By Aaron Miller-
Donald Trump has sued cable TV network CNN, claiming defamation and seeking punitive damages of $475m, according to a Florida court filing on Monday.
The former US president claims in his lawsuit that CNN had used its considerable influence as a leading news organisation to defeat him politically.
The U.S cable network is a longstanding critic of Donald Trump and have been very critical of the former president throughout most of his tenure as president of the United states. Trump at one point branded the news network as fake news, and has has a very turbulent relationship with the news outlet. CNN is generally well regarded as a credible and authouritative source of news, but Trump, who is no fan of the broadcasting network is at full war with the media organisation.
Trump claims in the 29-page lawsuit that CNN had a long track record of criticising him but had ramped up its attacks in recent months because the network feared that he would run again for president in 2024.
“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 comes amid a criminal investigation by the justice department against Mr.Trump, for retaining government records at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, after leaving office in January 2021.
A successful legal suit will be very damaging for Mr Trump, who could also be prosecuted frederally. The former president will feel some satisfaction if his suit against CNN is successful too. At worst for CNN, it would show the guilty parties as having gone too far in their depiction of president Trump, if they don’t provide some form of identical parallels between Trump and Hitler.
Meanwhile, a congressional committee is investigating the 6 January 2021 assault on the US Capitol by Trump supporters, focusing on the former president’s role in the attack.
“Beyond simply highlighting any negative information about the plaintiff and ignoring all positive information about him, CNN has sought to use its massive influence, purportedly as a ‘trusted’ news source, to defame the plaintiff in the minds of its viewers and readers for the purpose of defeating him politically,” the filing states.