Soon after his November 2024 reelection, legal counsel for President Donald Trump asked a Delaware state court to suspend a civil case brought by two co-founders of his social media venture, contending that a sitting president lacks the time to be hauled into state civil litigation.
The request to Judge Lori Will asked her to "recognize a rule of temporary immunity that protects the Presidency from the diversions, distractions and harassment of state civil litigation." The plaintiffs in that Delaware action alleged they were denied an agreed payout for their role in launching Truth Social.
But before Judge Will could rule on whether the presidential immunity argument applied, the president filed a separate civil suit in his personal capacity against the Des Moines Register in Iowa. That move was followed by at least five additional civil actions that Trump filed personally, seeking tens of billions of dollars in alleged damages.
Those personal suits include defamation claims against a book publisher, Penguin Random House, and three news organizations - the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the BBC. He also sued his bank, JPMorgan Chase, alleging it unlawfully closed his accounts, and he filed suit against the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, accusing it of failing to prevent disclosure of his tax returns to the media. The media companies and JPMorgan denied wrongdoing. The IRS has not commented publicly or entered a court response in the matter.
Ultimately, the Delaware litigation naming Trump was dismissed by Judge Will in September, but the judge's ruling did not rest on the immunity question that had been raised by the president's lawyers.
Using Trump’s immunity claim against him
Several defendants in cases Trump initiated have sought to turn his immunity argument back on him. Their central contention: if the president maintains he is too occupied to litigate as a defendant, he should not be permitted to pursue civil suits against others while demanding the courts treat him as otherwise engaged.
"It’s like saying, 'We’re going to play baseball and only I get to bat,'" University of Michigan School of Law professor Richard Primus told a court about the asymmetry of the claim.
There is preexisting Supreme Court jurisprudence on presidential immunity, but the cases do not fully resolve the present dispute. A 1997 Supreme Court decision involving then-President Bill Clinton held that presidents are not immune from civil litigation in the context before it - allowing a defamation and sexual harassment suit by Paula Jones to proceed. Separately, a 2024 Supreme Court decision concerning President Trump concluded that presidents enjoy broad immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts taken while in office; that ruling did not directly address presidential immunity in civil litigation.
The Selzer case and discovery concerns
One recent defendant pressing the point is pollster Ann Selzer, whom Trump sued along with the Des Moines Register and its publishers in December 2024 over a pre-election Iowa poll that showed his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, leading in the state. That poll results occurred in an election ultimately won by Trump in Iowa. Selzer sought to have the lawsuit held in abeyance for the duration of Trump’s presidency, but a state court judge denied that request.
Defense lawyers in the Selzer matter warned the judge that the immunity claim could operate as a political tool, enabling one-sided or coercive litigation tactics. Their concern centers on the discovery process - the exchange of documents and testimony that can be compelled by a court. If the president can summon discovery from defendants and then assert immunity when the same demands are directed at him, the defendants said, the process would be distorted.
"You would have had one-sided discovery, a unilateral investigation of the press," Nick Klinefeldt, counsel for the Des Moines Register, told Iowa state court Judge Scott Beattie at a January 30 hearing. The judge acknowledged the limits of what his court could effectively compel against a sitting president, noting the practical constraints on enforcement.
"I can issue a fine of $500 per offense and maybe order some jail time of six months," Judge Beattie said. "But I am fairly certain there’s going to be pushback about that."
At that hearing, Alan Ostergren, an attorney for the president, said Trump intends to comply with orders the judge issues and that noncompliance could lead to dismissal of the president's lawsuit. On Tuesday, Judge Beattie rejected Selzer’s request to pause the case pending the end of Trump’s term.
Positions from counsel and courts
Trump’s legal team issued a statement asserting that immunity is essential to the functioning of the presidency, saying that protection is grounded in the U.S. Constitution and supported by legal precedent. The statement added that the president, on behalf of himself and all Americans, retains the constitutional right to seek redress against those who have "smeared and wronged him." It also criticized critics and sections of the media who oppose the claim.
So far, several courts have resolved cases in ways favorable to Trump, albeit without directly ruling on the immunity issue. Trump was dismissed as a defendant in suits relating to his social media company in state courts in Delaware and Florida; those rulings did not hinge on the immunity question. In Iowa, the state judge rejected requests to stay the suit against Selzer, and in Florida an appellate court declined a similar proposal to pause a 2022 defamation suit Trump filed against the Pulitzer Prize Board.
That 2022 suit followed the Pulitzer Board's refusal to rescind a 2018 prize awarded jointly to the Washington Post and the New York Times for reporting on alleged ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russian interference. The Florida appellate court noted that if Trump lacks the time to pursue his own suit against the Pulitzer Board, he may voluntarily dismiss the case – an option not available to him were he a defendant in the action.
Legal scholars and coercive risk
Legal critics of Trump’s approach say his pattern of suing gives him leverage over defendants. Professor Primus characterized Trump as "a vexatious litigant" whose position as president amplifies the coercive effect of lawsuits he files. The concern is that the ability to initiate suits combined with a claim of immunity as a defendant creates a one-sided litigation dynamic that could be used as a form of political pressure.
Primus added that, in his view, if the president truly has a meritorious legal claim, he could file suit and then request a stay until his term concludes. That path, Primus noted, would not deprive the president of the ability to litigate in civil courts; it would simply avoid imposing the obligations and burdens of immediate litigation while he remains in office.
Where matters stand
The debate over presidential immunity in civil litigation remains active in multiple state courts. Defendants argue the claim should cut both ways, preventing a sitting president from using the courts as a private litigant while insisting on immunity as a defendant. Trump’s legal team maintains constitutional grounding for its position and says the president will comply with judicial orders. Several courts have made rulings that remove Trump as a named defendant in particular cases, but they have not resolved the broader legal question of whether and how temporary immunity from state civil suits should apply to a sitting president.
Given the competing court decisions and ongoing litigation, the legal boundaries of presidential immunity in civil cases are likely to be litigated further, with significant implications for defendants that include media organizations, financial institutions and individual professionals such as pollsters.