Retired Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz floated the idea of filing a libel lawsuit against CNN for its characterization of comments he made during the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump.
Dershowitz, who was on Trump’s legal defense team, announced the potential litigation in a column published Tuesday on Newsmax. He claims the network intentionally misrepresented what he said during his arguments on behalf of the president during the trial.
He claims that CNN, among others in the media, reported that he said Trump, or any president, has the right to do anything to secure his reelection if he believes such is in the national interest.
CNN political commentator and Democratic strategist Paul Begala characterized Dershowitz’s remarks in a column on the outlet’s site alleging the president’s attorney argued that the president is “immune from every criminal act, so long as they could plausibly claim they did it to boost their re-election effort.”
Dershowitz, in his own piece, argued that “a simple truth-check … would have shown that I said exactly the opposite of what CNN said I had said,” and added, “CNN turned my statement on its head, wrenched a few words out of context while omitting other crucial words, and lied to its viewers.”
He also claimed that CNN barred him from appearing on the network and that it went as far as to cancel a scheduled appearance on Smerconish. The lawyer also claimed that “several people” at the network told him that, “You can’t criticize CNN and expect to be on that network.”
“I could sue CNN for defamation, as some have urged me to do; they maliciously and intentionally lied about what I said for the explicit purpose of defaming me and misleading their viewers,” Dershowitz said. “Even though I’m a public figure, a deliberate lie told with malice, is not protected by the first amendment.”
CNN did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
