President Trump’s reelection campaign Wednesday filed suit against the New York Times, accusing the paper of libel for an article it published related to Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The suit, filed in the New York State Supreme Court, marks a new escalation in Trump’s various fights with the media. The purpose of the litigation, the campaign said in a statement, was to “hold the news organization accountable for intentionally publishing false statements against President Trump’s campaign.”
The lawsuit claims the newspaper “knowingly published false and defamatory statements” in a story about the Trump campaign published March 27, 2019, alleging “an overarching deal” with “Vladimir Putin’s oligarchy” against rival Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election — an arrangement that would deliver “a new pro-Russian foreign policy, starting with relief from the Obama administration’s burdensome economic sanctions.”
The paper published the claims in a bid to knowingly “misinform and mislead” readers and influence the upcoming general election, the suit claims.
A spokesperson for the New York Times shared the following statement:
“The Trump Campaign has turned to the courts to try to punish an opinion writer for having an opinion they find unacceptable. Fortunately, the law protects the rights of Americans to express their judgments and conclusions, especially about events of public importance. We look forward to vindicating that right in this case.”
The article was written by Max Frankel, the executive editor of the New York Times from 1986 to 1994.
The president is highly sensitive to claims that his victory in 2016 was aided by Russian interference and to suggestions that the Kremlin plans to boost his incumbent campaign ahead of November.
Trump’s fraught relationship with the media, and with the New York Times in particular, has been on display since the longtime New York City property developer and media personality first entered the race.
In 2016, he threatened similar action, demanding that the paper retract a story about two women who said they were sexually harassed by the then-Republican nominee.
In 2017, after the New York Times ran a story that predicted press secretary Sean Spicer’s firing, a Trump insider told the Washington Examiner that the president had written the paper off.
“Fuck the New York Times,” Trump is reported to have said at the time. “They’re not our friends. We’re never going to win them over.”
Spicer was not fired at the time but did resign two months after the piece was published.
