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To The Leader

 

Donald J. Trump for President, Inc., on Friday, filed a libel lawsuit against CNN for publishing false and defamatory statements. The lawsuit, filed today in the U.S. District Court in Atlanta, seeks to hold CNN accountable for intentionally publishing false statements against President Trump’s campaign.

Statement from Jenna Ellis, Senior Legal Adviser to Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.:

“Today the President’s re-election campaign has filed suit against CNN for false statements, claiming that the campaign ‘assessed the potential risks and benefits of again seeking Russia’s help in 2020 and has decided to leave that option on the table.’ The statements were and are 100 percent false and defamatory. The complaint alleges CNN 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. Further, the campaign, through counsel, sent a written demand to CNN on February 25, 2020, to retract and apologize for the false and defamatory statements. CNN refused, so the campaign was left with no alternative but to file suit to publicly establish the truth and seek appropriate remedies.

“The campaign filed this lawsuit against CNN and the preceding suits against The New York Times and The Washington Post to hold the publishers accountable for their reckless false reporting and also to establish the truth: that the campaign did not have an agreement, quid pro quo, or collusion with Russia, as the Mueller Report concluded. The campaign was motivated by the fact that the publications recklessly published false statements which caused harm and intentionally mislead their readers. False statements are not protected under the U.S. Constitution; therefore, these suits will have no chilling effect on freedom of the press. If journalists are more accurate in their statements and reporting, that would be a positive development, but not why these suits were filed.”