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Trump Campaign Sues New York Times Over 2019 Opinion Article

JasperL said:
FWIW, I just read the lawsuit. Looks like LOL stuff to me.

Here's the offending paragraph: Opinion | The Real Trump-Russia Quid Pro Quo - The New York Times



The article says, "there was no need for a detailed electoral collusion." Seems to imply one doesn't exist, but you cannot read it as an assertion of a "detailed collusion." And the "quid pro quo" claim as stated in the article is true. Did they know the Russians were interfering in a way that helped Trump, and hurt Hillary? That's what Mueller found, and that the campaign, quoting Mueller, "welcomed" it. And did the campaign "[hold] out the prospect of the quo" - which included sanctions relief? Of course they did.

The lawsuit is like a bad editorial. It even notes that the article came out BEFORE the Mueller report and claims the NYT anticipated the findings, and so rushed the publication knowing Mueller wouldn't find "collusion." And that's evidence the author acted with "actual malice!" since he didn't know the official findings yet, but NYT guessed it correctly!

:2rofll:
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As usual, Trump lawsuits make no sense. If I'm reading you correctly, Trump is saying the NYT, knowing there would be no collusion found, decided to get out in front of the report. To damage Trump. How does that work?

I remember Bill Barr doing something similar, but he actually had read the report. I can understand Barr's motive, but what motive the NYT would have is baffling.
 
Michael Cole said:
So, the guy who said, "Russia, if you're listening..." has his panties in a bunch over this?
I suspect Trump will be laughed out of court.
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There are a lot of far-right federal judges out there now days.
 
trixare4kids said:
It remains to be seen if the suit is useless.

The salty essayist claimed the campaign made a deal with Russian officials to defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016.
This can easily be disproved; see Mueller report.
The Op-Ed piece claimed the campaign had an “overarching deal” with “Vladimir Putin's oligarchy” to defeat the Democratic candidate.
This too can easily be disproved; see Mueller report.

Here is the meat of the Trump campaign lawsuit:

The lawsuit said Times reporters had confirmed the falsity of the statements, but the newspaper published them anyway because of its “extreme bias against and animosity toward the Campaign, and The Times' exuberance to improperly influence the presidential election in November 2020."

Trump Campaign Sues NY Times for Defamation Over Putin - The New York Times
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For the record, the lawsuit itself notes the offending opinion piece came out.....BEFORE THE MUELLER REPORT.

And the offending paragraph doesn't actually assert they made a "deal."

Collusion — or a lack of it — turns out to have been the rhetorical trap that ensnared President Trump’s pursuers. There was no need for detailed electoral collusion between the Trump campaign and Vladimir Putin’s oligarchy because they had an overarching deal: the quid of help in the campaign against Hillary Clinton for the quo of a new pro-Russian foreign policy, starting with relief from the Obama administration’s burdensome economic sanctions. The Trumpites knew about the quid and held out the prospect of the quo.
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All it actually asserts is that last bolded, and both parts of that are true.
1) knew about the quid (i.e. interference) - true
2) held out the prospect of the quo - pro-Russian foreign policy. True.

My goodness - "held out the prospect" hardly says anything at all, and multiple statements by Trump in public meet that low burden.
 
Michael Cole said:
Crimeny. And I gave you the author's words, which do not say what you bolded.
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Right. The article said the deal was implicit, not explicit. Therefore it won't be possible to prove it didn't exist...especially when it so obviously did.
 
jpn said:
Right. The article said the deal was implicit, not explicit. Therefore it won't be possible to prove it didn't exist...especially when it so obviously did.
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Exactly. Such easy words that eluded me. Thanks.
 
jpn said:
Right. The article said the deal was implicit, not explicit. Therefore it won't be possible to prove it didn't exist...especially when it so obviously did.
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After reading the lawsuit, it's clear this is nothing more than a campaign stunt. If I was a journalist, I'd give it the respect of a Breitbart editorial, and that's about it because any more is just playing the campaign's dirty game for them. The proper response for serious people is to point and laugh, then forget about it.
 
What a snowflake. Look at just a little of what his opponent endured in 2016 at the hands of David Pecker, Trump supporter:

NationalInquirer.jpg

Chelsea Clinton Tweet:
"I’d missed the lung cancer cover, the stroke story, the one about my mom @HillaryClinton’s hitman (possibly my missing alien sibling?!) and goodness, I think all of them actually. As always, thankful for my mom’s enduring health, grace, grit & goodness."
 
JasperL said:
For the record, the lawsuit itself notes the offending opinion piece came out.....BEFORE THE MUELLER REPORT.

And the offending paragraph doesn't actually assert they made a "deal."



All it actually asserts is that last bolded, and both parts of that are true.
1) knew about the quid (i.e. interference) - true
2) held out the prospect of the quo - pro-Russian foreign policy. True.

My goodness - "held out the prospect" hardly says anything at all, and multiple statements by Trump in public meet that low burden.
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Yep. To me it says, some unidentified people referred to as Trumpites hoped and waited for something to occur. It would be frivolous to claim damage whether that statement is true or not.
 
Michael Cole said:
Yep. To me it says, some unidentified people referred to as Trumpites hoped and waited for something to occur. It would be frivolous to claim damage whether that statement is true or not.
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FWIW, happened upon this article:

Trump Sues New York Times (He will Lose Quickly) - New York Personal Injury Law BlogNew York Personal Injury Law Blog

It is short and sweet. Here's the bottom line conclusion:

Given Trump’s invitation to Russia to involve itself with our elections, and the numerous contacts his team had with Russia, this claim has nowhere to go. It’s a fair opinion to claim “they knew about the quid and held out prospect for the quo.”

It’s tempting to leap out and say, “discovery is gonna be a blast!” but it will never get there. This complaint is doomed to be dismissed for failing to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.
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So, an LOLsuit.
 
Michael Cole said:
The author did an excellent job, at least on the passage in question that was posted here. Opinion writing is meant to invoke thought, not report facts or events. It needs to be read from this perspective. When I read the snippet, I heard the author describing his view of certain events and what these events could possibly mean. I did not hear the author reporting his views as fact.
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This is not opinion, it is being reported as fact. The media should be held to higher standards.

The lawsuit says the column, published on March 27, 2019, falsely stated the “campaign had an ‘overarching deal’ with ‘Vladimir Putin’s oligarchy’ to ‘help the campaign against Hillary Clinton’ in exchange for ‘a new pro-Russian foreign policy, starting with relief from … economic sanctions,” Jenna Ellis, senior legal adviser to Donald J. Trump for President, Inc., said in a statement.

“The statements were and are 100 percent false and defamatory. The complaint alleges The Times 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,” the statement said.
 
chuckiechan said:
He probably knows he can’t win that case, per se, but he can keep pressure on the media and control the message by using concrete examples of screaming headlines that are false. If you were a stockholder, you would probably dump it.

I don’t recall the major national press ever being as irresponsible with false reporting as it has been now a days with Trump at the helm.
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I kind of hope the media starts being held accountable for spreading out right lies. It is sad that we cannot believe anything our media tells us anymore. But what is even worse is the fact that there are millions of people that actually believe our media.
 
dcsports said:
Nope. What they are saying is that if you lie, even in an opinion piece, you can be held liable. That's not new.
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they can attempt to be held liable, but proving it in court is altogether another matter.
 
Robertinfremont said:
A lot of the hate directed against Trump is right on the tombstone of the NT Times. And WAPO owes him a deep heartfelt apology too. Even PBS owes TRump an apology.
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The fact that Trump is universally loathed is not done in a vacuum.

He's earned it.
 
trixare4kids said:
Here's what's not courteous.
It's not courteous to call or imply that posters are "MORONS" because they don't meet your demands.
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Yes, nothing spells 'courteous' like....

Pardon me, but it's not my responsibility to read the damn thread for you.
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When I didn't ask you to read the damn thread for me. You want someone read something you wrote, it's common courtesy to either give the post number, at the minimum, or even nicer, link to it.

Your response wasn't even on point.
 
trixare4kids said:
Not one of your juvenile tirades has been on the thread topic when it comes to addressing my posts.
Keep trying. One of these days you'll figure out how this thing called discussion works.
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One of these days you'll figure out that an arrogant tone and insults is not how discussions should work.
 
PIPEWRENCH said:
I kind of hope the media starts being held accountable for spreading out right lies. It is sad that we cannot believe anything our media tells us anymore. But what is even worse is the fact that there are millions of people that actually believe our media.
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But, of course, you are not concerned about the president being held accountable for his thousands of lies.

No one believe anything this president says, anymore.


What is said is that there are millions of people that believe the president.
 
OscarLevant said:
But, of course, you are not concerned about the president being held accountable for his thousands of lies.

No one believe anything this president says, anymore.


What is said is that there are millions of people that believe the president.
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Yes, you're upset that Trump said they had food stacked to the ceiling... let it go man, just let it go.
 
chuckiechan said:
He probably knows he can’t win that case, per se, but he can keep pressure on the media and control the message by using concrete examples of screaming headlines that are false. If you were a stockholder, you would probably dump it.

I don’t recall the major national press ever being as irresponsible with false reporting as it has been now a days with Trump at the helm.
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If the screaming headlines are false why do you think he will lose?
 
Trump is purging the executive branch and suing a newspaper for expressing an opinion, praising a foreign leader who is creating a religipous citizen test, and there are people here arguing he's not a fascist.
 
j brown's body said:
Trump is purging the executive branch and suing a newspaper for expressing an opinion, praising a foreign leader who is creating a religipous citizen test, and there are people here arguing he's not a fascist.
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He's suing them, not shutting them down with the power of his office.

So no, not a fascist.
 
trixare4kids said:
You forget that Trump has to prove nothing. The dependent has to prove what he wrote is factual. He can't.
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It will be interesting for sure since the NYT defense will have to be that they were innocently idiots while explaining why they made claims of facts in the article.
 
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This "opinion" article, in particular, is rather egregious in it's assertion of what the author believed to be facts. It is certainly written to appear to be a factual piece.
 
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