Трамп подал иск против NYT и Penguin Random House на $15 миллиардов за клевету, угрожающую его криптовалютным проектам Translation: Trump Files $15 Billion Defamation Lawsuit Against NYT and Penguin Random House, Claiming Threat to His Cryptocurrency Ventures

Former U.S. President Donald Trump has initiated a $15 billion defamation lawsuit in a federal court in Florida against The New York Times (NYT) and the publishing house Penguin Random House.

The lawsuit pertains to the book «The Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created an Illusion of Success,» along with three «false, malicious, defamatory, and disparaging» articles. The plaintiff argues that these publications aimed to undermine his prospects for the 2024 presidential election.

In the legal filing, both the newspaper and the publisher are accused of damaging Trump’s business and personal reputation, particularly concerning the financial outlook of his platform Truth Social and the cryptocurrency venture TRUMP.

NYT responded by stating that the lawsuit lacks legal merit and represents an attempt to suppress independent journalism. Penguin Random House also described the allegations as baseless, expressing support for the book and its authors.

In a recent piece, NYT journalists speculated that the president’s family’s ventures, including those in cryptocurrency, could conflict with U.S. interests.

The report highlighted two significant transactions involving the UAE government. The first concerned direct investments by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s MGX fund in the stablecoin World Liberty USD1; nearly the entire issuance was used to finance a $2 billion deal between the UAE and Binance.

Just two weeks later, another agreement was reached — the Trump administration approved the UAE’s purchase of hundreds of thousands of advanced and scarce computer chips, despite concerns over potential leaks to China. NYT reported that representatives from the White House and World Liberty denied any connection between the two deals.

The president’s son, Eric Trump, in an interview with CNBC, declined to address questions regarding the conflict of interest mentioned in the NYT article.

«My father is the first president who hasn’t made money while in office. We’ve always been serial capitalists; we’ve always had businesses. Cryptocurrencies emerged out of necessity because we were all deprived of bank accounts, and we needed to find a new way,» he stated.

According to financial disclosures published in June by the Office of Government Ethics, Donald Trump earned over $57 million from tokens associated with his DeFi project World Liberty Financial.

It’s worth noting that on September 1, the capitalization of the WLFI token reached $8.3 billion following its listing on exchanges.