Trump's campaign team sues CNN for libel
March 7, 2020
US President Donald Trump's reelection campaign has sued news network and digital media company CNN. The lawsuit, filed at US District Court in Atlanta, objected to a statement in an opinion piece by CNN contributor Larry Noble, which was published on June 13, 2019.
Noble, who is a former Federal Election Commission general counsel, had written that the president should have been charged with soliciting help from Russia for the 2016 presidential election campaign. He stated that the Trump 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."
CNN has not issued a comment on the lawsuit. Legal experts, however, have said the libel lawsuit would be difficult for Trump's team to win because US law affords broad protection to opinion writers who express their views about public officials like the president.
It was unclear why Trump's team waited until now to take action against the opinion article published nearly nine months ago.
Pair of major papers also sued
This is not the first such lawsuit of this nature by Trump's team. The campaign team sued US daily newspapers The New York Times and The Washington Post during the last ten days, on similar opinion pieces published in 2019. The three lawsuits claim damages worth millions of dollars.
Trump has often called the investigation into Russia meddling in the 2016 election a "witch-hunt" against him.
Trump has clashed multiple times with news outlets and publications that he feels are critical of him and often calls them "fake news," he has also said the media were the "enemy of the people." The lawsuit claims there is a "systemic pattern of bias" against the president by CNN.
In 2018, the White House had revoked CNN correspondent Jim Acosta's credentials for a brief period, after he questioned the president about collusion with Russia and a migrant caravan in Mexico.
The US president was impeached by the House of Representatives for pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelnskiy to investigate his potential Democratic Party rival Joe Biden. Trump was acquitted by the Senate.
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tg/sms (AP, Reuters)