President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign has plans to file a lawsuit against CNN, accusing the news source of biased reporting.
“Never in the history of this country has a President been the subject of such a sustained barrage of unfair, unfounded, unethical and unlawful attacks by so-called ‘mainstream’ news, as the current situation,” said a letter to CNN from attorney Charles Harder, who is representing Trump and his campaign.
Harder cited one CNN employee recorded by Project Veritas who claimed CNN President, Jeff Zucker, had a personal feud with Trump. Another employee said that the network wants to focus its coverage solely on Trump and the ongoing House impeachment inquiry.
“The aforementioned examples are merely the tip of the iceberg of the evidence my clients have accumulated over recent years,” Harder wrote. “We also expect substantial additional information about CNN’s wrongful practices to become known in the coming days and weeks.”
“But CNN is a voice that really seems to be the voice out there,” Trump said. “And it’s a terrible thing for our country. And we ought to start our network and put some real news out there because they are so bad.”
Several attorneys believe, however, if the lawsuit ever gets filed, it will not go very far.
“Any such lawsuit, at least based on the statute specifically identified so far, is nothing more than a PR stunt designed to rev up the president’s political base,” said Bradley Moss, an attorney who specializes in national security and transparency issues.
CNN said in a statement that the lawsuit is nothing more than a desperate PR stunt and does not deserve a response.
This isn’t the only time Trump has tried to sue someone. The Trump Administration also recently filed a lawsuit to block a cap and trade agreement with Canada to lower fossil fuel emissions.
The lawsuit argues that California overstepped its legal authority by forging an agreement with another country that was aimed to reduce air pollution and climate warming greenhouse gases. The suit says that only the federal government has this power.
“The state of California has veered outside of its proper constitutional lane to enter into an international emissions agreement,” said Assistant Atty. Gen. Jeffrey Bossert Clark of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division in a statement. “California’s unlawful cap-and-trade agreement with Quebec undermines the President’s ability to negotiate competitive agreements with other nations, as the President sees fit,” Clark added.