The Center for American Progress, a left-of-center think tank, published a report in July finding “no evidence” that Trump’s National Guard deployments have reduced violent crime. It also projected that deployments would cost taxpayers more than $1.7 billion if extended through the end of the calendar year. The Trump administration’s response wasn’t to dispute the data but to threaten CAP with a $5 billion defamation suit unless it retracted the report and apologized to Trump personally.
The New York Times notes:
The threats against the think tank, the Center for American Progress, were Mr. Trump’s latest effort to use the legal system to punish critics for voicing unflattering facts and opinions generally protected by the First Amendment. …
On Monday, one of Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers, Alejandro Brito, wrote a letter to the center warning that he would file the lawsuit if the group did not fully retract the report, which was published on its website on July 13. The letter … was addressed to the group’s president and chief executive, Neera Tanden. … Mr. Brito claimed that the report about the National Guard was full of malicious and false statements. He gave Ms. Tanden and members of her board until 5 p.m. on Friday to retract it and apologize to Mr. Trump. Ms. Tanden pushed back, saying in a statement that the center would “neither cower nor bend in the face” of legal action.
Whatever ultimately happens with the lawsuit, it has already performed its messaging function: it has sent a warning to other think tanks that reaching unflattering conclusions about the administration’s efforts can now mean a significantly costly legal and financial fight.
The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.
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