A federal appeals court has ruled that President Donald Trump should be allowed to dismiss his lawsuit against the Des Moines Register from federal district court.
The ruling allows Trump to proceed with his claims in Iowa state court instead of before a federal district judge.
Trump sued the Register; its parent company, Gannett; and its former pollster J. Ann Selzer in December 2024 over an Iowa Poll released shortly before the Nov. 5 presidential election that allegedly overstated Iowa’s support for Trump’s opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump claims in his lawsuit that the poll’s publication violated the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act and amounted to election interference.
Trump’s legal team initially filed the suit in state court, before attorneys for Gannett removed it to federal court under a federal law allowing them to do so before Gannett was served with the suit.
The president has been maneuvering ever since to get the case moved back to state court, adding two Iowa co-plaintiffs, U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and former Iowa state Sen. Brad Zaun; appealing when U.S. District Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger ordered Zaun and Miller-Meeks removed from the case; then seeking to dismiss that appeal and his lawsuit and file an entirely new state court complaint.
Most recently, his attorneys have argued that a move by Selzer’s lawyers to seek sanctions against them opens a new window for him to dismiss the still-pending federal case.
Gannett and Selzer have denied Trump’s claims and asked Ebinger to permanently dismiss them as prohibited by the First Amendment and, in any event, meritless. The federal judge had not ruled on those motions.
Now the case apparently will be taken out of Ebinger’s hands.
“We are assessing the court’s decision,” Lark-Marie Anton, Gannett spokesperson, said in a statement. “Given the nature of the case and that it involves the president of the United States as a plaintiff, we continue to believe the federal courts are the most appropriate forum for this lawsuit. In the event the suit is heard by the state courts of Iowa, we have confidence the matter will be adjudicated fairly.”
In June, Trump filed his second complaint in Iowa state court and sought to dismiss his federal case, but Ebinger refused. She ruled that Trump’s voluntary dismissal was improper and not effective because he did not first dismiss his then pending request to appeal her prior order.
After the appellate court denied Trump permission to appeal, Trump filed for mandamus — an extraordinary remedy reserved for exceptional circumstances — asking the appellate court to order Ebinger to allow Trump to dismiss his federal case. On Oct. 24, a divided panel of the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided 2-1 with Trump and directed Ebinger to let him dismiss the case.
Judges Lavenski Smith and David Stras wrote in an unsigned judgment that, while Trump had sought permission to file his first appeal, the appeals court had not yet accepted it, meaning that Ebinger still had jurisdiction when Trump filed to dismiss his own case.
Citing prior caselaw, the judges wrote that Ebinger’s error “deprived Trump of a result — immediate and automatic dismissal without prejudice — to which he was ‘clear[ly] and indisputabl[y]’ entitled.”
Judge Jonathan Kobes in a brief dissent disagreed that that Trump “has carried his burden to show a ‘clear and indisputable’ right” to relief at this stage in the case.
The decision is a setback for Gannett, whose attorneys wrote in a recent filing that the company’s objectives included “defending Gannett’s rightful removal of the case to this (federal) court.” It also means that the defendants likely won’t get a ruling on their motions to dismiss, which have been fully briefed and pending since early September.
Trump’s parallel state court case, filed June 30 in Polk County, has been assigned to Judge Scott Beattie, and has remained tied up in litigation over whether it should be paused while Trump’s federal case remained pending.
That question likely will become moot once Ebinger formally dismisses the case before her. Gannett and Selzer will then be free to file new motions to dismiss, although Iowa courts consider such motions under a different standard that is more favorable to the plaintiff at early stages of litigation.
William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com or 715-573-8166.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Appeals court lets Trump dismiss federal suit against Des Moines Register to pursue state case
Reporting by William Morris, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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