President-elect Donald Trump has launched a series of lawsuits against newspapers, publishing houses, broadcast TV and other media outlets. This was revealed by the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR, a biannual magazine for professional journalists), underlining that a few days before the elections for the White House, Trump’s lawyer, Edward Andrew Paltzik, had sent a letter to the newspaper The New York Times ( NYT) and the publisher Penguin Random House asking for 10 billion dollars (8.9 billion francs) for damages related to articles critical of the next occupant of the White House.
Trump accuses journalists Peter Baker, Michael Schmidt, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner of “false and defamatory statements”, adding that the NYT is “a megaphone of the Democratic Party”, engaged in “industrial-scale smears” against “adversaries politicians.”
The letter points in particular to two specific articles by Buettner and Craig linked to their book “Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success” created the illusion of success), published by Penguin Random House, an article dated October 20th by Baker (“For Trump, a life of scandals leads to the moment of judgment”) and one by Schmidt dated October 22nd (“With the election coming Kelly warns that Trump will govern as a dictator”) relating to the reporter’s interview with John Kelly, former chief of staff during Trump’s first term.
In addition to the letter against The New York Times and the publishing house, Trump recently sent an injunction to the Daily Beast (an American news and opinion website) and sued the New York broadcaster, CBS, demanding ten billion dollars in damages for the interview with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on October 7 on the show “60 Minutes”: it was allegedly “edited” and therefore constituted “interference in the elections”.
