New York Times Responds To Donald Trump's Lawsuit Threats: Bring It On

The New York Times said Thursday it would "welcome" a lawsuit from Donald Trump should the Republican nominee for president decide to make good on his threats to sue the paper over its reporting about women who claim Trump touched and kissed them uninvited years ago.

The statement came in the form of a letter written by an attorney for the Times and addressed to Trump attorney Marc Kasowitz. The Trump attorney had demanded in his own letter that the Times apologize and retract the story, which was published online Wednesday and in Thursday's print editions.

The central argument from the Times comes down to this: Trump cannot claim the newspaper ruined his reputation because Trump has already damaged his own reputation on his own.

Trump's own bragging about his treatment of women leaves no room for blaming the Times, wrote the attorney, David E. McGraw.

"Mr. Trump has bragged about his non-consensual sexual touching of women," McCraw wrote, referencing the now-infamous "Access Hollywood" audio leaked last week and then moving toward other examples of Trump's lewd public comments.

"He has bragged about intruding on beauty pageant contestants in their dressing rooms," the letter continues. "He acquiesced to a radio host's request to discuss Mr. Trump's own daughter as a 'piece of ass.'"

That paragraph concludes: "Nothing in our article has had the slightest effect on the reputation that Mr. Trump, through his own words and actions, has already created for himself."

The paper would "welcome the opportunity to have a court set him straight" on issues of defamation and the First Amendment, the letter said.

Legal experts say Trump is unlikely to follow through on his threats, and if he did, he would have a steep hill to climb to win the case.

"To me, this is a scare tactic," Raleigh Levine, a professor at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law who studies media law, told Patch.

The current political fire began with the leak of the tape and Trump's comments about how his stardom affords him the right to sexually assault women as he pleases. Asked at Sunday's debate if he had ever inappropriately touched or kissed women, Trump said, "No I have not."

Upon hearing this, several women came forward to say otherwise.

That includes the two women interviewed by the Times, Jessica Leeds of Manhattan and Rachel Crooks of Bowling Green, Ohio. Leeds told the Times she sat next to Trump on an airplane, where Trump fondled her uninvited and tried to reach under her skirt. Crooks said Trump cornered her in a Mar-a-Lago elevator and kissed her on the mouth without warning.

Trump's attorney wrote in his letter to the Times that the women's claims are "false and defamatory." He demanded a retraction and apology lest Trump pursue "all available actions and remedies."

At a rally in Palm Beach, Florida, on Thursday, Trump said he was "preparing" a lawsuit against the Times.

Trump will have a steep bar to clear if the lawsuit proceeds, legal experts said.

Levine, the law professor who is also a former CNN producer, told Patch that Trump could win a lawsuit in this case only if he could prove:

1. that the claims made by the two women are false;
2. that the Times knew the claims were false but "recklessly" printed them anyway; and
3. that Trump's reputation was harmed by the story.

Matthew Bunker, a media law professor at the University of Alabama, agreed with the Times' assessment of that third point.

"They’re making the argument that Trump’s reputation in this area cannot be harmed," Bunker told Patch. "You could make that argument to a jury. He’s more or less admitted something along these lines, and therefore it’s going to be very hard to demonstrate that this particular piece caused significant harm to his reputation."

The letter from the Times concludes with a message that could be read as, bring it on.

"If Mr. Trump disagrees, if he believes that American citizens had no right to hear what these women had to say and that the law of this country forces us and those who would dare to criticize him to stand silent or be punished, we welcome the opportunity to have a court set him straight."

Trump's antics in response to the Times' article likely amount to no more than a threat, one that the Times is unlikely to cave in to, both Bunker and Levine told Patch.

"Sometimes the threat of the suit itself is enough to deter speech, and that’s something that people who are very litigious can use for their advantage," Bunker said. "But a news organization like the Times is going to fight it out."

Image via Gage Skidmore, Flickr, used under Creative Commons