A lawyer representing Donald Trump has parted ways with the former president for the second time in a week, dropping out of a defamation lawsuit over “irreconcilable differences.”
Attorney Jim Trusty, of the Washington-based Ifrah Law, PLLC, filed paperwork (
pdf) on Friday to stop representing Trump in a defamation case Trump is pursuing against CNN.
The lawsuit alleges CNN harmed his reputation by referring to him as a “racist,” “Russian lackey,” “insurrectionist,” and even “Hitler.”
Mr. Trusty’s withdrawal is based upon irreconcilable differences between Counsel and Plaintiff and Counsel can no longer effectively and properly represent Plaintiff,” reads Trusty’s motion to stop representing Trump in the defamation lawsuit.
Trusty’s legal filing did not specify the nature of his “irreconcilable differences” with Trump, but the move comes a week after Trump announced Trusty and another attorney, John Rowley,
would no longer be representing him in a federal criminal proceeding over his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House. Trump has thanked Trusty and Rowley for representing him in the documents case.
“I want to thank Jim Trusty and John Rowley for their work, but they were up against a very dishonest, corrupt, evil, and ’sick' group of people, the likes of which has not been seen before,” Trump said in a June 9
post on his Truth social media account. “We will be announcing additional lawyers in the coming days.”
Trusty and Rowley issued their own statement after parting ways with Trump on the classified documents case.
“It has been an honor to have spent the last year defending him, and we know he will be vindicated in his battle against the Biden Administration’s partisan weaponization of the American justice system,” Trusty and Rowley
said. “Now that the case has been filed in Miami, this is a logical moment for us to step aside and let others carry the cases through to completion.”
Trusty and Rowley said last week that they also would stop representing Trump in legal matters pertaining to his efforts to challenge the 2020 presidential election results and the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“We have no plans to hold media appearances that address our withdrawals or any other confidential communications we’ve had with the President or his legal team,” Trusty and Rowley added.
Trump’s CNN Lawsuit
Trusty said his decision to withdraw from Trump’s defamation lawsuit against CNN should have no negative impact on the case as oral arguments and discovery have not yet began and there are no pending deadlines before Miami federal court handling the lawsuit.Trusty’s motion to withdraw also states that Trump “continues to be served by co-counsel on the matter, Lindsey Halligan, a member of the Florida Bar.”
The defamation lawsuit (
pdf) alleges CNN’s disparaging references to Trump went beyond mere opinion and hyperbole and instead were “repeatedly reported as true fact, with purported factual support, by allegedly ’reputable' newscasters.”
The lawsuit notes a guest on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” program earned a “Pants on Fire”
fact-check from PolitiFact after claiming “Trump is as destructive a person in this century as Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were in the last century.” The “Reliable Sources” guest made this assertion without any pushback by the CNN program’s then-host Brian Stelter.
Trump’s lawsuit also argues CNN’s use of the term “Big Lie” to describe Trump’s claims of fraud in the 2020 election is an intentional reference to a quote by Hitler in his book “Mein Kampf” in which the Nazi German leader said “if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
The defamation complaint also cites an undercover video by Project Veritas in which a CNN employee described the network crafting “propaganda” to hurt Republicans like Trump and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and said the network played a critical role in helping defeat Trump’s 2020 reelection bid.
“Our focus was to get Trump out of office, right? Without saying it, that’s what it was,” the CNN employee, technical director Charlie Chester said in the undercover video.
CNN has argued (
pdf) that its use of the “big lie” reference against Trump is not actionable because they do not explicitly convey that Trump “has the character of Hitler” and the references were often presented as opinion rather than fact.
“Average readers would not plausibly understand ‘Big Lie’ to be an allusion to the Nazis (as opposed to just a lie that is ‘Big’),” attorneys for CNN wrote in November motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
