Lawrence O’Donnell reported a rumor about the President on Rachel Maddow’s conspiracy show Tuesday night. O’Donnell told the MSNBC audience that a source told him the President’s loans via Deutsche Bank were co-signed by Russian oligarchs. He then went off into a spiel about how that explains how cozy he is with Putin.
He is?
A legal letter brought a response from O’Donnell whose own network and even CNN condemned since he reported a rumor from one source with no verification and the source never saw the bank records.
THE LETTER
Anyway, the President responded today through his litigation law firm:
“This law firm is litigation counsel for President Donald J. Trump (‘Mr. Trump’) and The Trump Organization (‘Trump Org.’),” Charles Harder, of Harder LLP law firm, wrote to MSNBC executives in a letter. “We write concerning the false and defamatory statements published by Lawrence O’Donnell and NBC Universal (‘NBCU’) (collectively, ‘you’ and ‘your’) about Mr. Trump and Trump Org. in an episode of the program, ‘The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell,’ which was broadcasted on or about August 27, 2019 (the ‘Program’), and also published by Mr. O’Donnell and NBCU in a tweet posted on that same date (the ‘Tweet’). The Program and Tweet make the false and defamatory statements that ‘Russian oligarchs’ cosigned loans provided to Mr. Trump by Deutsche Bank, and described these ‘co-signers’ as ‘Russian billionaires close to Vladimir Putin.’”
-
The Importance of Prayer: How a Christian Gold Company Stands Out by Defending Americans’ Retirement
Harder went on to call O’Donnell’s claims “false and defamatory.”
“These statements are false and defamatory, and extremely damaging,” the lawyer wrote. “The only borrowers under these loans are Trump entities, and Mr. Trump is the only guarantor. Numerous documents for each of these loans are also recorded, publicly available and searchable online. Thus, actual malice can easily be proven based on your reckless disregard of the truth and unreasonable reliance on an alleged ‘source’ who you will not even identify in your story and likely is seeking to mislead you and the public for political reasons or other ulterior motives.”
The letter demands a retraction from O’Donnell.
“Demand is hereby made that Mr. O’Donnell and NBCU immediately and prominently retract, correct and apologize for the aforementioned false and defamatory statements,” the letter reads.
The letter then threatens legal action against MSNBC if a retraction is not released within 24 hours.
Trump’s attorney just sent NBC a demand to “immediately and prominently retract, correct and apologize” after last night’s Lawrence O’Donnell report, and threatening to take legal action pic.twitter.com/Owgc6HFepW
— Jon Passantino (@passantino) August 28, 2019
O’DONNELL HAS ALREADY RESPONDED
O’Donnell responded quickly, admitting to making an error in reporting the story. He also promised to address it on his show.
Last night I made an error in judgment by reporting an item about the president’s finances that didn’t go through our rigorous verification and standards process. I shouldn’t have reported it and I was wrong to discuss it on the air. I will address the issue on my show tonight.
— Lawrence O’Donnell (@Lawrence) August 28, 2019
So far, he hasn’t said the necessary two words, “I’m sorry.”
MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace claims Trump trying to “exterminate” Latinos
*claims she misspoke*
CNN’s Brian Stelter lets psychiatrist say that Trump worse than Hitler, Mao, Stalin
*claims he couldn’t hear*
MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell claims Trump-Russia loan
*doesn’t apologize*
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) August 28, 2019
THIS IS THE ‘RETRACTION’ WITH SLY SUGGESTIONS THE STORY IS CORRECT
#NEW: MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell admits he made an “error in judgement” and apologizes for pushing an unverified report that directly tied Pres. Trump’s finances to Russia. #OANN https://t.co/l1lEzPMqjR
— Jennifer Franco (@jennfranconews) August 29, 2019
Subscribe to the Daily Newsletter
wpDiscuz
