspaper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into Trump’s finances.

The former president filed the lawsuit in 2021, claiming that The New York Times and its reporters conspired with his estranged niece, Mary L. Trump, in an illegal plot to obtain his confidential tax records for a series of articles published in 2018. In his ruling, Justice Reed highlighted the reporter’s right to engage in legal and routine news-gathering activities without facing legal consequences. He also ordered Trump to cover the legal expenses and associated costs incurred by The Times and its reporters, namely Russ Buettner, Susanne Craig, and David Barstow.

Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, said that they would carefully consider their options and continue to fight vigorously on behalf of their client. However, she did not specify whether they would appeal the ruling. Habba argued that The New York Times’ reporters had exceeded the acceptable boundaries of news-gathering techniques permitted by the First Amendment, asserting the need to hold journalists accountable for civil wrongs.

Although the lawsuit was dismissed, Trump remains entangled in several legal matters as a defendant. In March, he faced indictment in New York for his involvement in making hush money payments to a porn star to conceal her account of a sexual encounter with him. The public’s interest in Trump’s taxes arose when he refused to publicly release his tax returns during the 2016 presidential campaign, deviating from the long-standing tradition of candidates disclosing their returns.

The documents obtained by the New York Times formed the basis for a series of articles exposing Trump’s history of tax avoidance and fraud, earning the media giant the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting. The investigation cast doubt on Trump’s self-proclaimed status as a self-made billionaire, revealing that he had inherited at least $413 million from his father through questionable tax schemes. 

Throughout his extensive public career, Trump frequently threatened media organizations with legal action, with limited success.