Trump signals plans to use all levers of power against the media
For many years, Donald Trump repeatedly threatened to sue the press but often didn’t follow through. When he did, he almost always lost.
But Trump’s recent settlement with ABC News and a cascade of lawsuits and other complaints against media entities from him and his allies signal a ramped-up campaign from the president-elect. Together, the action has spurred concerns that his efforts could drastically undermine the institutions tasked with reporting on his coming administration, which Trump has promised will take revenge on those he perceives as having wronged him.
“The law in this country hasn’t really changed, but what has changed is that the atmosphere and hostility to the press is intense, and that emboldens plaintiffs of all kinds,” said David Korzenik, a media defense lawyer at the boutique Miller Korzenik Sommers Rayman LLP.
The pressure from Trump and his allies on the media is already growing and will continue to intensify, according to two Trump aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share sensitive internal deliberations.
In the two months before the presidential election, Trump attacked the media more than 100 times in public speeches or other remarks. The week before Election Day, Trump threatened to sue the New York Times, his campaign lodged a Federal Election Commission complaint against The Washington Post and he sued CBS News for editing a “60 Minutes” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris in a way he said was deceptive. Those media outlets have defended their work.
On Monday, he filed a consumer fraud suit against pollster J. Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register over an outlier poll it ran showing Trump trailing Harris in the presidential race in Iowa, a conservative state that he went on to win by 13 percentage points. The complaint does not hinge on a defamation claim — public figures must cross a high legal threshold to prove that they’ve been libeled — but rather a perceived violation of the state’s consumer protection statute.
Lark-Marie Antón, a spokeswoman for the Register’s parent company, Gannett, said in a statement that although the poll’s findings differed from the election results, “We stand by our reporting on the matter and believe a lawsuit would be without merit.” [Continue reading…]