Judge threatens Trump with sanctions in his pollster lawsuit
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Left: President Donald Trump takes part in a G7 Summit session on Monday, June 16, 2025, in Kananaskis, Canada (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein). Right: Pollster J. Ann Selzer (Jenny Condon Photography, used with permission of FIRE).

The federal judge overseeing Donald Trump’s lawsuit for “consumer fraud” against an Iowa newspaper and a pollster, who inaccurately forecasted the 2024 election results, has cautioned the president’s personal attorneys to submit a revised complaint by the specified deadline to avoid facing penalties.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger declined to grant Trump a stay that would have extended a fundamental filing deadline by another month, after granting a previous extension and after Trump did not elect to dismiss his own lawsuit.

Trump was ordered to file his amended complaint against now-retired pollster J. Ann Selzer, the Des Moines Register, and media company Gannett on July 18, removing current and former lawmaker “co-plaintiffs” Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Bradley Zaun from the case and “eliminating claims exclusive to those Plaintiffs.”

Instead of filing the amended suit, however, Trump sought a stay on the day of the deadline, claiming that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit should be allowed to decide first whether jurisdictional technicalities meant the case actually was successfully dismissed.

“Again, on the final day Trump was permitted to file the previously ordered amended complaint, Trump moved for ‘the Court [to] stay the requirement to file an amended complaint for 30 days following the Eighth Circuit’s disposition of the motion’ described above,” Ebinger noted. “Defendants resist.”

The judge concluded that because Trump “has not shown a strong likelihood of success or the presence of irreparable harm,” he was not entitled to a stay. But she also warned him to comply with the new deadline of July 25 by 5 p.m., or else.

“The Court expects compliance with all court orders. Failure to comply with orders of the Court may result in sanctions,” Ebinger wrote. “The parties must comport with all rules regulating this litigation, including the Local Rules and applicable deadlines.”

The warning from the judge did not come out of nowhere. Selzer’s attorneys with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) days ago blasted the plaintiff for acting like “compliance” with court orders is “optional” by essentially blowing off the July 18 deadline to repeat a failed stay tactic.

“This is the second time Plaintiff Donald Trump has defied an order from this Court directing him to file an amended complaint removing the allegations he added ‘to defeat the Court’s jurisdiction over the case,'” the filing said. “The first time, after this Court denied Plaintiff’s remand motion and ordered him to file an amended complaint within seven days, he instead filed a motion for stay.”

“This Court promptly denied that motion and ordered Plaintiff to file his revised pleading on July 18th,” the defendants summed up. “He’s now pulled the same stunt again.”

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