Thursday, June 27, 2024, at the Washington Post Office in Washington, DC, United States.
Shen Ting | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Just days before the presidential election, Donald Trump and his campaign launched legal action against two major media outlets, claiming they illegally helped Kamala Harris through their news coverage and advertising.
Legal experts say Trump’s efforts are pointless.
The Republican campaign filed a Federal Election Commission Complaint Accused The Washington Post of providing “illegal corporate in-kind donations” to Harris.
Allegations of this activity are based on traffic light As part of a stepped-up paid advertising campaign on social media, the Post highlighted many articles critical of Trump over more neutral coverage of the Democratic nominee.
The FEC complaint alleges that Semafor’s reporting showed that The Washington Post “is engaged in a dark money corporate campaign against President Donald J. Trump.”
Columbia Law School professor Richard Briffault told CNBC that this claim is “completely ridiculous.”
“There is no evidence of any coordination between the Post and the Harris campaign,” said Briffford, who specializes in campaign finance regulation and political law.
He said the Post’s ads “at best” constituted independent expenditures protected by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling, which expanded rules for corporate election spending.
“Trump’s letter acknowledges that Harris did not explicitly express support and therefore the Post’s actions did not count as independent expenditures,” Briffford added.
“This is a lawsuit filed via a press release, and it doesn’t get much more serious than that.”
“As part of The Washington Post’s regular social media marketing strategy, promoted posts on social media platforms reflect high-quality content across all verticals and topics,” a spokesperson for the paper told CNBC in a statement on Friday.
“We believe the allegations that this routine media practice is inappropriate are baseless,” the spokesman said.
Also on Thursday, Trump filed a federal civil lawsuit against CBS Broadcasting, seeking $10 billion in damages over the company’s editing of a Harris “60 Minutes” interview that aired in early October.
The 19-page lawsuit accuses CBS of illegal election interference to help Harris get elected, based solely on the network airing two different parts of Harris’ answers to the same question.
In an excerpt from the interview that aired on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Harris gave some of her answers.
But 60 Minutes showed different parts of Harris’ response.
Trump repeatedly claimed on social media and at campaign rallies that the editorial constituted “the largest media scandal in the history of broadcasting.”
He asked CBS to revoke its broadcast license issued by the federal government.
October 20 “60 Minutes” Slam Trump Accused the program of deceptive editing and called his claims “wrong”.
“’60 Minutes’ excerpted our interview with ‘Face the Nation’ and used a longer answer section than ’60 Minutes,'” the show said in a statement at the time. “Same questions. Same answers. But there are different parts of the answer.”
cbs In a statement on Thursday, it called Trump’s lawsuit “completely without merit.”
Noah Feldman, a Harvard law professor and constitutional law expert, told CBS the case was a “serious violation of First Amendment principles.”
Rebecca Tushnet is another First Amendment lawyer at Harvard Law School. tell CNN The lawsuit is “ridiculous garbage and should be laughed at.”
Trump’s lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Amarillo, Texas, effectively guaranteeing that it will be assigned to Trump nominee Judge Matthew Kachmalik. conservative judicial record.
