Reuters reports the campaign filed its lawsuit six days after filing a separate libel lawsuit against the New York Times, over an opinion piece it said falsely suggested a quid pro quo between Russian officials and Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Both lawsuits escalate the Republican president’s long-running battle with news media he believes demonstrate bias against him, a list also including CNN and MSNBC and which he frequently brands “fake news.”
Trump’s campaign is seeking millions of dollars in damages in both lawsuits.
Kristine Coratti Kelly, vice president of communications at the Post, said in a statement: “It’s disappointing to see the President’s campaign committee resorting to these types of tactics and we will vigorously defend this case.”
The Post is owned by Amazon.com Inc’s billionaire founder Jeff Bezos.
Tuesday’s complaint focused on alleged false and defamatory statements contained in opinions published last June 13 by Greg Sargent and June 20 by Paul Waldman, who both write for the Post’s Plum Line blog.
The campaign objected to what it called Sargent’s statement that former Special Counsel Robert Mueller, in his probe into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, concluded that Trump’s campaign “tried to conspire with” a “sweeping and systemic” attack by Russia against that election.
It said Mueller’s report, released last April 18, actually concluded there was “no conspiracy” between the campaign and the Russian government, and that no U.S. person intentionally coordinated with Russian efforts to interfere with the election.
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