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The letter, addressed to the lawyers of New York Times and Penguin Random House, arriving a week before the election. Attached was a ten-page discursive legal threat from a Donald Trump lawyer demanding $10 billion in damages for “false and defamatory statements” contained in articles by Peter Baker, Michael S. Schmidt, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner.
He distinguishes two stories co-written by Buettner and Craig which concerned their book on Trump and his financial dealings, Lucky Loser: how Donald Trump squandered his father’s fortune and created the illusion of successpublished September 17. It also highlighted an October 20 history headlined “For Trump, a Life of Scandal Heads Towards a Moment of Reckoning” by Baker and an October 22 article. piece by Schmidt, “As election approaches, Kelly warns Trump would rule like a dictator. »
“There was a time, a long time ago, when New York Times was considered the ‘journal of record’,” reads the letter, a copy of which was reviewed by CJR. “Those happy days are over. » He accuses the Times of being “an unqualified spokesperson for the Democratic Party” who resorts to “industrial defamation against political opponents.”
The letter is signed by the president-elect’s lawyer, Edward Andrew Paltzik, who is, according to one, online biography– based in Palm Beach, near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago headquarters. But his language often resembles Trump’s so closely that it is indistinguishable. This has not been previously reported, but is part of a wave of other litigation from the former and future president that emerged around the same time.
THE Times responded to the letter on October 31, referring Paltzik to Penguin Random House for claims against the book and saying it stood by its reporting, according to a person familiar with the situation. A spokesperson for Times declined to comment. A representative for PRH did not respond to a request for comment.
Also on October 31, Paltzik, on behalf of Trump, sued CBS News, alleging that a 60 minutes An interview with his presidential rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, was edited to help him. He is seeking $10 billion in damages, curiously in a Texas jurisdiction that has only one judge. CBS says it will vigorously defend the lawsuit and has dismissed it as “completely without merit.”
The same day, the Washington Post was the target of a six-page complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission alleging the newspaper made illegal in-kind contributions to Harris’ campaign on promoted stories. THE Job maintains that the claim is without merit.
On November 5, lawyers representing Trump’s co-campaign chief, Chris LaCivita, sent a four-page letter to the Daily Beast demanding a correction and retraction on a series of articles alleging that LaCivita “raked in” $22 million to help get Trump re-elected. THE Daily Beast added an editor’s note to his report.
“Based on further review of FEC records, the correct total is $19.2 million. THE Beast regrets the mistake. The article has also been updated to clarify that the payments were to LaCivita’s LLC and not to LaCivita personally (sic),” the note said.
This did not satisfy LaCivita and his lawyer Mark Geragos, who sent another legal letter to the Daily Beast on November 12 demanding a retraction. “The editor’s note in this article clarifying that $22 million was paid to LaCivita’s LLC and not to him personally does not address the overall message of the story – which portrays Mr. LaCivita as deceptively pocketing money from campaign for his own personal gain and was and is about to be ‘fired’ because of it,” he says. A spokesperson for Daily Beast declined to comment.
The noise of legal threats signals a potentially worrying trend for journalists during Trump’s second term. Litigation is expensive and time-consuming. Most news organizations will seek to settle rather than face months or even years of discovery and depositions, as well as significant legal fees.
“It really has a chilling effect to be under a microscope like that,” said Anne Champion, a partner at Gibson Dunn who has represented CNN, Jim Acosta, Mary Trump and Brian Karem in legal cases involving Donald Trump, in an interview. .
“It’s both conscious and unconscious. Small media journalists know very well that the costs their organization bears in defending itself could lead to bankruptcy. Even journalists from major media outlets don’t want to burden themselves or their employees with lawsuits. It adds another layer of influence to the journalistic process,” she said.
The letter to Times alleges that the newspaper had “the full intent to defame and disparage the world-renowned Trump brand that consumers have long associated with excellence, luxury and success in entertainment, hospitality and travel.” real estate, among many other sectors, as well as wrongly and maliciously. defaming and disparaging him as a candidate for the highest office in the United States.
“Given the long list of well-known and historic business achievements of President Trump and his family,” he said, “President Trump’s remarkable achievements in business, literature, media and real estate, and the fact that the President Trump – and his life story” – are the embodiment of the American dream and what it means to be an American patriot, as well as his lifelong support of America’s men and women in uniform, these defamatory statements are all the more more contemptible in their falsity.
The letter lists fifty “businesses, projects and brands” that Trump has “built, transformed, established and revitalized,” noting that it “can be accurately and fairly stated that President Trump built much of the famous line of New York City skyline. It also lists twenty-three books he has authored and thirty “historic media appearances”, including WrestleMania V (1989); romantic comedy Ghosts can’t do it (1989); Donald Trump, real estate tycoon! (video game, 2002); And The Fresh Prince of Bel Air (1994).
He disputes Buettner and Craig’s reporting on Trump’s time as the star of The apprenticewho had alleged a high degree of staging surrounding his appearances. These appearances remain, according to the letter, “one of the President’s best-known achievements, in addition to his decades of magnificent real estate achievements and winning the presidency on the first try.”
“Through nothing but President Trump’s sui generis charisma and unique business acumen,” he continues, the show “represents the cultural breadth of President Trump’s singular genius, which has captured the zeitgeist of the early 21st century century”.
The letter mentions “harm” to the value of Trump Media, the company listed under the abbreviation DJT. Without the actions of Timeshe said, “the stock would probably be even higher now than it is.”
After Trump sued journalist Tim O’Brien for defamation over his 2005 book TrumpNation: the art of being the DonaldTrump said he “spent a few dollars on legal fees, and they spent a lot more.” I did it to make his life miserable, which I’m happy about. The lawsuit was dismissed in 2009 and the decision was upheld on appeal in 2011.
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Lachlan Cartwright created and ran the media newsletter Entrust while he was editor-in-chief of Daily Beast. He has served as editor-in-chief at American Media Inc., features editor and reporter at New York Daily Newsjournalist at New York Postand journalist and editor-in-chief at The Sun in London and special envoy to Hollywood journalist.