Former US President Donald Trump sued American broadcaster CNN on Monday (3) for defamation and asked US $ 372 million in “punitive damages”.
In the lawsuit filed this 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”.58915
The document adds that “CNN’s deterrent campaign in the form of defamation and slander against the applicant has only intensified in recent months, as CNN fears” that he candidate for the presidency in 2022.
The attachments present a number of examples where the network allegedly sought to “cause real harm” to Trump, such as a broadcast of the show “Reliable Sources” in which the presenter, Brian Stelter, spoke with a psychiatrist and said that “Trump is as destructive a person in this century as Hitler, Stalin and Mao were in the last century”.
The lawsuit requests “punitive damages” in the amount of US$ 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 a discussion with the then president.58915
CNN considered the impasse with Trump to be resolved later, after the White House returned permanently gone the credentials of the journalist.
Also, in 2020, Trump’s election campaign sued CNN for “defamation”, as did The Washington Post and The New York Times.
