The personal attorney for Donald Trump warned executives at NBCUniversal that legal proceedings could be pursued over a comment by MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, The Hollywood Reporter’s THR, Esq., reports.
The story reports that Trump attorney Charles Harder “threatened NBCUniversal with a defamation suit” over a comment on Tuesday night’s telecast of “The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell.” A demand letter from Harder also reportedly is concerned with a tweet from O’Donnell, which you can see below.
THR quotes Harder’s demand letter saying: “The Program and Tweet make the false and defamatory statements that ‘Russian oligarchs’ co-signed loans provided to Mr. Trump by Deutsche Bank, and described these ‘co-signers’ as ‘Russian billionaires close to Vladimir Putin.’”
O’Donnell followed up today with a tweet admitting he had erred. He wrote: “Last night I made an error in judgment by reporting an item about the president’s finances that didn’t go through our rigorous verification and standards process. I shouldn’t have reported it and I was wrong to discuss it on the air. I will address the issue on my show tonight.”
THR adds: “Trump is certainly notorious for defamation threats, but this may be the first formal one from a sitting president. Should Trump actually pursue a defamation suit and it survived any initial First Amendment challenge, he’d subject himself to a discovery process months after the conclusion of the investigation by Robert Mueller — which Trump repeatedly characterized as a ‘witch hunt.'”
Because trump never lies…
O’Donnell has the same right as any other American to say any stupid thing he wants. It is unfortunate that he used his platform as a journalist to attempt to give this statement credibility. It would not have been that difficult to announce that this was an editorial on his part.
Who wants to bet that the threatened lawsuit will never actually appear? I remember that Trump was also going to sue all the women who accused him of assault…
Ok so he’s mad at fox news at NBC and any other news organization( most all of them) that “lies” about him. What’s new? That’s what fascists do.
If it bothered Donald enough to threaten lawsuit for defamation, I would guess it was because it hit too close to home. In fact, his reaction to the claim could be viewed as a red flag. Something that should inspire further investigation.
From the one guy on the planet who constantly slanders everyone… HE says he has been hurt by defamation. What a jackass.
What did he say about grabbing women he finds attractive?? By their what?? Was that statement not far worse than anything anyone can say about him? It’s like a serial killer being angry that he was mugged. He couldn’t be more of a weak loser.