Judge Roy K. Altman allowed Donald Trump to update the Donald Trump defamation lawsuit on Monday, narrowing the case so it no longer includes claims that the 2024 documentary hurt his businesses. The revised complaint keeps the focus on Trump’s personal reputation and changes what the can press for in discovery.
Altman said Trump had “good cause” to amend the case and ordered Trump to file the updated lawsuit on Monday. He also wrote that the narrowing “might change the scope of discovery” and “will, in some respects, help the ” because it “represents a substantial diminution in the scope of the available damages.”
Altman narrows the dispute
Trump first said the documentary harmed both his personal reputation and his businesses after it used his Jan. 6, 2021 speech in a 2024 documentary. The then subpoenaed the trust holding Trump’s assets for financial information, seeking to support a claim that the documentary caused $10 billion in damages.
That subpoena reached approximately 400 companies with ties to Trump. Donald Trump Jr. maintains the revocable trust that holds Trump’s assets, so the fight over the amended complaint also touches the records tied to that trust and what the may still try to obtain from it.
Discovery fight stays open
Altman wrote that the amendment “removes several contested allegations … allowing the ’s re-filed motion to dismiss to focus more squarely on its most important arguments.” He also said, “Whether the amended complaint actually alters the Plaintiff’s discovery obligations is a question we’ll leave for Magistrate Judge Lett,” leaving the subpoena dispute for another ruling.
That leaves the immediate practical issue in place for Trump’s side: after the amended complaint is filed, what specific financial information, if any, the trust still has to turn over. The narrowed lawsuit reduces the damages theory, but the records fight has not been resolved yet.
The declined to comment to Forbes on the ruling. Forbes said it values Trump’s net worth at $6.4 billion as of Monday afternoon.
Magistrate Judge Lett and Trump
For Trump, the change trims the case to reputation damages and removes the business-loss theory that opened the door to broader financial scrutiny. For the, the amended complaint gives a narrower target but does not end the fight over what documents remain relevant to the case.
The next step is Judge Roy K. Altman’s required updated filing, after which Magistrate Judge Lett will still have to sort out the subpoena dispute and decide what the trust must produce. Until that ruling, the narrowed complaint and the financial records fight move on separate tracks.
