Former US President Donald Trump sued CNN on Monday for defamation and asked for $475 million in “punitive damages”.
In the lawsuit filed Monday in federal court in Fort Lauderdale, South Florida, Trump alleges that the cable channel uses “its enormous influence” to defame him in order to “defeat him politically.”
The document adds that “CNN’s deterrence campaign in the form of defamation and slander against the applicant has only intensified in recent months as CNN fears” he will run for president in 2024.
The attachments present a number of examples where the network allegedly sought to “cause real harm” to Trump, such as a broadcast of the “Reliable Sources” show in which the presenter, Brian Stelter, spoke to a psychiatrist and said that “Trump is a person destructive in this century as Hitler, Stalin and Mao were in the last century”.
The lawsuit seeks “punitive damages” in the amount of $475 million and is signed by attorneys Lindsey Halligan and James M. Trusty.
This is not the first lawsuit between Trump and CNN, which has been criticized by the former president and his supporters.
In 2018, the network sued the former president after the White House “wrongly” and “in violation of the First Amendment right to press freedom” revoked journalist Jim Acosta’s credentials, after an argument with the then president.
CNN later considered the standoff with Trump resolved after the White House permanently returned the journalist’s credentials.
Also, in 2020, Trump’s election campaign sued CNN for “defamation,” as did The Washington Post and The New York Times.
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