{"id":152799,"date":"2026-02-12T09:53:38","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T09:53:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/152799\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T09:53:38","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T09:53:38","slug":"brito-law-firm-makes-big-bucks-helping-trump-sue-media-giants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/152799\/","title":{"rendered":"Brito law firm makes big bucks helping Trump sue media giants"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"588\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/trumpbrito.jpg\" alt=\"Brito\" class=\"wp-image-25565\" style=\"width:915px;height:auto\"  \/>President Donald Trump, left, and Coral Gables attorney Alejandro Brito<\/p>\n<p>By Dan Christensen, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.floridabulldog.org\/donate-to-florida-bulldog\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FloridaBulldog.org<\/a><\/p>\n<p>President Trump\u2019s strategy of squeezing media companies to obtain fat settlements to pay for a flashy presidential library\/museum he wants to build in downtown Miami has also been lucrative for a tiny Coral Gables law firm.<\/p>\n<p>Brito Law PLLC was established four years ago by attorney Alejandro \u201cAlex\u201d Brito, who employs just three associates and three paralegals, according to t<a href=\"https:\/\/britopllc.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">he firm\u2019s website.<\/a> Since then, Brito has obtained a multi-million-dollar defamation settlement against ABC News and is representing the president in four other high-stakes lawsuits pending against The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).<\/p>\n<p>Brito\u2019s big score for Trump, and for himself, came in 2024 after ABC News\u2019s George Stephanopoulos screwed up during a March TV interview when he said repeatedly that Trump had been found \u201cliable for rape\u201d in the E. Jean Carroll case. (In fact, a jury in 2023 specifically cleared Trump of rape but did make a finding of sexual assault.)<\/p>\n<p>Four days later, Brito filed suit on Trump\u2019s behalf for defamation in the Southern District of Florida. Some legal experts saw the case as weak due to the high bar of \u201cactual malice\u201d that Trump would have had to prove to win at trial.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"772\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/George_Stephanopoulos_in_2024_cropped.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-25566\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.7539211577066467;width:416px;height:auto\"  \/>George Stephanopoulos on May 9, 2024. Photo: Official White House Photo by Carlos Fyfe<\/p>\n<p>But the case never got that far. In December 2024, just nine months later, Brito secured a Trump-approved $15 million \u201ccharitable contribution\u201d from ABC News, owned by The Walt Disney Company, toward construction of Trump\u2019s library and another $1 million to Brito PLLC to cover \u201creasonable attorney\u2019s fees,\u201d according to the agreement filed with the court. ABC and Stephanopoulos also issued a statement regretting the misstatements.<\/p>\n<p>Federal Election Commission records show that in 2025 Brito PLLC was paid nearly $300,000 more by President Trump\u2019s leadership PAC, Save America. The records say those payments were for \u201clegal consulting,\u201d but do not specify the cases or matters involved.<\/p>\n<p>Using other lawyers, Trump also settled for $16 million a $20 billion lawsuit he brought against Paramount Global, parent of CBS News, regarding allegedly deceptive editing of a \u201c60 Minutes\u201d interview with Vice President Kamala Harris when she was running against Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Those funds, too, were to go to President Trump\u2019s library, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/show\/what-paramounts-multi-million-dollar-settlement-with-trump-means-for-press-freedom\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">PBS News Hour<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>BRITO AND TRUMP<\/p>\n<p>Today, via Brito\u2019s complaints, Trump is demanding enormous sums from other important media:<\/p>\n<p>$15 billion from the Times, several of its reporters and co-defendant Penguin Random House LLC for maliciously defaming and disparaging his \u201chard-earned professional reputation\u201d in two articles and a book. The pending 40-page amended complaint was filed in October. That\u2019s a much-slimmed down version of what Brito filed a month earlier. The original complaint was quickly tossed out by Tampa U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday, an appointee of President George H.W. Bush, who blasted it as unnecessarily bloated.<\/p>\n<p>$10 billion from the Journal and parent Dow Jones News Corp. and chairman Rupert Murdoch for publishing a story about a lewd 2003 birthday card Trump allegedly signed and gave to the late sexual deviant Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n<p>$5 billion from the BBC for \u201ca false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction of President Trump, which was published in a BBC Panorama documentary, that was fabricated and aired by the Defendants one week before the 2024 Presidential Election in a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence the Election\u2019s outcome to President Trump\u2019s detriment.\u201d\u00a0 More specifically, \u201cthe BBC intentionally and maliciously sought to fully mislead its viewers around the world by splicing together two entirely separate parts of President Trump\u2019s speech on January 6, 2021 (the \u201cSpeech\u201d). The Panorama Documentary deliberately omitted another critical part of the Speech in such a manner as to intentionally misrepresent the meaning of what President Trump said.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>$3.78 billion from The Washington Post. \u00a0Filed in federal court in Tampa, Sarasota-based Trump Media &amp; Technology Group Corp. (TMTG), operator of the president\u2019s social media platform \u201cTruth Social,\u201d contends The Post, \u201cacting in concert with a former employee\u2026who had been terminated for cause, published an egregious hit piece falsely accusing TMTG of securities fraud and other wrongdoing, which was then amplified by WaPo on social media.\u201d It added the \u201cmalicious statements\u2026created an existential threat to TMTG and caused enormous loss and hardship.\u201d The case was filed in 2023, Brito\u2019s firm took over as TMTG\u2019s lawyer on Oct. 23, 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Brito also sued the Cable News Network (CNN) on Trump\u2019s behalf in 2022 but ultimately lost. The lawsuit asserted that CNN\u2019s use of the phrase \u201cthe big lie\u201d regarding Trump\u2019s assertions that the 2020 election was \u201cstolen\u201d from him, had defamed him. He also claimed CNN improperly tried to tie him to \u201cAdolf Hitler and the Nazis.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Fort Lauderdale U.S. District Judge Raag Singhal, a Trump appointee, didn\u2019t buy it. Nor did the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in November calling the suit \u201cmeritless.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Florida Bulldog wanted to ask Brito about his work for Trump, and how he came to acquire the president as a client, but he did not respond to a phone call or questions emailed to his office.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"219\" height=\"230\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/raagsinghal.webp.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-25567\" style=\"width:329px;height:auto\"\/>Fort Lauderdale U.S. District Judge Raag Singhal<\/p>\n<p>According to online biographies, Brito was born in Miami in 1971. He was graduated from the private, all-male Belen Jesuit Preparatory School in unincorporated Miami-Dade County in 1989. He obtained an undergraduate degree in history from Florida International University in 1993 and earned his J.D. from George Washington University Law School in 1996. He joined the Florida Bar on Nov. 1 that same year, and married his wife, Alina, in 1998.<\/p>\n<p>Brito joined Miami\u2019s Zarco Einhorn Salkowski and worked his way up to becoming a name partner at the firm during his more than 20 years at the firm and before going out on his own.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s part of what Brito wrote about his professional career on Brito Law\u2019s website: \u201cAlex litigates complex commercial disputes, franchise disputes and trade secret disputes in state and federal courts as well as arbitration proceedings throughout the country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Brito\u2019s media cases aren\u2019t the only heavy lifting he\u2019s doing for Trump, according to court records.<\/p>\n<p>Last month, Brito filed the president\u2019s $5-billion suit against JPMorgan Chase (JPMC) and CEO Jamie Dimon claiming they unilaterally notified Trump in February 2021 \u2013 a month after the assault on the Capitol \u2013 that it would soon close the accounts of him and nine of his companies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPlaintiffs are confident that JPMC\u2019s unilateral decision came about as a result of political and social motivations, and JPMC\u2019s unsubstantiated, \u201cwoke\u201d beliefs that it needed to distance itself from President Trump and his conservative political views. In essence, JPMC debanked Plaintiffs\u2019 Accounts because it believed that the political tide at the moment favored doing so,\u201d according to Trump\u2019s 26-page complaint alleging trade libel, violations of Florida\u2019s unfair and deceptive trade practices act and two other counts.<\/p>\n<p>Trump has a similar civil suit pending against Capital One bank in federal court in Miami since last June that seeks damages, but doesn\u2019t say how much. It sometimes reads like Brito\u2019s template for Trump\u2019s lawsuit against JP Morgan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCapital One\u2019s unsubstantiated, \u201cwoke\u201d beliefs that it needed to distance itself from President Trump and his conservative political views. In essence, Capital One \u2018debanked\u2019 Plaintiffs\u2019 Accounts because Capital One believed that the political tide at the moment favored doing so,\u201d it says. Sound familiar?<\/p>\n<p>TRUMP WANTS $10 BILLION IN TAXPAYER MONEY<\/p>\n<p>Two weeks ago, on Jan. 29, Brito and his firm also represented President Trump, his sons Donald Jr. and Eric and The Trump Organization when they sued the president\u2019s own executive branch of government \u2013 specifically the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).<\/p>\n<p>Trump\u2019s unprecedented complaint contends that Treasury and the IRS failed protect their federal income tax information from being leaked to the press. \u201cFrom May 2019 through at least September 2020, former IRS employee Charles \u201cChaz\u201d Littlejohn, who was jointly employed by the IRS and\/or one of its contractors, illegally obtained access to, and disclosed Plaintiffs\u2019 tax returns and return information to the New York Times, ProPublica, and other leftist media outlets,\u201d the complaint says. Trump wants $10 billion in taxpayer money.<\/p>\n<p>Brito filed suit on Trump\u2019s behalf against his former \u201cfixer,\u201d attorney Michael Cohen, in April 2023. Trump alleged that Cohen had betrayed his confidences and spread lies about him. In October 2023, four days before Trump was set to be deposed, he dropped the case.<\/p>\n<p>Brito\u2019s association with Trump may be helping him attract other high-profile clients. Last year, Miami-based rapper Megan Thee Stallion, whose real name is Megan Pete, retained Brito and other lawyers to sue Milagro Cooper, AKA Milagro Gramz, who the assault, libel and slander lawsuit describes as a \u201cwell-known online social media grifter who traffics in false and sensational narratives.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Brito PLLC also represents wellness doctor, Carlon Colker, in his defamation claim against a lawyer and former judge, Ann Callis, who allegedly made false and defamatory statements against him. Callis did that, the suit says, to try to obtain an advantage in her client\u2019s claims of sex trafficking and sexual assault against the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and Vince McMahon. McMahon is the estranged husband of President Trump\u2019s Secretary of Education Linda McMahon.<\/p>\n<p>Then there are the legal matters that Brito is handling for Trump\u2019s family that remain outside a court of law. For instance, last Aug. 6 he sent a letter to Hunter Biden on behalf of First Lady Melania Trump demanding an apology and retraction of statements Biden made during a podcast interview the day before.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"651\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/melaniatrumpjpg.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-25568\" style=\"width:497px;height:auto\"  \/>First Lady Melania Trump<\/p>\n<p>Specifically, Brito cited a You Tube video in which President Joe Biden\u2019s son stated that the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein \u201cintroduced Melania to Trump. The connections are, like, so wide and deep.\u201d Hunter Biden added he heard that tidbit from Michael Wolff, an author who has written several books about Trump.<\/p>\n<p>Brito\u2019s letter called Wolff a \u201cserial fabulist,\u201d asserting that his \u201clies\u201d were published by\u00a0The Daily Beast\u00a0which after being contacted by Brito \u201cissued an apology to Mrs. Trump and retracted the false and defamatory statements contained in the article by deleting it in its entirety.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Brito gave Hunter Biden until 5 p.m. the next day, Aug. 7, 2025, to comply with Melania Trump\u2019s demands or she \u201cwill be left with no alternative but to enforce her legal and equitable rights\u2026including by filing legal action for $1 Billion Dollars in damages.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hunter Biden did not apologize. And to date, that appears to have been nothing more than an empty threat.<\/p>\n<p>TABLES TURNED<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, a similar threatening letter from Brito to author Michael Wolff on Oct. 15, 2025 appears to have backfired.<\/p>\n<p>The letter demanded that Wolff, who lives in Manhattan, \u201cimmediately\u201d retract, apologize and \u201cmake a monetary proposal to Mrs. Trump to ameliorate the harm that you have caused\u201d with The Daily Beast article.<\/p>\n<p>The offending statements involve Melania Trump\u2019s alleged involvement with Epstein.\u00a0 Brito called the following two statements in the article \u201cimplicitly defamatory\u201d:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn explosive tapes recorded by Wolff, Epstein alleged that Trump like to \u2018F\u2014 his friends\u2019 wives and first slept with Melania on his \u2018Lolita Express.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere does [Melania] fit into the Epstein story? Where does she fit into this, into this whole culture of models of an indeterminate age?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A $1 billion lawsuit was threatened if Wolff did not respond by Oct 21.<\/p>\n<p>That same day, however, Wolff turned the tables and sued Mrs. Trump in state court in Manhattan alleging that Brito\u2019s \u201cthreat letter\u201d was an attempt to muzzle her. He claims Mrs. Trump defamed him and invoked New York\u2019s anti-SLAPP law for protection. [SLAPP is an acronym for a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, that is a suit that seeks to intimidate and silence critics. New York\u2019s anti-SLAPP law allows those hit with such a lawsuit to recover attorney\u2019s fees if they can show the SLAPP claim was made without a \u201csubstantial basis.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMrs. Trump and her \u201cunitary executive\u201d husband along with their MAGA myrmidons have made a practice of threatening those who speak against them,\u201d says the lawsuit. \u201cThese threatened legal actions are designed to create a climate of fear in the nation so that people cannot freely or confidently exercise their First Amendment rights.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At the end of last year, Wolff\u2019s case was removed to federal court in Manhattan where Brito has asked the court for temporary permission to represent Mrs. Trump there, along with attorneys from the large, international firm, DLA Piper.<\/p>\n<p>But Brito has hit a snag. On Feb. 6, he filed a routine motion seeking the court\u2019s OK. But on Monday, the clerk\u2019s office notified him that his filing was \u201cdeficient\u201d because the affidavit he submitted under oath attesting to good standing in Florida was not notarized. He\u2019s been told to fix it before he can begin.<\/p>\n<p>                    <a href=\"#\" rel=\"nofollow\" onclick=\"window.print(); return false;\" title=\"Printer Friendly, PDF &amp; Email\"><br \/>\n                    <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"pf-button-img\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/printfriendly-button.png\" alt=\"Print Friendly, PDF &amp; Email\" style=\"width: 112px;height: 24px;\"\/><br \/>\n                    <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump, left, and Coral Gables attorney Alejandro Brito By Dan Christensen, FloridaBulldog.org President Trump\u2019s strategy of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73712,26768,73713,73714,58727,73715,73716,73717,73718,73719,22669,73720,73721,409,73722,73723,73724,48594,73725,9450,73726,73727,73728,34283,67496,123,125,124,73729,73730,73731,73732,73733,73734,73735,73736,31405,29569,73737,73738,33509,73739,73740],"class_list":{"0":"post-152799","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami","8":"tag-60-minutes","9":"tag-abc-news","10":"tag-alejandro-alex-brito","11":"tag-ann-callis","12":"tag-bbc","13":"tag-belen-jesuit-preparatory-school","14":"tag-brito-law-pllc","15":"tag-cable-news-network-cnn","16":"tag-capitol-one","17":"tag-carlon-colker","18":"tag-cbs-news","19":"tag-charles-chaz-littlejohn","20":"tag-dla-piper","21":"tag-donald-trump","22":"tag-e-jean-carroll","23":"tag-george-stephanopoulos","24":"tag-hunter-biden","25":"tag-irs","26":"tag-jamie-dimon","27":"tag-jeffrey-epstein","28":"tag-jp-morgan-chase","29":"tag-linda-mcmahon","30":"tag-megan-pete","31":"tag-megan-thee-stallion","32":"tag-melania-trump","33":"tag-miami","34":"tag-miami-headlines","35":"tag-miami-news","36":"tag-michael-cohen","37":"tag-michael-wolff","38":"tag-panorama","39":"tag-paramount-global","40":"tag-raag-singhal","41":"tag-rupert-murdoch","42":"tag-save-america-pac","43":"tag-strategic-lawsuit-against-public-participation-slapp","44":"tag-the-new-york-times","45":"tag-the-trump-organization","46":"tag-trump-media-technology-group","47":"tag-vince-mcmahon","48":"tag-wall-street-journal","49":"tag-washington-post","50":"tag-zarco-einhorn-salkowski"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}