President Trump’s legal team has decided to discontinue lawsuits against Iowa pollster J. Anne Seltzer and the Des Moines Register, as indicated by court documents filed on Monday.
Bob Corn Leber, the lead attorney for the Individual Rights and Expression Foundation, noted that there hasn’t been a settlement reached yet and that the legal team is considering their next actions. This organization began representing Seltzer earlier this year.
Requests for comments from Trump and the Des Moines Register’s legal representatives went unanswered.
The lawsuits followed an announcement on the final day of the 2024 presidential election, which revealed that then-Vice President Kamala Harris had won Iowa by three percentage points. Trump had received 14 points in that state.
Seltzer announced her retirement from polling in November, after previously choosing not to renew her contract with the newspaper.
In December, Trump’s lawyers accused her and the Des Moines Register of violating Iowa’s consumer fraud law by filing a lawsuit in state court, alleging purposeful voting inaccuracies.
According to the lawsuit, “Seltzer isn’t the only pollster involved in this corrupt practice; however, she had a significant platform, giving her a key opportunity to mislead voters.”
The case was transitioned to federal court in February.
Over the past year, Trump has increasingly turned to litigation against media outlets. Notably, he filed a defamation lawsuit against ABC News after they misrepresented a judge’s decision in a case initiated by writer E. Jean Carroll. ABC ultimately settled for $15 million.
In another instance, Trump is suing CBS News over a “60 Minutes” interview that featured Harris last fall, claiming that the edits made to the segment were intended to portray challengers in a favorable light.
Recently, Trump threatened legal action against The New York Times and CNN in response to their reporting that US airstrikes “destroyed” three Iranian nuclear facilities after they revealed preliminary information.
– EDT at 5:16pm
