"Legal letter follows complaints aimed at CBS News, the Washington Post, and the Daily Beast."
"The letter, addressed to lawyers at the New York Times and Penguin Random House, arrived a week before the election. Attached was a discursive ten-page legal threat from an attorney for Donald Trump that demanded $10 billion in damages over “false and defamatory statements” contained in articles by Peter Baker, Michael S. Schmidt, Susanne Craig, and Russ Buettner.
It singles out two stories coauthored by Buettner and Craig that related to their book on Trump and his financial dealings, Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success, released on September 17. It also highlighted an October 20 story headlined “For Trump, a Lifetime of Scandals Heads Toward a Moment of Judgment” by Baker and an October 22 piece by Schmidt, “As Election Nears, Kelly Warns Trump Would Rule Like a Dictator.”
“There was a time, long ago, when the New York Times was considered the ‘newspaper of record,’” the letter, a copy of which was reviewed by CJR, reads. “Those halcyon days have passed.” It accuses the Times of being “a full-throated mouthpiece of the Democratic Party” that employs “industrial-scale libel against political opponents.”
The letter is signed by the president-elect’s lawyer Edward Andrew Paltzik, who is—according to one online biography—based in Palm Beach, near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago headquarters. But its language often so closely resembles Trump’s as to be indistinguishable. It has not been previously reported, but came as part of a wave of other litigation from the former and future president that emerged around the same time."
Lachlan Cartwright reports for Columbia Journalism Review November 14, 2024.
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