Trump Sues CNN 'To Vindicate The 1st Amendment's Marketplace Of Ideas.' No, Seriously.
George Orwell couldn't make this up.
(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
The country’s most famous vexatious litigant is at it again! Fresh off his insane clown lawsuit against Hillary Clinton for doing THE RICO getting yeeted into the sun, Donald Trump is back with another flaming bag of dogshit attached to a $402 filing fee and lobbed at the federal docket.
That’s right, he’s suing CNN for defamation. Donald Trump is under the impression that “his” judges are going to overturn New York Times v. Sullivan and award him $475 million because CNN said he was a racist who lied about vote fraud as part of a plot to stay in power after losing the election.
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As a part of its concerted effort to tilt the political balance to the Left, CNN has tried to taint the Plaintiff with a series of ever-more scandalous, false, and defamatory labels of “racist,” “Russian lackey,” “insurrectionist,” and ultimately “Hitler.” These labels are neither hyperbolic nor opinion: these are repeatedly reported as true fact, with purported factual support, by allegedly “reputable” newscasters, acting not merely with reckless disregard for the truth of their statements (sufficient to meet the definition of the legal standard for “actual malice”) but acting with real animosity for the Plaintiff and seeking to cause him true harm (the way “actual malice” commonly is understood).
And while they’re at it, maybe “his” judges would like to overturn the First Amendment, too.
Even though the actual malice standard is met here, in circumstances like these, the judicially-created policy of the “actual malice” standard should not apply because “ideological homogeneity in the media—or in the channels of information distribution—risks repressing certain ideas from the public consciousness just as surely as if access were restricted by the government.” Suits like these do not throttle the First Amendment, they vindicate the First Amendment’s marketplace of ideas.
You have to burn down the First Amendment to save it, because what is the point of free speech if people are allowed to criticize politicians without repercussion?
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To say that this lawsuit is a rancid garbage fire is an insult to garbage. And fires. And the concept of rancidity. There are simply no false statements of fact alleged — merely allegations that CNN aired protected statements of opinion and it hurt Trump’s feelings. None of this gets anywhere near pleading defamation, much less defamation per se.
“When a public official, or political candidate, is likened to Hitler, it is defamation per se as the statement imputes a characteristic or condition incompatible with the proper exercise of that public office,” Trump writes, acknowledging in a footnote that Florida law doesn’t actually allow presumed damages against a media defendant, but asking the court to just let him plead it anyway, ’cause YOLO.
As for the NYT v. Sullivan actual malice standard, the plaintiff is similarly blasé.
While the allegations in this complaint meet the actual malice standard set forth in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964), that standard does not—and should not—apply where the media defendant is not publishing statements to foster debate, critical thinking, or the “unfettered interchange of ideas” but rather seeks to participate in the political arena by offering propaganda. See Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 484 (1957) (noting that “the protection given to free speech and press was fashioned to assure [the] unfettered interchange of ideas[.]”). The irresponsible use of false, misleading, and inflammatory language in an effort to destroy a political opponent’s reputation cannot be categorized as an intellectual exchange of ideas.
Reference to a pre-Sullivan case to refute Sullivan? Sure, why not!
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And the former president is no more specific about the actual damage he allegedly suffered, airily noting that “Injury to the Plaintiff’s reputation is readily apparent, as evidenced by viewer responses to the statements and viewer polls regarding the Plaintiff,” before demanding $475 million to make him whole.
Perhaps smarting from US District Judge Donald Middlebrooks’s stinging rebuke and open invitation for the defendants to file motions for sanctions, Trumpland lawyers Alina Habba and Peter Ticktin are sitting this round out. Instead Trump is being represented in this fascistic assault on the First Amendment by white collar defense attorney Jim Trusty and insurance defense lawyer Lindsay Halligan, both of whom are currently litigating on his behalf in the warrant case before Judge Aileen Cannon.
As journalist Marcy Wheeler notes, the same day they docketed this demented turkey of a case, Halligan and Trusty represented to the Eleventh Circuit that they were “engaged fully in performing the tasks required under the expedited Special Master schedule,” and thus could not possibly be expected to respond to the government’s appeal on an expedited basis.
TL;DR? This case is total performative bullshit that won’t survive a motion to dismiss, but CNN’s lawyer David Vigilante is going to have a hell of a lot of fun with it.
Trump v. Cable News Network [Docket via Court Listener]
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.
