Trump launches legal war against major US media, seeks $475m damages against CNN for defamation
Former president of the United States, Donald Trump, has filed a lawsuit against the Cable News Network (CNN) Inc for defamation on Monday, boasting that more lawsuits against major US media companies will soon follow.
He was also seeking $475 million in retributive damages, claiming that the media giant had carried out a “campaign of libel and slander” against him.
Reuters said Trump claims in his lawsuit that was filed in US District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, that CNN had used its substantial influence as a leading news organisation to defeat him politically.
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CNN, however, has not reacted to the ex-president’s suit as of the time of filing this report as Trump claimed in the 29-page lawsuit that CNN had a long track record of criticising him.
“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,’” the lawsuit claims.
The lawsuit lists several instances in which CNN appeared to compare Trump to Hitler, including a January 2022 special report by host Fareed Zakaria that included footage of the German dictator.
In a statement, the former president said he would be filing lawsuits against other major media companies “in the coming weeks and months,” and that he could even take action against a congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by his supporters.
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