Thread by @AkivaMCohen

OK, #LitigationDisasterTourists, let's spend some time on Trump's latest "legal" filing: an abomination that takes direct aim at the First Amendment and your personal freedom of expression.

Yes, even if you're a MAGA-fan Newsmax/OAN die hard: Yours.

The lawyers here are, once again, James Trusty and Lindsey Halligan, and I'm not kidding when I say that the courts should refer them for discipline for filing this flaming bag of dogshit on their doorstep.

Seriously, were I CNN, I'd seriously think about whether to ask the Court to declare Trump a "vexatious litigant" - basically, someone who routinely files frivolous claims for abusive purposes, who from that point on must get pre-approval by the court for future suits

These two things right here are, frankly, grounds enough for bar discipline all on their own, IMO. Your client is not the President. You can't plead something you know is false, even to flatter a client.

But the second highlight is worse. Look what this defamation case is about

Let me be as clear about this as I possibly can:

Donny Trump is a racist, insurrectionist, soft-as-Charmin pissbaby of a Russian lackey. On that latter one, I doubt it's intentional, he's not being run by a Russian handler; he's just naturally inclined that way

He's not Hitler, but he's certainly running pages out of the Hitler political playbook, which is only surprising for someone who owned a copy of Hitler's My New Order (a collection of speeches) in that nobody really believes Donny can read

vanityfair.com/magazine/2015/…

It is the First Amendment right of every single American, from the most ignorant to the most knowledgeable, from the poorest to the wealthiest, individual, corporation, and media company, to hold and express those opinions of Donny boy.

And yes, you dumb fucks, of Joe Biden.

The fact that believing that about Biden would be stupid, wrong, and evidence of brain worms and that believing it about Donny boy is simply being able to recognize reality at above the level of a preschooler is irrelevant.

Political opinions CANNOT be defamatory

Why? Because while they can be *based on facts* (for example, "Donny is a racist" is supported by the fact that his company was found to have excluded Blacks from renting his apartments, was quoted as not wanting Black dealers in his casinos, etc.) ...

there's no objective standard for measuring and determining racism and no official body allowed to tell you, a red-blooded American, what conclusions you are or are not allowed to draw from the facts you are aware of.

I mean hell, are these treasonous anti-American shitbags really trying to set up *Politifact* - fucking Politifact - as the arbiter of truth and allowed opinion in the US media? Really?

Let's pause here to note that the same people who claim to support "free speech" by insisting that private social media companies MUST host literal neo-nazis are also going to be cheering a request that the government prevent media companies from expressing disfavored opinions

Did George Orwell write this pleading?

Motherfucker, did Fox News stop existing while I was out for Rosh Hashannah? Also you're literally suing to repress ideas from the public consciousness; you'd like media companies to be unable to call you the racist insurrectionist you are

Anyway, I'm going to skip through the "jurisdiction, parties, and venue" section; Donny is a Florida citizen and he's alleging defamation. That's enough to let him sue CNN in FL.

Why in the world would you do this? If you're representing Trump, what possible benefit is there of reproducing CNN's "hahahaha fuck you no fuck off" letter?

Next, the facts section:

"CNN says it's a good news network"

I'm not joking, this is how the section starts

They then move on to "but they have political opinions!"

Again, this is neither a joke nor a drill - it's their actual complaint. How very dare they

This, btw, is the segment calling Trump a cult leader. Imagine being enough of an authoritarian to think that media companies shouldn't be allowed to run segments like this, and having the balls to call that "defending the First Amendment"

Then we move to the actual core of the complaint: You called me a nazi

BTW, linear time is a thing, you pan-galactic incompetents. How could calling Trump an insurrectionist (post-2020 election) have been intended to derail his 2020 candidacy?

I particularly like the bit where they explain that Zakaria explicitly said "let's be very clear, Donald Trump is not Adolf Hitler" and highlight that what they want to make actionable is any attempt to draw historical parallels.

I mean, Donny, they say that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. But you don't want people to be able to learn from the history of Hitler's rise in Germany? Why would you want us doomed to repea--

More "defamation" - opinions (correctly) deemed stupid by Politifact. Again, are you sure that's the standard you want, Donny?

Here's the Politifact piece, btw. And if Rob Jackson, a Stanford professor of earth science, says calling Trump Hitler seems inappropriate, how can you NOT find that a defamatory falsehood?

Next we have an express "it's defamatory for a media company to accurately report my political opponent's criticisms of me", and no I'm not kidding or exaggerating about that

And "only historians are allowed to have opinions"

This stuff is just so deeply unamerican. And there's exactly ZERO chance that any Republican leaders will call it out.

Next, we get to "calling my election fraud claims the Big Lie is defamatory because that's a tactic Hitler is associated with"

This next section is basically the "not cool, dude!" section, and "not cool, dude!" is not a valid basis for a legal complaint, you racist, insurrectionist, Russian lackey of a shitweasel

(And OMG, they actually used "not cool". I'm dead)

BTW:

Holocaust comparisons? Not cool. Comparing Trump to Hitler on a policy level? Not cool. Comparing *tactics and cult-like followings*? Perfectly, totally, and completely fine.

The difference? One minimizes the unique evil of the holocaust. The other doesn't. At all.

"It's defamatory to call my false claims of election fraud a Big Lie" should get sua sponte sanctions, tbh. There's no need for a judge to wait for a motion from the defendant. This is not a claim that American law allows or should ever allow

Now - finally - let's get to the statements they asked CNN to retract. None of this stuff is even conceivably defamatory.

Nor is it CNN's fault that Trump is viewed as the lowest of the low.

That's all you, Donny

BTW, that "courts have found Hitler comparisons libelous per se" line? Let's detour and look at those.

First, every single one of those was pre-Times v. Sullivan (no actual malice standard).

Second, the Tennessee case was based on interpreting the phrase "Hitler-like tactics" as an accusation of oppressive conduct in office that wouldn't have been libelous when not applied to someone's official conduct - which, um ... it isn't here.

So aside from the fact that the Tennessee case isn't good law (see the more recent Tennessee decision for a better precedent), even if it was it wouldn't apply here.

How about the Pennsylvania case? Well, here's the libelous statement at issue in that case.

Not just "Naziphile" - an opinion - but specific factual claims about the things the guy had supposedly said. The case turned on the jury not believing he said those things

Last, that Texas case?

It involved a newspaper falsely reporting that *a government draft board* had classified the plaintiff as "Pro-Nazi". Not the paper's opinion that the guy was pro-Nazi, but a fact about what the draft board did that was either true or false.

This is America. We get to call our politicians nazis, or racists, or commie bastards, or America-haters, or whatever other inflammatory political rhetoric we think the facts support - rightly or wrongly.

I don't say this lightly:

It is impossible to both love this country and intelligently support Donald Trump. People like Ted Cruz? Do not remotely love America. They love themselves, and they love power. They don't give the first wet shit about this country.

Anyway, next we have a section on "but you don't call other things the Big Lie!" which isn't remotely worth anyone's time because no, you pudgy orange bag of dicks, "voters who should have been allowed to vote weren't" isn't remotely comparable to "they rigged the vote count"

hahahahahahahahahaha

And here are the actual claims (for a Trump complaint, this one is blessedly short and MOSTLY avoids thinking it's a legal brief instead of a complaint):

"Calling my election claims a Big Lie convinces viewers I wanna genocide the Jews"

There's a whole lot of paragraphs repeating the same basic thought, and then he pleads it again as straight defamation instead of defamation per se (which is just "defamation so bad you don't need to prove damages"). Again, not worth anyone's time.

I'll leave you where I started: this lawsuit is an express and egregious attack on freedom of political expression in America, and does more to drive home Trump's alignment with and longing for authoritarian regimes than anything CNN ever could.

Zero chance. This isn't a "you got the facts wrong but you believed them" case.

This is a "you're not allowed to have a political opinion" case.

That loses at SCOTUS 8-1; not even Thomas signs up for that. (Alito votes for owning the libs)

No. They filed this in the Ft Lauderdale division; Cannon only sits in Ft Pierce