Trump’s Last-Minute Legal Maneuver Attempts To Dodge Iowa’s New Anti-SLAPP Law
After Donald Trump won the election, he was still so full of hatred, bile, and spite, that he sued the pollster Ann Selzer as well as the Des Moines Register. Selzer, who has been one of the most trusted names in polling, released a poll slightly before the election that predicted a somewhat shocking victory of Kamala Harris in Iowa. It (obviously) turned out to be very wrong, but making a wrong prediction does not violate the law.
What's happened since reveals something more concerning: a systematic approach to gaming the legal system that goes beyond typical SLAPP suit tactics. Trump's lawyers aren't just trying to win-they're trying to exploit procedural gaps to avoid accountability mechanisms specifically designed to stop this kind of litigation abuse.
The entire intent of the lawsuit was to chill speech and punish those who don't tell Trump what he wants to hear at every moment.
Not surprisingly, the lawsuit is not going well. It was initially filed in a local state court in Polk County, Iowa, but the defendants had it removed to federal court, where the standards are even higher, and where Trump would have a much more difficult time. Generally speaking, defendants in cases like this want them in federal courts where the judges are more likely to understand the underlying issues (especially around gamesmanship by plaintiffs). In this case, it was removed to federal court on diversity grounds, which is typical when the plaintiff is from out of state.
Selzer and the Register sought to dismiss the complaint, while Trump sought to have the case sent back to the state court. He did so by (1) adding two more plaintiffs (random other politicians who live in Iowa so there was no longer diversity), and (2) making some weird procedural argument that the method of removal went against Congress's intent. On May 23rd, the court denied Trump's attempt to move the case back to state court, noting that the procedural argument was nonsense. And it found that Trump's attempt to add Iowa plaintiffs to the case was a pretty transparent attempt to try to get around diversity rules to force the case back to the state court.
Trump appealed that ruling to the Eighth Circuit, but something important had happened earlier in May which it appears Trump's lawyers only realized belatedly. On May 20th, Iowa's governor signed the state's first anti-SLAPP bill into law. Now, it doesn't apply to cases filed before the law goes into effect (July 1st), but it does mean that if Trump were to, say, file a brand new lawsuit now, it would be subject to anti-SLAPP rules. This would (1) make it even easier for the case to be dismissed, while (2) likely make it so Trump would have to pay Selzer and the Register's legal bills.
So, his lawyers are trying some more gamesmanship. Even though they've already appealed the district court's ruling, and that appeal is moving forward, they have tried to voluntarily dismiss the district court case, while filing a brand new state court case with the same random extra Iowa politician plaintiffs... the day before the new anti-SLAPP law goes into effect.
Basically, they're trying to get a do over. The district court said they couldn't add those extra plaintiffs to avoid diversity, and even though they appealed that ruling, they still want to refile the case (with the added plaintiffs) in state court. But they had to do it before July 1st. But they had already appealed the district court's denial of the request to remand the case back to state court, so this all appears to be pure gamesmanship.
In response, Selzer and the Des Moines Register are asking the district court to deny Trump's attempted dismissal, noting that it's obviously playing games to try to get around the earlier ruling rejecting the attempt to send the case back to state court, and even calling out how it's doing this to avoid the new anti-SLAPP law.
The defendants note that once Trump filed his appeal, the district court no longer controls the case:
However, the case cannot be dismissed at the district court while appellate proceedings are ongoing. This is because the district court is divested of jurisdiction over matters on appeal" upon the initiation of that appeal. State ex rel. Nixon v. Coeur D'Alene Tribe, 164 F.3d 1102, 1106 (8th Cir. 1999); Ahlberg v. Chrysler Corp., 481 F.3d 630, 638 (8th Cir. 2007) (finding that orders pertaining to matters pending on appeal have no effect").
And then, they describe how Trump is playing games to avoid the new anti-SLAPP law:
Lastly, President Trump's Notice must be evaluated in the light of long-standing Eighth Circuit law holding that [a] party may not dismiss simply to avoid an adverse decision or seek a more favorable forum." Cahalan v. Rohan, 423 F.3d 815, 818 (8th Cir. 2005) (citing Hamm v. Rhone-Poulenc Rorer Pharm., Inc., 187 F.3d 941, 950 (8th Cir. 1999))
Before this Court, President Trump has lost his motion for remand, (ECF No. 65), lost his motion to stay the case, (ECF No. 70), and has a pending deadline to file a revised Amended Complaint. (Id.) And fulsome Motions to Dismiss warranting dismissal of the case in full and with prejudice are currently pending before this Court with substantial briefing. (ECF Nos. 24, 28, 33, 35, 51, 52, 57, 61.)
Furthermore, in conjunction with his improper Notice of Voluntary Dismissal, President Trump newly filed a lawsuit in the Iowa District Court for Polk County today; however, the new Petition is substantively unchanged from the President Trump's First Amended Complaint in the present case. (See Ex. C: Petition (June 30, 2025).) The timing of this filing is significant: it is one day before Iowa's Uniform Public Expression Protection Act (commonly known as an antiSLAPP law") goes into effect. See House File 472, available at https://www.legis.iowa.gov/legislation/BillBook?ga=91&ba=HF472 (Governor's approval of House File 472, Uniform Public Expression Protection Act on May 19, 2025), codified at Iowa Code 652.1, et seq.; see also Iowa Code 3.7(1) (stating that all acts passed at regular sessions of the general assembly shall take effect on the first day of July following their passage). This new legislation would apply to President Trump's lawsuit; therefore, President Trump's present Notice of Voluntary Removal would effectively escape the jurisdiction of the federal courts in time to restate his claims in Iowa's state court without being subject to Iowa's anti-SLAPP law.
In these circumstances, this Court should rightly find that President Trump's Notice of Voluntary Dismissal improperly seeks to avoid [the] adverse decision[s]" of this Court-both past and future-and a more favorable forum" in Iowa's pre-anti-SLAPP courts. Cahalan, 423 F.3d at 818.
The timing here is almost comically transparent. Trump's lawyers clearly realized they had a problem if they planned to file a new lawsuit once Iowa's anti-SLAPP law was about to take effect. Their solution was to try to dismiss the federal case they'd been fighting to get back to state court, refile the exact same claims in state court, all on the last day before the new protections kicked in.
It's a perfect illustration of how Trump approaches litigation: not as a search for justice, but as a game to be manipulated. When the rules change in ways that might hold him accountable, he doesn't accept the new reality-he tries to find procedural workarounds to avoid them entirely.
The federal judge has already seen through one round of Trump's transparent gamesmanship. Whether she'll allow this latest attempt to dodge accountability will likely determine whether Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register can finally put this vindictive lawsuit behind them, or whether they'll be dragged through state court proceedings that should never have been allowed in the first place.