Judge dismisses Trump's defamation lawsuit against CNN

[AU9377 5,026]

The only surprise is that there were no sanctions levied against the attorneys who filed a defamation suit knowing that, based on the facts they presented to the court, the conduct did not meet the requirements to be considered defamation.  Trump was upset that commentators repeatedly referred to his comments concerning the 2020 election as the "Big Lie." On its face, one could defend against a claim of defamation by simply pointing to the truth of the statement.  However, Trump's legal team went on a deep dive trying to give life to his defamation claim. 

Trump's legal team argued that using the term "Big Lie" was an intentional act to show that he was "Hitler-like."  The term does have origins in Nazi Germany and is in the Hitler memoir "Mein Kampf."  Even so, the judge ruled that any mention of this by commentators was conveyed in a format that was clearly opinion based.  At no point was this claimed to have been a fact, but instead was an opinion derived from the actions of Mr. Trump.

This is a good fact pattern to contrast with the Fox "News" case involving the 2020 election.  Fox reported as fact that Dominion voting machines had been used to manipulate the results of the 2020 election, thereby supporting the notion that the 2020 election was stolen.  Internal Fox emails were damning.  They provided hundreds of examples of their on air personalities questioning why they were reporting information that was not accurate.  The response from Fox executives was that the information was what their viewers wanted to hear.  Any deviation from that would endanger their ratings.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/29/judge-dismisses-trump-defamation-lawsuit-00108871

[TitanTiger 20,510]

Because it was meritless - just like every single election fraud/stealing lawsuit he filed.  He's used to hiring an army of lawyers and burying the opposition in months of paperwork and motions in his business dealings.  But, that sh*t doesn't work in this realm.  He's not dealing with some small company he wants to screw over with limited resources.