US President-elect Donald Trump’s lawyer, Edward Andrew Paltzik, sent a letter to The New York Times and Penguin Random House a week before the election demanding $10 billion in damages for “false and defamatory statements.” ” in materials critical of Trump, Columbia Journalism reports. Review after reading the message.
The letters talk about the book. Susanna Craig AND Russ Buettner about Trump and his financial dealings under the title “The Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Wasted His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success,” published on September 17, and articles by NYT journalists Peter Panadero titled “For Trump, his scandal-filled life is approaching a turning point” on October 20 and Michael Schmidt “As the election approaches (former White House chief of staff John) kelly warns that Trump will govern like a dictator”, October 22.
The letter, signed by Trump’s lawyer, accuses the NYT of being a “mouthpiece for the Democratic Party” that uses “smears on an industrial scale against political opponents.” The publication responded to Paltzik’s letter by referring it to Penguin Random House regarding the allegations against Buettner and Craig’s book, which was mentioned in the articles that sparked the accusations, adding that it defended the material, a source familiar told CJR. with the matter. .
Also on October 31, Paltzik sued CBS News on behalf of Trump, alleging that a 60 Minutes interview with her Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harriswas edited to help her, which amounts to “election interference.” Trump’s lawyer demanded compensation of 10 billion dollars. The television channel considers the claim “completely unfounded” and intends to defend itself.
That same day, Trump complained to the Federal Election Commission about the Washington Post, alleging that it illegally supported Harris’ campaign. WP considered the accusations to be unfounded. The newspaper broke with decades of tradition and did not endorse either candidate this year.
Additionally, on November 5, lawyers representing Trump’s campaign co-chairman Chris Lachivitudemanded that The Daily Beast correct and retract a series of articles that claimed LaCivita “made” $22 million from Trump’s re-election campaign. The publication added an editor’s note to its story, stating that the correct amount is $19.2 million (the amount was also changed in the text), and the payments did not go directly to LaCivita, but to its company of the same name ( LaCivita LLC).
An article about “making money” from Trump’s campaign was published on October 15, and on November 2, the Daily Beast reported that the future president was “furious” about the findings about LaChivit and could fire him. Both materials were changed on November 8. However, the changes did not satisfy Lachivita and his lawyers: on November 12 they sent a letter to the editor demanding a refutation, RBC clarifies.
“The editor’s note in this article clarifying that the $22 million was transferred to Lachivita and not to him personally does not change the general essence of the article, which portrays Mr. Lachivita as a fraudulent embezzler of campaign money for his own personal benefit and that he was and is about to be “fired” for this,” — CJR quotes an excerpt from the message.
