Trump campaign sues CNN over ‘false and defamatory’ statements, seeks millions in damages

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
_______________
Trump campaign sues CNN over ‘false and defamatory’ statements, seeks millions in damages
By Brian Flood, Brooke Singman | Fox News

EXCLUSIVE: President Trump’s re-election campaign filed a libel lawsuitagainst CNN on Friday for publishing “false and defamatory” statements about seeking Russia’s help in the 2020 election.
"The complaint alleges CNN was aware of the falsity at the time it published them but did so for the intentional purpose of hurting the campaign while misleading its own readers in the process... the campaign filed this lawsuit against CNN and the preceding suits against The New York Times and The Washington Post to hold the publishers accountable for their reckless false reporting and also to establish the truth,” Senior Legal Adviser to Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. Jenna Ellis told Fox News.
READ THE LAWSUIT HERE
Fox News obtained the complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia where CNN is located. It states in part that CNN claimed Trump’s campaign “assessed the potential risks and benefits of again seeking Russia’s help in 2020 and has decided to leave that option on the table.”
President Trump’s re-election campaign filed a libel lawsuit against CNN for publishing “false and defamatory” statements.

President Trump’s re-election campaign filed a libel lawsuit against CNN for publishing “false and defamatory” statements.
The complaint said that CNN was well aware the statements were false “because there was an extensive record of statements from the Campaign and the administration expressly disavowing any intention to seek Russian assistance” but promoted the claim anyway.
The complaint said that Trump’s legal team sent CNN a request to retract and apologize last month but CNN executives refused. The Trump campaign now seeks “millions of dollars” through litigation.
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“The Campaign therefore was left with no alternative but to file this lawsuit to: publicly establish the truth, properly inform CNN’s readers and audience (and the rest of the world) of the true facts, and seek appropriate remedies for the harm caused by CNN’s false reporting and failure to retract and apologize for it,” the complaint said.
CNN did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has long feuded with CNN and regularly refers to the network as “fake news.” Ironically, CNN president Jeff Zucker helped increase Trump’s fame when he greenlit “The Apprentice” while overseeing NBC years before Trump entered the world of politics, but the two have since had a public falling out.
The article referenced by the complaint was published on CNN.com on June 13, 2019.
Larry Noble’s CNN story, headlined “Soliciting dirt on your opponents from a foreign government is a crime. Mueller should have charged Trump campaign officials with it,” was labeled as an opinion piece and featured a disclaimer that Noble is a CNN contributor but the commentary is solely his own view. However, the piece states that Trump’s campaign “assessed the potential risks and benefits of again seeking Russia's help in 2020 and has decided to leave that option on the table” as a fact and was still on CNN’s website as of Friday afternoon.
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“The Defamatory Article claims, among other things, that the Campaign ‘assessed the potential risks and benefits of again seeking Russia’s help in 2020 and has decided to leave that option on the table,’” the complaint said. The Defamatory Article does not cite to any facts or reasoning in support of this claim. The Defamatory Article is false.”
The complaint notes that the Trump campaign “has repeatedly and openly disclaimed any intention to seek Russian involvement in the 2020 election” and “examples of this are too numerous to fully enumerate.”
Trump recently filed similar lawsuits against The New York Times and Washington Post.
TRUMP SUES NEW YORK TIMES FOR LIBEL OVER RUSSIA 'CONSPIRACY' OP-ED
“False statements are not protected under the U.S. Constitution; therefore, these suits will have no chilling effect on freedom of the press. If journalists are more accurate in their statements and reporting, that would be a positive development, but not why these suits were filed," Ellis added.
"If journalists are more accurate in their statements and reporting, that would be a positive development, but not why these suits were filed."
— Senior Legal Adviser to Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. Jenna Ellis
The complaint also references undercover video footage taken by controversial Project Veritas that showed Zucker instructing CNN staffers to focus on impeachment and employees complaining that the network is biased toward the president.
“It is not entirely surprising that CNN would publish such blatantly false statements about the Campaign. There is extensive evidence that CNN and its writer, Larry Noble, are extremely biased against the Campaign,” the complaint said. “The news stories at www.CNN.com follow the same extremely biased news perspective.”
The complaint said Noble, the CNN contributor who penned the article in question, also “has a record of malice and bias against” Trump.
Noble did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“Noble has written numerous articles accusing the President of criminal activity, and of campaign finance and ethics violations, and has lodged a complaint against a Super-PAC which supports the President,” the complaint said. “CNN clearly had a malicious motive in publishing the Defamatory Article, and acted with reckless disregard for the truth.”
The complaint said CNN never reached out for comment or verification before publishing the “defamatory” article. Trump’s legal team is seeking a trial by jury and punitive damages in the “millions of dollars” as a result.
“CNN’s actions show willful misconduct, malice, fraud, wantonness, oppression and that entire want of care which raises a presumption of conscious indifference to the consequences, and accordingly the Campaign is entitled to an award of punitive damages against CNN,” the complaint said.

 

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
_______________
Trump campaign sues Washington Post for libel over ‘false, defamatory statements’ about Russia ‘conspiracy’
By Brian Flood, Brooke Singman | Fox News
EXCLUSIVE: The Trump campaign filed a libel lawsuit against the Washington Post for “millions of dollars” on Tuesday for publishing “false and defamatory statements” about an alleged conspiracy with Russia.
The complaint obtained by Fox News was filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. by attorneys David C. Tobin and Charles J. Harder. It points to a pair of Post articles published in June 2019 that included statements tying the Trump campaign to foreign campaign interference.
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“The statements were and are 100 percent false and defamatory. The complaint alleges The Post was aware of the falsity at the time it published them, but did so for the intentional purpose of hurting the campaign, while misleading its own readers in the process,” Senior Legal Adviser to Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. Jenna Ellis said in a statement, adding the Post reported “a conspiracy” as a fact.
The complaint claims that Greg Sargent’s June 13 article, “Trump just invited another Russian attack. Mitch McConnell is making one more likely,” contained the defamatory statement that Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded that Trump’s campaign “tried to conspire with” a “sweeping and systematic” attack by Russia during the 2016 election.
PThe Trump campaign filed a libel lawsuit against The Washington Post for “millions of dollars” over “false and defamatory statements” about an alleged conspiracy with Russia.(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

PThe Trump campaign filed a libel lawsuit against The Washington Post for “millions of dollars” over “false and defamatory statements” about an alleged conspiracy with Russia.(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
The complaint called the remark “false and defamatory,” noting that the opposite is actually true.
TRUMP SUES NEW YORK TIMES FOR LIBEL OVER RUSSIA 'CONSPIRACY' OP-ED
“The Mueller Report concluded there was no conspiracy between the Campaign and the Russian government, and no United States person intentionally coordinated with Russia’s efforts to interfere with the 2016 election,” the complaint said.
A second Post article by Paul Waldman that was published on June 20 headlined, “Trump: I can win reelection with just my base,” included the comment, “Who knows what sort of aid Russia and North Korea will give to the Trump campaign, now that he has invited them to offer their assistance?”
The complaint said that this observation is also “false and defamatory” because there “has never been any statement by anyone associated with the Campaign or the administration ‘inviting’ Russia or North Korea to assist the campaign in 2019 or beyond.”
The Trump campaign feels the Post was “well aware at the time of publishing the foregoing statements that they were not true” but published then anyway.
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“There also has never been any reporting that the Campaign has ever had any contact with North Korea relating to any United States election,” the complaint added. “Obviously, the Mueller Report is a public record that has been extensively reported in The Post.”
The complaint also claimed “there is an extensive record of statements from the Campaign and the White House expressly disavowing any intention to seek Russian assistance” and “there is not a shred of evidence that there have been any contacts between the Campaign and North Korea.”
The Trump campaign said it filed the lawsuit to “publicly establish the truth,” “properly inform” readers of true facts and “seek appropriate remedies for the harm caused” by the reporting.
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“The articles at issue herein also are part of the Post’s systematic pattern of bias against the Campaign, designed to maliciously interfere with and damage its reputation and ultimately cause the organization to fail,” the complaint stated
“The Campaign was damaged in the millions of dollars, the specific amount to be proven at trial,” the complaint added.
Lawsuits for libel against media organizations by public figures must clear a high bar, and require a showing that the media organization was reckless in reporting a falsehood -- meaning either that the organization knew the information was false, or intentionally disregarded a significant risk that the material was false.
In a statement to Fox News, vice president of communications for the Post, Kristine Coratti Kelly, said: “It’s disappointing to see the President’s campaign committee resorting to these types of tactics and we will vigorously defend this case.”
Last week, the Trump campaign filed a similar libel lawsuit against what it called the "extremely biased" New York Times, saying the paper's March 27, 2019 op-ed titled “The Real Trump-Russia Quid Pro Quo" amounted to a knowingly false smear intended to "improperly influence the presidential election in November 2020."
Ironically, the Post published an opinion piece on Saturday that declared the “lawsuit against the New York Times is almost certainly dead on arrival in the courts” and "exemplifies the threat the Trump presidency poses to First Amendment values and freedom of the press.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The Times lawsuit seeks "compensatory damages in the millions of dollars," as well as punitive damages and legal fees. Knowing that then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller was about to exonerate President Trump, the campaign argues in the lawsuit, the Times sought to quickly "damage" the president's campaign "before the Mueller Report would be released debunking the conspiracy claims."
In a statement, the Times shot back: "The Trump Campaign has turned to the courts to try to punish an opinion writer for having an opinion they find unacceptable. Fortunately, the law protects the right of Americans to express their judgments and conclusions, especially about events of public importance. We look forward to vindicating that right in this case."
Fox News’ Gregg Re contributed to this report.
 

Dennis Olson

Chief Curmudgeon
_______________


Trump campaign sues Washington Post for libel over ‘false, defamatory statements’ about Russia ‘conspiracy’
By Brian Flood, Brooke Singman | Fox News
EXCLUSIVE: The Trump campaign filed a libel lawsuit against the Washington Post for “millions of dollars” on Tuesday for publishing “false and defamatory statements” about an alleged conspiracy with Russia.
The complaint obtained by Fox News was filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. by attorneys David C. Tobin and Charles J. Harder. It points to a pair of Post articles published in June 2019 that included statements tying the Trump campaign to foreign campaign interference.
CHRIS MATTHEWS’ SUDDEN EXIT LATEST DEBACLE FOR NBC: ’IT WAS ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE’
“The statements were and are 100 percent false and defamatory. The complaint alleges The Post was aware of the falsity at the time it published them, but did so for the intentional purpose of hurting the campaign, while misleading its own readers in the process,” Senior Legal Adviser to Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. Jenna Ellis said in a statement, adding the Post reported “a conspiracy” as a fact.
The complaint claims that Greg Sargent’s June 13 article, “Trump just invited another Russian attack. Mitch McConnell is making one more likely,” contained the defamatory statement that Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded that Trump’s campaign “tried to conspire with” a “sweeping and systematic” attack by Russia during the 2016 election.
PThe Trump campaign filed a libel lawsuit against The Washington Post for “millions of dollars” over “false and defamatory statements” about an alleged conspiracy with Russia.(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

PThe Trump campaign filed a libel lawsuit against The Washington Post for “millions of dollars” over “false and defamatory statements” about an alleged conspiracy with Russia.(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
The complaint called the remark “false and defamatory,” noting that the opposite is actually true.
TRUMP SUES NEW YORK TIMES FOR LIBEL OVER RUSSIA 'CONSPIRACY' OP-ED
“The Mueller Report concluded there was no conspiracy between the Campaign and the Russian government, and no United States person intentionally coordinated with Russia’s efforts to interfere with the 2016 election,” the complaint said.
A second Post article by Paul Waldman that was published on June 20 headlined, “Trump: I can win reelection with just my base,” included the comment, “Who knows what sort of aid Russia and North Korea will give to the Trump campaign, now that he has invited them to offer their assistance?”
The complaint said that this observation is also “false and defamatory” because there “has never been any statement by anyone associated with the Campaign or the administration ‘inviting’ Russia or North Korea to assist the campaign in 2019 or beyond.”
The Trump campaign feels the Post was “well aware at the time of publishing the foregoing statements that they were not true” but published then anyway.
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“There also has never been any reporting that the Campaign has ever had any contact with North Korea relating to any United States election,” the complaint added. “Obviously, the Mueller Report is a public record that has been extensively reported in The Post.”
The complaint also claimed “there is an extensive record of statements from the Campaign and the White House expressly disavowing any intention to seek Russian assistance” and “there is not a shred of evidence that there have been any contacts between the Campaign and North Korea.”
The Trump campaign said it filed the lawsuit to “publicly establish the truth,” “properly inform” readers of true facts and “seek appropriate remedies for the harm caused” by the reporting.
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“The articles at issue herein also are part of the Post’s systematic pattern of bias against the Campaign, designed to maliciously interfere with and damage its reputation and ultimately cause the organization to fail,” the complaint stated
“The Campaign was damaged in the millions of dollars, the specific amount to be proven at trial,” the complaint added.
Lawsuits for libel against media organizations by public figures must clear a high bar, and require a showing that the media organization was reckless in reporting a falsehood -- meaning either that the organization knew the information was false, or intentionally disregarded a significant risk that the material was false.
In a statement to Fox News, vice president of communications for the Post, Kristine Coratti Kelly, said: “It’s disappointing to see the President’s campaign committee resorting to these types of tactics and we will vigorously defend this case.”
Last week, the Trump campaign filed a similar libel lawsuit against what it called the "extremely biased" New York Times, saying the paper's March 27, 2019 op-ed titled “The Real Trump-Russia Quid Pro Quo" amounted to a knowingly false smear intended to "improperly influence the presidential election in November 2020."
Ironically, the Post published an opinion piece on Saturday that declared the “lawsuit against the New York Times is almost certainly dead on arrival in the courts” and "exemplifies the threat the Trump presidency poses to First Amendment values and freedom of the press.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The Times lawsuit seeks "compensatory damages in the millions of dollars," as well as punitive damages and legal fees. Knowing that then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller was about to exonerate President Trump, the campaign argues in the lawsuit, the Times sought to quickly "damage" the president's campaign "before the Mueller Report would be released debunking the conspiracy claims."
In a statement, the Times shot back: "The Trump Campaign has turned to the courts to try to punish an opinion writer for having an opinion they find unacceptable. Fortunately, the law protects the right of Americans to express their judgments and conclusions, especially about events of public importance. We look forward to vindicating that right in this case."
Fox News’ Gregg Re contributed to this report.
 

Fake Shemp

Banned for resurrecting the mayonnaise thread
President Trump will own these fake news outlets.

They’re finally being held accountable for their crimes against the American people.
 

Rabbit

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Going to get interesting when they start calling witnesses. Might be more lawsuits filed against individuals, I hope.
 
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