Legendary journalist Bob Woodward managed to get into the heart of the Trump administration
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donald trump sued journalist Bob Woodward, publisher Simon & Schuster and its parent company, Paramount Global, for releasing audio recordings of their interviews with Trump; the former president assures that he never allowed that information to be sold to the public.
The $49 million lawsuit alleges that those indicated “illegally usurped” the copyright and other rights of Trump by publishing an audiobook with hours of “raw” audio from Woodward’s many interviews with Trump “this case focuses on Mr. Woodward’s systematic usurpation, manipulation, and exploitation of audio of President Trump collected in connection with a series from interviews conducted by Mr. Woodward”.
According to the indictment that was filed in federal court in Pensacola, Florida, the lawsuit is based on an estimate that the audiobook “The Trump Tapes” it sold more than 2 million copies at $24.99 each, furthermore, Trump “repeatedly told Woodward, in the presence of others, that he was agreeing to be recorded for the sole purpose that Woodward could write a single book.”
Woodward’s “Rage,” published in 2020, included a series of reports on Trump, among them that the former president deliberately downplayed the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic. Two years later, in October 2022, the journalist released an audiobook of the recorded interviews, called “The Trump Tapes.”
The suit also alleges that Trump and his legal representatives previously confronted the defendants about the disputebut “they refused to recognize the auto and contractual rights of President Trump”, they also clarify that the audio was also worked in a CD format, pocket books and electronic books, all of them “to express the president and without being accountable to he”.
The complaint accused the three defendants of unjust enrichment and indicated the author himself for breach of a contract and a “implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing”.
Woodward and co-defendant in the lawsuit Simon & Schuster, publisher of his book “Rage,” in a joint statement They called Trump’s lawsuit “without merit” and vowed to “aggressively defend against it.”