Bloggers beware. Melania Trump’s libel lawsuit against a Maryland blogger who alleged that the first lady was involved in a “high-end escort” service will proceed, a judge decided on Friday, January 27.
According to NBC News, Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Sharon Burrell ruled to continue with the lawsuit against blogger Webster Tarpley, dismissing his attorney’s insistence that the blogger was protected by his First Amendment rights when he published the inflammatory claims.
“There can be no more defamatory statement than to call a woman a prostitute,” Burrell said in court Friday, according to Politico. Tarpley’s attorney had previously argued that the blogger was within the bounds of the First Amendment because he sought to provoke a “conversation” about what effect “those rumors were having on the [presidential] campaign.”
“You can publish rumors without knowing that they’re false,” Tarpley’s lawyer, Danielle Giroux, argued. Additionally, she noted that Trump is a public figure, another detail that could have further protected Tarpley.
“That’s not how the law works — you can’t report a rumor if it’s not true and it damages someone’s reputation,” Trump’s lawyer, Charles Harder, argued, according to CNN. “The job of a reporter is to vet a story before it’s published. You can’t just say anything you want about someone, especially when it causes them harm.” (Harder previously made headlines as the attorney representing Hulk Hogan in his lawsuit against Gawker Media.)
Trump, 46, also filed a separate lawsuit against the U.K.’s Daily Mail for publishing an article on its site back in August questioning her links to an escort agency. Burrell has yet to make a ruling on that case, as the Daily Mail’s attorneys are arguing that the court does not have jurisdiction to hear the case in Maryland, since it has no offices or ties to the state.
If the case against Tarpley continues to move forward, it is set to begin on November 6, 2017.
