Federal Judge Makes Decision on Donald Trump’s Lawsuit Against CNN

A federal judge on Friday dismissed Donald Trump’s $475 million defamation lawsuit against CNN.

According to Politico, the lawsuit claimed the fake news network made statements about him ‘likening him to Adolf Hitler.’

“Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Raag Singhal ruled that Trump could not sue the outlet for defamation,” Just the News noted.

Federal judge dismisses Trump's nearly half-billion dollar lawsuit against CNN | Just The News https://t.co/RglQGGJsWJ

— John Solomon (@jsolomonReports) July 29, 2023

“The complained of statements are opinion, not factually false statements, and therefore are not actionable,” Singhal wrote in the dismissal.

“Acknowledging that CNN acted with political enmity does not save this case; the Complaint alleges no false statements of fact. Trump complains that CNN described his election challenges as ‘the Big Lie.’ Trump argues that ‘the Big Lie’ is a phrase attributed to Joseph Goebbels and that CNN’s use of the phrase wrongly links Trump with the Hitler regime in the public eye. This is a stacking of inferences that cannot support a finding of falsehood,” Singhal added.

“Trump alleges that “the Big Lie” refers to a Nazi ‘propaganda campaign to justify Jewish persecution and genocide.’ Like Trump and CNN personalities Ashleigh Banfield and Paul Steinhauser, the Court finds Nazi references in the political discourse (made by whichever “side”) to be odious and repugnant. But bad rhetoric is not defamation when it does not include false statements of fact. CNN’s use of the phrase ‘the Big Lie’ in connection with Trump’s election
challenges does not give rise to a plausible inference that Trump advocates the persecution and genocide of Jews or any other group of people,” Singhal continued.

“And even if the phrase ‘the Big Lie’ could somehow plausibly compel a reasonable viewer to perceive Trump as ‘Hitler-like,’ or ‘authoritarian’, such terms are not statements of fact subject to defamation laws,” Singhal noted.

“Being ‘Hitler-like’ is not a verifiable statement of fact that would support a defamation claim,” Singhal added.

“CNN’s statements while repugnant, were not, as a matter of law, defamatory. The case will, therefore, be dismissed with prejudice,” Singhal concluded.

With the case being “dismissed with prejudice,” Trump cannot file another lawsuit under the same reasoning.

Politico reports:

A federal judge late Friday dismissed Donald Trump’s $475 million defamation lawsuit against CNN, in which the former president argued that the cable network’s statements about his false 2020 election fraud claims likened him to Adolf Hitler.

In the lawsuit, Trump’s team argued that CNN writers and television anchors’ use of the phrase the “Big Lie,” in five specific incidents, incited “readers and viewers to hate, contempt, distrust, ridicule, and even fear” him. But U.S. District Judge Raag Singhal, who Trump appointed in 2019, reasoned that because all of CNN’s statements were opinion, Trump could not legally sue the network for defamation.

Read the full order HERE.