Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to sue the New York Times over a story the paper published with accusations from two women that Trump had groped them.
“We hereby demand that you immediate cease any further publication of this article, remove it from your website and issue a full and immediate retraction and apology. Failure to do so will leave my client with no option but to pursue all available actions and remedies,” Marc Kazowitz, a lawyer for Trump, wrote in a Wednesday letter to New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet.
Kazowitz accused the New York Times of libel, claiming that the allegations in the Times piece were false and politically motivated.
“Your article is reckless, defamatory and constitutes libel per se. It is apparent from, among other things, the timing of the article, that it is nothing more than a politically-motivated effort to defeat Mr. Trump’s candidacy,” he wrote in the letter. “That is why you apparently performed an entirely inadequate investigation to test the veracity of these false and malicious allegations, including why these two individuals waited, in one case, more than three decades, before deciding to come forward with these false and defamatory statements.”
CNN’s Brian Stelter reported that Trump’s office threatened to sue the New York Times before the paper published the story, later following through with the letter. Stelter reported that Baquet said that the paper decided to move forward with the story despite Trump’s threats.
“I think it is pretty evident this story falls clearly in the realm of public service journalism, and discussing issues that arose from the tape and his comments since it surfaced,” Baquet told Stelter.
Read the letter:
Threaten anything you want, asshole. You’ll lose.
Bigly.
The best offence is a good defense.
Or something.
There seems too be a lot of how come they waited defense going on by Trump and the Trumpsters. My sense is they the kept silent out of embarrassment and probably advice from editors, bosses and some friends to just let it go. Now though Trump’s behavior is out in the open the log jam has been broken.
Or their courage is strengthened by the fact that everyone else is coming forward.
It’s not easy to be the first (or even among the first) to assert something like this against not just a powerful asshole with a lot of lawyers, but one with a reputation for being a nasty, vile little toad that will defame and slander endlessly (often at 3AM).
Legally, does the fact that this story answers public claims which they are refuting protect the NY Times?
Actually that isn’t even accurate. The NY Times is corroborating claims made on tape by Trump. That’s got to be a tough defense to crack!