President Trump’s reelection campaign sent a letter to CNN Friday threatening legal action against the network over its biased, unfair and possible unlawful coverage of the president.
In the letter, Trump attorney Charles Harder referenced recent sting videos from Project Veritas featuring a former staffer discussing CNN president Jeff Zucker’s “anti-Trump crusade.”
See letter by attorney Charles Harder sent to @CNN President Jeff Zucker and EVP David Vigilante on behalf of Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. pic.twitter.com/bs6sUYoBdC
— Michael Glassner (@michaelglassner) October 18, 2019
“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,” Harder wrote.
“Your own employees appear to state that CNN is focused on trying to ‘take down President Trump,’ driven by a ‘personal vendetta’ that Mr. Zucker purportedly has against him, rather than reporting the news in an objective manner,” writes Harder. “In the Footage, your employees appear to state that CNN attempts to make its reporting appear neutral and unbiased, when in fact its reporting is far from neutral and highly biased against the President.”
To highlight the network’s bias, Harder cited some of the allegations made by CNN staffers, including Zucker’s personal feud with Trump, the network’s obsessive focus on the ongoing House impeachment inquiry, and CNN’s hostile treatment towards Republicans who appear on the network.
“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.”
Harder went on to claim that CNN’s actions constitute a violation of the Lanham Act by making “misrepresentations to the public, your advertisers, and others.” The Lanham Act was enacted in 1946 and governs trademark use and false advertising.
Harder said his clients intend to seek “compensatory damages, treble damages, punitive damages, injunctive relief, reimbursement of legal costs and all other available legal and equitable remedies.”
CNN dismissed the lawsuit in a sneering statement on Friday.
“This is nothing more than a desperate PR stunt and doesn’t merit a response,” Matt Dornic, a spokesman for CNN, said in a statement.
Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe heralded Trump’s lawsuit threat on Twitter, noting that he has another CNN video coming out next week and it’s “a doozy.”
BREAKING : @POTUS sends letter to @cnn, VP / General Counsel David Vigilante over impeachment bias exposed in our tapes!!! Announcement of next tape coming shortly! pic.twitter.com/xLsas4esz0
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) October 18, 2019
I just off the phone with another CNN executive, who actually did talk to me for a few minutes on the phone. Some VERY serious allegations have been made about this executive by a few inside the network, and those allegations are tape. Stay tuned for early next week. #ExposeCNN pic.twitter.com/4Uy4UN6UAB
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) October 18, 2019