FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (Legal Newsline) - CNN says former President Donald Trump's defamation lawsuit against it is based on opinions protected by free speech.
The news network filed on Nov. 22 filed a motion to dismiss Trump's lawsuit, which seeks $475 million and alleges CNN likened him to Adolf Hitler. Trump filed suit in October in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Specifically, Trump alleges CNN has "tainted" him with a series of "scandalous, false and defamatory" labels of racist, "Russian lackey, insurrectionist and Hitler."
He further alleges CNN uses the labels as "true fact" supported by "reputable" newscasters particularly with its "Special Report" that aired on Jan, 9, 2022 during which he was compared to the "ascendancy of Hitler."
CNN says his case boils down to statements made in five publications that fought back against Trump's claims the 2020 election was rigged for President Joe Biden. In some of them, the term "Big Lie" is used to describe Trump's stance.
A Jan. 5, 2021, op-ed by a CNN contributor used this term - "This is Trump's 'Big Lie,' a brazen falsehood with momentous consequences."
"Big Lie" is rhetorical hyperbole and does not refer to Hitler or Nazism," the motion to dismiss says, adding the op-ed was pure opinion supported by unchallenged facts.
An editorial by CNN Editor-at-Large Chris Cillizza said: "One can only hope that Trump was unaware that his quote was a near replication of this infamous line from Nazi Joseph Goebbels: 'If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.'"
CNN says this passage "merely compares two quotes" and is not defamatory.
"(Trump's) overall theory of falsity for the 'Big Lie' is implausible, and the complaint should be dismissed for this reason alone," CNN says.
"Plaintiff does not contend 'Big Lie' is false on its face. He instead relies on two inferences to construct an artificial 'falsity': (1) 'Big Lie' is understood by readers to refer to propaganda tactics espoused by Adolf Hitler; and (2) thus readers understand 'Big Lie' asserts as fact that Plaintiff has the actual 'character' of Hitler."
The motion cites a 1981 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that said the mayor of a Florida city did not defame the Church of Scientology when he continually used the phrase "Helter Skelter" when speaking about the church's use of a building in his city.
Using the term didn't mean he was likening the church to Charles Manson, the Fifth Circuit found.