Trump sues Des Moines Register, vows to pursue extra defamation claims

By Helen Coster and Jack Queen

NEW YORK (Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit in opposition to the Des Moines Register newspaper and its former prime pollster, the day after he stepped up his authorized threats in opposition to information shops and mentioned he would additionally take into account suing social media influencers for defamation.

The lawsuit filed Monday night time in Iowa’s Polk County seeks “accountability for brazen election interference dedicated by” the newspaper and pollster J. Ann Selzer over its ballot printed on Nov. 2. That ballot confirmed Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris main Trump by three proportion factors in Iowa.

“Selzer’s polling ‘miss’ was not an astonishing coincidence—it was intentional,” the lawsuit mentioned. “As President Trump noticed: ‘She knew precisely what she was doing.'”

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and an order barring the Des Moines Register from participating in “ongoing misleading and deceptive acts and practices” associated to polling.

A Des Moines Register consultant mentioned the group stands by its reporting and believes the lawsuit is with out advantage.

Selzer declined to remark.

Trump filed the lawsuit simply days after ABC Information agreed to settle a defamation case he introduced by donating $15 million to his presidential library and publicly apologizing for feedback by anchor George Stephanopoulos, who inaccurately mentioned the president-elect had been discovered responsible for rape.

Trump has touted the settlement as a significant victory, and there are already indicators that it might embolden his attorneys on fights with media firms.

On Tuesday, Trump’s attorneys cited the ABC deal in a letter to the choose overseeing the president-elect’s copyright lawsuit in opposition to Simon & Schuster over audio recordings of an writer’s interviews with Trump, saying they hope the e-book writer will “observe Mr. Stephanopoulos’ expression of contrition.”

“Since President Trump’s decisive victory ensuing (in) him being attributable to grow to be the forty seventh President of the US, there was a renewed accountability amongst those that violated his rights over the past 4 years,” Trump’s attorneys mentioned.

A consultant for Simon & Schuster didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark in regards to the lawsuit, which was filed in New York federal court docket.

Some authorized specialists say Trump’s feedback and authorized actions threat chilling information protection of the incoming administration even when authorized protections for journalists are for now sturdy. 

“There may be some severe concern that the erosion of authorized protections might result in much less aggressive information protection,” mentioned Syracuse College communications professor Roy Gutterman. 

The ABC settlement was regarding to Gutterman and different media and authorized specialists, who mentioned they believed ABC had a very good likelihood of beating the case however could have agreed to settle out of concern of retribution from the Trump administration. The excessive prices of litigation might have additionally factored into the choice, the specialists mentioned.

The ABC lawsuit centered on Stephanopoulos’ feedback about civil instances introduced in opposition to Trump by author E. Jean Carroll, who accused Trump of sexually assaulting her at a New York division retailer within the Nineties.

Stephanopoulos mentioned Trump was discovered responsible for rape, however a jury discovered Trump responsible for sexual abuse. New York legislation distinguishes the 2 offenses.

Trump is interesting the jury verdict in that case and a choose’s ruling in a associated lawsuit introduced by Carroll.  

An ABC Information spokesperson mentioned in a press release that the community was happy that the events reached an settlement to dismiss the lawsuit. 

As a part of the settlement, ABC agreed to publish an editor’s observe stating that the community and Stephanopoulos “remorse statements relating to President Donald J. Trump” made through the interview in query. 

On Monday, Trump additionally talked about his lawsuit in opposition to CBS Information over an interview with Harris that aired on its “60 Minutes” information program in October. The lawsuit, which seeks $1 billion in damages, claimed CBS deceptively edited the interview.

CBS has mentioned the lawsuit is “utterly with out advantage” and has requested a choose to dismiss the case. 

Trump claimed on Monday that “60 Minutes” participated in ”fraud and election interference.”

Any extra lawsuits by Trump would nonetheless face steep hurdles in court docket as a result of U.S. legislation has a number of the strongest protections on the earth for information protection of public figures. 

Longstanding authorized precedent holds that public figures should show defendants knew or strongly suspected one thing was false however mentioned it anyway, a normal generally known as “precise malice” that’s notoriously tough to show in court docket. 

Trump has mentioned this authorized customary ought to be modified, and a few U.S. Supreme Courtroom justices have expressed willingness to reexamine the precedent. 

“The usual stays a robust one, the strongest within the Western world,” mentioned Boston Faculty College of Regulation professor Jeffrey Pyle. 

Even when lawsuits by Trump had been to fail, they may create complications for information organizations by publicly revealing probably embarrassing inner communications and exposing journalists and executives to depositions. 

Within the ABC lawsuit, some authorized specialists mentioned the community might have prevailed as a result of Stephanopoulos’ feedback seemed to be an harmless mistake and never the kind of reckless disregard that Trump must show. 

(This story has been corrected to repair the margin of Des Moines register ballot in paragraph 2)