Former President Donald Trump’s media company filed a lawsuit Monday against 20 media outlets, accusing them of conspiring to “attack” the company and sabotage some of its business opportunities.
The lawsuit alleges an “unprecedented and seemingly coordinated media campaign” aimed at promulgating the claim, which the lawsuit called false, that Trump Media & Technology Group and Truth Social had lost $73 million.
According to the suit, that report was the very exemplar of “fake news.”
“This number was an utter fabrication,” the suit said. “Each defendant, in apparent coordination, reported the exact same false number within approximately 24 hours of one another, each citing to a public Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) filing, in which the mystery $73 million loss appears nowhere.”
The reports came out just last week, in the midst of merger activity between TMTG and Digital World Acquisition Corporation, which had announced its intention to merge with Trump’s company just over two years ago, in October of 2021.
According to the lawsuit, the result of the merger would be that TMTG would become publicly traded, “enabling retail investors who support
TMTG’s mission to invest directly in the company.”
The merger, therefore, became “a crucial part of TMTG’s business plan” because it would allow Trump’s company access to funds for investment and expansion that it might otherwise have to borrow at higher cost.
After DWAC filed a publicly available statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission in relation to the proposed merger, the establishment media pounced, the suit said.
“That same day, and continuing into the next, numerous media outlets, including the named Defendants, in apparent coordination, ran materially identical headlines and stories, each citing to the S-4 filing with the SEC, and falsely claiming that the S-4 showed that TMTG lost $73 million,” the lawsuit alleges.
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The problem with that figure is that it appears to have been completely made up, despite the fact that it appeared in multiple reports from multiple outlets, implying coordination among the mainstream outlets, the argument goes.
The media outlets named in the suit include Reuters, The Hollywood Reporter, The Miami Herald, The Hill, Deadline, Marketwatch, Benzinga, Forbes, Axios, Daily Beast, The Guardian, Salon, Gixmodo, CNBC, MSNBC, Newsweek, the New York Daily News, Mediaite, and the U.K.’s Daily Mail.
You can read the lawsuit in its entirety below.
Trump Lawsuit by The Western Journal on Scribd
All of the named defendants are accused of defamation and injurious falsehood in the suit, which was filed in Florida’s 12th Circuit Court.
The suit demands a jury trial and seeks $1.5 billion in damages, plus court costs.
“The Daily Mail, Reuters, Axios, Salon, New York Daily News, Newsweek, MSNBC, Mediaite Daily, and CNBC have all updated or corrected their reports” by Tuesday morning, according to Insider.
The Miami Herald appeared to have deleted its report, Insider noted, whereas The Guardian, Rolling Stone, The Hill, Deadline Hollywood, Benzinga, and the Daily Beast had not issued corrections or updates at all, apparently. None of those outlets responded to Insider’s requests for comments, the outlet said.
