Trump-appointed judge torches former president's lawsuit against CNN
Late Friday night a judge appointed to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida by Donald Trump tossed out a lawsuit filed by the former president against CNN in which he claimed he was defamed when hosts on the network used the expression "The Big Lie" which he felt equated him with Adolf Hitler.
According to reporting from Poltico's Kyle Cheney, Judge Ragg Singhal dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice which puts an end to yet another Trump legal gambit.
In his ruling Singhal wrote that the comments were purely opinions and not statements of fact "and therefore not actionable."
The judge also wrote that a host claiming Trump was "being ‘Hitler-like’" is "not a verifiable statement of fact that would support a defamation claim.”
As CBS reported in 2022, Trump's lawyers argued, "that he's entitled to hundreds of millions of dollars in punitive damages because of CNN's use of the term the 'Big Lie' to describe Trump's 'stated concerns about the integrity of the election process for the 2020 presidential election.' Trump's lawyers say that the 'Big Lie' 'is a direct reference to a tactic employed by Adolf Hitler and appearing in Hitler's 'Mein Kampf.'"
The tossed lawsuit had asked for damages in excess of $75,000 and additional punitive damages of $475 million.
You can see Cheney's reporting here in a series of tweets containing links to the ruling.
