On the heels of a similar filing against The New York Times last week, the Trump campaign has now filed a lawsuit against The Washington Post.
The suit claims the Post knowingly published false and defamatory statements. Among them, says the lawsuit, that the conspiracy theory about Trump colluding with Russia was a fact--not just a theory.
A lengthy investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded President Trump did not collude with Russia or President Vladimir Putin. It also said there was no evidence that tied anyone from the Trump campaign, or any Americans, to such a conspiracy.
Media outlets enjoy wide immunity from libel lawsuits filed by public figures unless it can be proven the media acted with malice or reckless disregard for the truth.
According to Fox News:
The complaint obtained by Fox News was filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. by attorneys David C. Tobin and Charles J. Harder. It points to a pair of Post articles published in June 2019 that included statements tying the Trump campaign to foreign campaign interference.
“The statements were and are 100 percent false and defamatory. The complaint alleges The Post was aware of the falsity at the time it published them, but did so for the intentional purpose of hurting the campaign, while misleading its own readers in the process,” Senior Legal Adviser to Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. Jenna Ellis said in a statement, adding the Post reported “a conspiracy” as a fact.
The complaint claims that Greg Sargent’s June 13 article, “Trump just invited another Russian attack. Mitch McConnell is making one more likely,” contained the defamatory statement that Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded that Trump’s campaign “tried to conspire with” a “sweeping and systematic” attack by Russia during the 2016 election.
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