The New York Times has responded to Donald Trump’s lawsuit threats. It’s a very nice letter. I get the impression that legal training is all about teaching you when and how to politely say “go fuck yourself”.
Re: Demand for retraction
Dear Mr Kasowitz:
I write in response to your letter of October 12, 2016 to Dean Baquet concerning your client Donald Trump, the Republican Party nominee for President of the United States. You write concerning our article “Two Women Say Donald Trump Touched Them Inappropriately ” and label the article as “libel per se.” You ask that we “remove it from [our] website, and issue a full and immediate retraction and apology.” We decline to do so.
The essence of a libel claim, of course, is the protection of one’s reputation. Mr. Trump has bragged about his non-consensual sexual touching of women. He has bragged about intruding on beauty pageant contestants in their dressing rooms. He acquiesced to a radio host’s request to discuss Mr. Trump’s own daughter as a “piece of ass.” Multiple women not mentioned in our article have publicly come forward to report on Mr. Trump’s unwanted advances. Nothing in our article has had the slightest effect on the reputation that Mr. Trump, through his own words and actions, has already created for himself.
But there is a larger and much more important point here. The women quoted in our story spoke out on an issue of national importance — indeed, an issue that Mr. Trump himself discussed with the whole nation watching during Sunday night’s presidential debate. Our reporters diligently worked to confirm the women’s accounts. They provided readers with Mr. Trump’s response, including his forceful denial of the women’s reports. It would have been a disservice not just to our readers but to democracy itself to silence their voices. We did what the law allows: We published newsworthy information about a subject of deep public concern. If Mr. Trump disagrees, if he believes that American citizens had no right to hear what these women had to say and that the law of this country forces us and those who would dare to criticize him to stand silent or be punished, we welcome the opportunity to have a court set him straight.
Sincerely,
David E. McCraw
It’s also interesting because some of us are being hit with legal threats that could also be answered in almost exactly the same way (the “national importance” bit would have to go, I probably wouldn’t suggest that there would be a “disservice to democracy”, and obviously it all would sound much more authoritative coming out of the mouth of a lawyer), so it’s good to see my opinion affirmed so eloquently.
Nice.
He who sows wind reaps shall reap the storm.
Trumps ego must be screaming in agony now, as the world refuses to obediently fall on the knees at his feet and adore his mightiness. He flails and lashes desperately in all directions at everyone and everything.
That the whole civilized world used to look at him in disgust did nothing to him, but now that his past is biging his ass and his lewd braggings are actually damaging his chances and costing him votes, that must sting.
I would not want to be one of his employees at this moment. Not even his handsomly paid lawyer.
Rather reminds me of the, possibly apocryphal, possibly ‘staged’, letter from Groucho Marx to Warner Bros. when they reportedly tried to Cease-and-Desist him using A Night in Casablanca as the title of their movie.
While “storm” isn’t really wrong, the KJV translation of Hosea 8:7 is more immediately familiar to most:
“For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind”
I prefer the reply from Pressdram and Arkell :-
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2013/08/arkell-v-pressdram.html
Private Eye still frequently notes that their reply to specific complaints is “See Pressdram v Arkell”
That’s not a nice legal burn. THIS is a nice legal burn.
An excerpt from Ken White’s response to Mr. Sahota, a solicitor, requesting Mr. White to shut-the-fuck-up
https://popehat.com/2013/04/15/in-which-a-london-solicitor-threatens-me“
I refuse to believe that is from Popehat’s Ken White. No where does it say “snort my taint”.
What I don’t understand (aside from literally everything about this clusterf*ck of an election) is, can you really sue a newspaper simply for reporting someone else’s accusations? I mean, the headline was “2 Women Say They Endured Trump’s Sexual Aggression,” which is trivially and demonstrably true, not “Trump Sexually Assaulted 2 Women,” which he denies.
Sarah:
You can always sue. The only people who can’t sue are those deemed “Vexatious litigants”. Whether your case has merit is an entirely different matter. One can easily imagine Trump saying “Sue them anyway, dammit!” after his lawyers told him he would lose.
They should have sent this famous response instead: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/02/regarding-your-stupid-complaint.html
Hey, we’re being sued for reporting that several women accused a blogger here of harassment, and stating that we were going to investigate further, so apparently you can.
what I am having a hard time with is how in the hell can a 70 year old American be surprised or shocked at all the negative press he is getting. He is running for one of the most conspicuous positions in the world. Everyone who has ever gotten to this stage has every possible bit of information about them made public. It is one of the most publicly vetted jobs going and ruthlessly competed for.
Where has he been all these years?
the “investigations” have seldom stopped even after the election for the winner either.
the looser however can if they desire slip away relatively unnoticed
uncle frogy
UnknownEric the Apostate reads Deadspin.
Where I’m from they say, “He who smelt it dealt it.”
I can’t deny it.
as a practicing lawyer, we call them “nastygrams.” they’re fun to write. even more fun when the client lets you send them.
NYT has a backbone when it comes to puffed up reality TV stars, not so much when it comes to torture or wars. :/
In a perfect world, it would contain:
P.S. I double dog dare ya.
“Where has he been all these years?”
If you had followed “The Donald” over the years, he has been living in his own delusions even since he was in his 20’s. He imagines that he has always been greater than great and should never be questioned, despite the fact that essentially everything he touches quickly turns into excrement.
Marcus Ranum @ 17
While I agree the NYT is a failure on those latter issues, Trump’s alleged crime is not reality television. It’s sexual assault.
They, in this instance, have a backbone when it comes to sexual assault.
Sounds a little more respectful of sexual assault survivors when it’s put that way, doesn’t it? Thanks.
I’m totes using that.
As I have said elsewhere, this kind of thing is what the lawyers for major newspapers live for. It’s probably why they went to law school. You just know they’re thinking “Bring it, MF!”
I’m honestly surprised any of this made the slightest dent in his ratings. I would imagine it should have boosted them if anything. The kind of evilly stupid person who wants to vote for him would just see this as further proof of his alpha status.
vytautasjanaauskas, you imagine much ambivalence remains?
(If he is polarising, his polarisation has progressed through all the campaign)
Could someone with greater knowledge please correct me if I’m wrong, but would this be the first time a US Presidential candidate has threatened to sue someone for alleging him to be telling the truth?
The NYT articles essentially say “When Mr Trump was shooting off his mouth in that ‘locker room talk’, he was being truthful about himself and his established patterns of behaviour around women.” I mean, the man’s been caught in so many obvious, visible-from-orbit porkies throughout this campaign, and now he’s suing people because they’ve apparently found evidence identifying the one truthful thing he’s said in years? Summon the ghost of Dali, this just got too damn surreal for me.
grasshopper, quoting Ken White:
Nice, but Dashiell Hammett put it more succinctly: “The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter”. Not that I expect lawyers to emulate Sam Spade
Meanwhile, electoral-vote.com today includes speculation on why Trump hasn’t, as far as we know, threatened to sue the New York Daily News for yesterday’s front page headline “Had Eyes for a 10-year-old”:. (The subhead is “Tawdry Trump Perv Scandal Explodes”.)
Bravo, NYT.
The Mellow Monkey@#20:
No, your suggestion substantially changes my comment.
My observation was that Trump is being treated differently than the Government, not that Torture is being treated differently from Sexual Assault. I should have been clearer about that; I never was trying to downplay the actions’ significance and I know what words to use and when. The times is being less spineless regarding Trump because they know they’re going to lose access to him no matter what, whereas they will continue to fawn over the administration as long as it continues to feed them.
This is slightly more polite than the matter of Arkell v Pressdram, where Pressdram Ltd, the publishers of the British satirical paper Private Eye, were mildly threatened with legal action due to a story they published: