Former US President and Republican leader Donald Trump on Monday filed a defamation lawsuit against popular news channel Cable News Network (CNN). Trump sought $475 million in punitive damages, claiming the network had carried out a “campaign of libel and slander” against him, Reuters reported.
In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Trump claimed that CNN had used its considerable influence as a leading news organization to defeat him politically.
In his 29-page lawsuit, the former President claimed that CNN had a long track record of criticizing him but had ramped up its attacks in recent months because the network feared that he would run again for president in 2024.
“As a part of its concerted effort to tilt the political balance to the left, CNN has tried to taint the Plaintiff with a series of ever-more scandalous, false, and defamatory labels of ‘racist,’ ‘Russian lackey,’ ‘insurrectionist,’ and ultimately ‘Hitler,'” claimed Trump’s lawsuit.
The lawsuit specifically focuses on multiple instances when the channel allegedly appeared to compare Trump to Hitler, including a January 2022 special report by host Fareed Zakaria that included footage of the German dictator.
The republican leader, who lost to democrat Joe Biden in Presidential Election in 2020, said he would be filing lawsuits against other major media companies “in the coming weeks and months,” and that he could even take action against a congressional committee probing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters.
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