Former U.S. president, Donald Trump has sued CNN for defamation, seeking $475 million in punitive damages and claiming that the network had carried out a “campaign of libel and slander” against him.
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Trump claims in his lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Monday, October 3 that CNN had used its considerable influence as a top news organization to defeat him politically.
Trump, a Republican, claims in the 29-page lawsuit that CNN had a long track record of criticizing him but had ramped up its attacks in recent months because the network feared that he would run again for president in 2024.
“As a part of its concerted effort to tilt the political balance to the left, CNN has tried to taint the Plaintiff with a series of ever-more scandalous, false, and defamatory labels of ‘racist,’ ‘Russian lackey,’ ‘insurrectionist,’ and ultimately ‘Hitler,'” the lawsuit claims.
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The lawsuit lists several instances in which CNN appeared to compare Trump to Hitler, including a January 2022 special report by host Fareed Zakaria that included footage of the German dictator.
Trump, who in 2020 lost a re-election bid to Democrat Joe Biden, has not said whether he would seek re-election.
The lawsuit comes as Trump faces considerable legal woes, including a criminal investigation by the U.S. Justice Department for retaining government records at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida after leaving office in January 2021.