When it comes to the courtroom, Donald Trump appears to be arguing two positions at once: too occupied with the presidency to defend himself in civil court, yet fully available to file lawsuits against others.
Shortly after returning to office in November 2024, Trump’s legal team urged a Delaware state judge to pause a lawsuit brought by two co-founders of his social media venture. The pair claimed they were denied compensation promised for launching Truth Social. Trump’s attorneys argued that civil litigation against a sitting president risks distracting from the duties of the office and proposed what they described as a form of “temporary immunity.”
Before that immunity question could be resolved, Trump initiated litigation of his own — starting with a suit against the Des Moines Register over a pre-election poll. That case was only the beginning. In the months that followed, he launched a string of civil claims seeking billions in damages.
Among the targets: publishing heavyweight Penguin Random House and major media outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and BBC. He also sued banking giant JPMorgan Chase over account closures and accused the Internal Revenue Service of failing to prevent disclosure of his tax records. The media companies and the bank denied wrongdoing; the IRS has not publicly responded in court.
The Delaware case tied to his social media business was ultimately dismissed, though not on immunity grounds.
Now, some defendants are flipping Trump’s own argument back at him. If the presidency shields him from responding to lawsuits, they contend, it should also limit his ability to press them forward. Legal scholars say the tension is hard to ignore. One law professor likened it to playing baseball under special rules: only one side gets to bat.
The U.S. Supreme Court confronted presidential immunity decades ago. In 1997, the justices ruled that then-President Bill Clinton was not immune from a civil lawsuit filed by Paula Jones. More recently, in 2024, the Court recognized broad immunity for presidents in criminal cases tied to official acts — but that ruling did not address civil litigation.
The latest courtroom clash over this issue involves pollster Ann Selzer, who, along with the Des Moines Register, was sued by Trump over a survey that showed his Democratic rival Kamala Harris leading in Iowa before the election — a state Trump ultimately won. Selzer sought to freeze the case for the duration of Trump’s presidency, arguing that allowing the lawsuit to proceed could create a one-sided discovery process: Trump could demand documents and testimony while potentially resisting similar obligations himself.
An Iowa judge declined to pause the case, noting the practical limits of enforcing court orders against a sitting president but indicating that failure to comply could result in dismissal of Trump’s claims.
Trump’s legal team maintains that presidential immunity is rooted in constitutional principles and essential to protecting the office from harassment. At the same time, they argue that occupying the White House does not strip a president of the right to seek redress in court when he believes he has been defamed or wronged.
So far, courts have largely allowed Trump’s lawsuits to move forward. An appellate court in Florida rejected a bid to halt his defamation case against the Pulitzer Prize Board, pointing out that if time constraints were truly an issue, Trump could voluntarily dismiss his own case — a choice unavailable to someone defending against a lawsuit.
The broader debate is less about any single claim and more about balance. Can a president argue that the job is too demanding to answer civil complaints while actively pursuing high-stakes litigation against critics? For now, judges appear content to let the cases proceed, leaving the constitutional tension unresolved — and the docket far from empty.
