Judge Tosses Donald Trump’s Half-Billion-Dollar Bogus ‘Big Lie’ Defamation Lawsuit Against CNN (While Whining About The Media & Internet)
Donald Trump can’t win consecutive elections. And he certainly can’t win lawsuits. Pretty much every bit of litigation Trump has engaged in since he was elected president has been tossed out on its proverbial ear, the completely expected outcome for lawsuits engaged in angrily, but not coherently.
About a year ago, Trump’s legal team issued a threat letter to CNN for reporting on his post-election loss activities, which were mostly Trump stating over and over again (without evidence) that the election had been “stolen.” Trump’s statements were protected opinions. So were CNN’s statements, which included reporters and commentators referring to Trump’s baseless stolen election claims as the “Big Lie.”
Trump claimed that because he firmly believed the election had been stolen, CNN defamed him by calling his claims a “big lie.” He probably should have left it at that. That alone was stupid enough. But Trump decided his ability to believe something outweighed CNN’s ability to express its opinion about Trump’s beliefs.
The legal threats were soon followed by a $475 million lawsuit, in which Trump claimed he could make any statement of opinion about CNN but that CNN could not do the same thing to Trump.
Anyone who isn’t Donald Trump or paid by Donald Trump to espouse his bizarre legal theories saw this one coming. (And there’s a good chance those being paid [or not!] to litigate on behalf of Trump saw this coming as well.) Ted Johnson of Deadline reports (and links to the opinion!!) a federal court has rejected Trump’s libel lawsuit over CNN’s “Big Lie” phrasing.
A federal judge dismissed Donald Trump’s $475 million defamation lawsuit against CNN, litigation centered on references made by on-air figures to “the Big Lie,” or the former president’s unfounded claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.
Trump had argued in his lawsuit, filed in federal court in Florida, that the references to the phrase were defamatory as they created a “false and incendiary association” between him and Adolf Hitler.
U.S. District Judge Raag Singhal wrote that CNN’s references to the term “the Big Lie” were matters of opinion, not fact.
The Florida federal court only takes 11 pages [PDF] to toss this supremely stupid lawsuit. Sure, it will be appealed, but brevity is the soul of GTFOOH with these BS arguments. The crux of Trump’s losing arguments is that CNN defamed him by (sort of) comparing him to Germany’s WWII-era Nazi regime by using the phrase “Big Lie,” which is historically linked to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.
Not actionable, says the court. Comparing people to Nazi propagandists isn’t defamation. It’s protected opinion. First, it addresses Trump’s allegations, which wouldn’t even impress a first-year law student.
Trump alleges that the use of the phrase “the Big Lie” constitutes defamation per se because it “create[s] a false and incendiary association between the Plaintiff and Hitler.” He argues that the use of the phrase “the Big Lie” is defamatory because it “has incited readers and viewers to hate, contempt, distrust, ridicule, and even fear the Plaintiff causing injury to the Plaintiff, the Plaintiff’s reputation, and the Plaintiff’s political career.” As a result, Trump claims that viewers and readers “understood that Plaintiff would be Hitler-like in any future political role.”
Trump further alleges that CNN failed to similarly challenge Democrat politicians who complained about election integrity. He argues that CNN’s disparate treatment of public figures is evidence of malice and “evidence that Defendant is not reporting the news, but rather propagating its political views.”
Not entirely out-of-line to opine that Trump might become a bit Hitler-esque if given another term in office! Given his propensity for demonizing immigrants, courting the approval of white supremacists, and basically asking his followers to overthrow the democratic process to return him to power, Trump’s actions are more closely aligned with dictators than the most leaders of the free world.
The first thing working against Trump is this undeniable fact about First Amendment law:
This case involves political speech of the highest order.
Add that to the fact that Donald Trump is undeniably a public figure and it’s almost impossible to successfully sue for defamation, especially when it’s over comparisons Trump himself often seemed to welcome with his endless embrace of bigots.
Adding this other fact — one Trump really wished the court wouldn’t — and there’s no way he wins:
Trump asks the Court to reconsider New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. The Court is unable to do that; the case is legally binding on this Court. […] And even if Sullivan weren’t binding, the case appears to be looked upon with favor by a majority of various iterations of the Supreme Court over the case’s nearly sixty-year existence with ongoing expansion of the holding.
That being said, the court still takes some time to inexplicably veer away from established precedent to offer its own unnecessary opinion about the protected opinion — something at least this judge believes should not be allowed to cover journalists this particular judge may feel are, perhaps, less than thorough in their reporting.
I have no idea why this is even here but I present it to you for your… well, not enjoyment… but edification?
The problem is essentially two-fold. First, the complained of statements are opinion, not factually false statements, and therefore are not actionable. Second, the reasonable viewer, unlike when Sullivan, Butts or Gertz were decided, no longer takes the time to research and verify reporting that often is not, in fact, news. As an example, only one month ago, the United States Supreme Court issued a well written 237-page joint opinion with vastly divergent views in two cases known widely as the Affirmative Action decisions. Within minutes of the release of the opinion, the free press had reported just what the opinion supposedly said and meant although it was clearly impossible that the reporter had read the opinion. And of course, those initial news articles were repeatedly shared, commented upon and disseminated over social media and still to this day the reasonable viewer very likely hasn’t read the opinion and never will. This is the news model of today. It is far different than that in Sullivan which altered law that existed for 175 years and has spawned a cottage industry over the last 60. But this too is not actionable.
Whew. Shaking a fist at the internet is never a good look for a judge who will undoubtedly handle many, many more internet-related cases in the future. Claiming people are stupider or less diligent than they used to be isn’t going to endear this court to anyone but bad-faith litigants hoping that this court’s disdain for the connected world will give their bogus arguments a bit more life.
(And this isn’t even a fair portrayal of the facts: all published Supreme Court opinions open with a short summary of the decision [usually less than five pages], which means reporters don’t actually have to read the entire orders to make accurate statements about their outcomes.)
That being (badly) said (by the court), the end result is a loss for Trump:
Acknowledging that CNN acted with political enmity does not save this case; the Complaint alleges no false statements of fact. Trump complains that CNN described his election challenges as “the Big Lie.” Trump argues that“the Big Lie” is a phrase attributed to Joseph Goebbels and that CNN’s use of the phrase wrongly links Trump with the Hitler regime in the public eye. This is a stacking of inferences that cannot support a finding of falsehood.
Trump’s lawsuit is dismissed with prejudice. He can try to appeal the decision but the court clearly recognizes Trump’s complaint can’t be salvaged, no matter how many rewrites it goes through. There’s simply nothing he can sue over here. Unfortunately, bad faith litigation by Trump seems to be an endlessly renewable resource. No lessons will be learned here and undoubtedly another stupid lawsuit is just around the corner.