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(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
On Monday, Donald Trump filed a preposterous defamation lawsuit against CNN demanding $475 million for saying that he flogged lies about a stolen election. In point of fact, he did flog lies about a stolen election, and continues to do so to this day.
UH-OH, now ATL owes Donald Trump $475 million! LOL.
Last night, Trump’s lawyer Jim Trusty docketed the demand letter he sent to CNN on July 21, 2022, listing the supposedly defamatory statements made by CNN employees. In short, he says anyone who called Trump a liar or said that he was telling lies about the election has defamed him.
Many of the examples involve Chris Cillizza, who besmirched Trump’s sacred honor by, among other things, noting the mathematical reality that he lost Nevada by 2 percent, and pointing to his “false claim that the 2020 election was plagued by fraud.”
“[I]t is a FACT that Biden won 81 million votes and 306 electoral votes. And it is a FACT that Donald Trump won 74 million votes and 232 electoral votes. It is a FACT that the results in all 50 states and the District of Columbia have long been certified. It is a FACT that there is zero evidence — turned up by federal or state officials — that any widespread electoral fraud occurred anywhere,” Cillizza wrote in June of 2021, something Trusty refers to as “a false and defamatory conclusory ‘fact.’”
Not too put too fine a point on it, but that is some weak shit. It doesn’t even rise to the level of performative drivel.
Interestingly, Trusty doesn’t claim that the election was stolen, although he cites opinion polls showing that plenty of Americans believe it was. He also refers to claims of vote fraud from Dinesh D’Souza’s hilariously discredited film “2000 Mules” as well as the Texas Republican Party’s rejection of Biden’s victory as proof that his client had a rational basis for believing that the election was stolen.
Trusty’s point appears to be that Trump actually believed the election was rigged, and so he wasn’t lying when he ignored his own campaign and the Justice Department, which both told him there was no fraud sufficient to affect the outcome.
“In this instance, President Trump’s comments are not lies: He subjectively believes that the results of the 2020 presidential election turned on fraudulent voting activity in several key states,” Trusty argues, concluding that it is thus defamatory to call Trump a liar just because he said things which were objectively untrue.
That’s right, he’s going with the George Costanza defense. Because it’s not a lie if you believe it.
“Webster’s Dictionary defines a “lie” as an assertion of something known or believed by the speaker to be untrue with intent to deceive,” Trusty goes on. “The definition, then, is not limited to simply being wrong about an assertion; it instead requires the speaker to know he or she is speaking falsely and to specifically harbor an intent to mislead.”
How does Donald Trump’s subjective belief in the truth of the objectively false statements he was spewing gibe with the actual malice standard of New York Times v. Sullivan? Well …
By refusing to acknowledge President Trump could be correct or that he could genuinely believe his contention is correct, CNN has willfully acted in disregard for the truth and has acted with reckless disregard for the truth. CNN’s relentless and willful campaign to brand President Trump a “liar” and purveyor of the “Big Lie” is defamatory in nature.
Also, CNN didn’t call Andrew McCabe and Stacey Abrams liars, which proves actual malice. Yes, an IRL lawyer wrote that down and signed his name to it.
The whole thing is bloody embarrassing, or would be for people who had the capacity for shame. Luckily CNN has danced this dance with Trump before. Check out CNN General Counsel David Vigilante’s response to a demand from the Trump campaign in June of 2020 that the network retract a poll that pissed off the then-president.
“Your letter is factually and legally baseless,” he wrote, characterizing the demand as “yet another bad faith attempt by the campaign to threaten litigation to muzzle speech it does not want voters to read or hear.”
The first go ’round, Trump had the sense not to go through with his threat to sue. But now that he’s got more time on his hands, he’s actually gone ahead and done it. Last time Vigilant told Trump to get bent, writing “Your allegations and demands are rejected in their entirety.”
This time the Rule 12 motion should be LIT.
Trump v. Cable News Network [Docket via Court Listener]
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.
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