Another day, another howler.
Bob Woodward's book on the Trump Administration has Trump wondering "why the Washington politicians don't change libel laws."
Two points are significant: that again Trump's response is to lash out; and that he not only has no respect for freedom of expression but has no clue that the libel laws are state statutes. (He also purports not to have noticed that he's a "Washington politician.") Yeah, part of libel law is based on U.S. Supreme Court interpretations of the Constitution.
Trump also has no blue that the law DOES prevent what he'd complaining of:
"Isn't it a shame that someone can write [something], totally make up stories, and form a picture of a person that is literally the exact opposite of the fact, and get away with it without retribution or cost," he complained. But libel laws do prohibit exactly that. You can't make up false stories out of thin air and write them, harming someone else. If Woodward had done so, Mr. Trump could -- and probably would -- be suing Woodward and the publisher, specifically alleging the false statements Woodward had written which Woodward knew or should reasonably have known were false. Trump could sue, asking the court to exact retribution in the form of actual damages. If Woodward couldn't show his reasonable belief in the truth of what he'd written, Trump could win.
So Trump's complaint isn't real. If it were, there's a remedy.
But it's another hint of what Trump would do if he could: return us to the law of centuries ago, in which saying bad things about a powerful public figure could get someone tried for criminal libel.
Woodward's book contains numerous criticisms of Trump by administration officials -- some of whom spent the day "walking back" those criticisms.
In one tweet, Trump denied having used a fake southern accent to insult Attorney-General Jeff Sessions; but it sounds so like Trump. He insults everyone, even mimics a reporter with a disability. Why not Sessions? Portraying Trump as calling Sessions mentally "retarded" and "a dumb southerner" sounds little worse than what Trump has tweeted or said about Sessions in public. Just less acceptable. "Dumb southerner" might even irritate members of his "base."
Of course, Trump's reaction is little different from his threat to "take a look" at the libel laws in response to Michael Wolff's book, Fire and Fury, in January. That "look" at the libel laws apparently convinced Trump he had no case. Could it be because under our current laws truth is a complete defense to a libel action?
On balance, Trump's blathering about libel laws is, like a lot of what he says, distracting and obstreperous nonsense. But it's a warning. He sounds absurd. But so did Mussolini and Hitler. I don't think he'll emulate them. He lacks Hitler's deep (if misguided) passion. Where Hitler had a demented anti-Semitism and a theory of the betrayal of the German people, something he could articulate and which adherents shared, Trump has no such guiding beacon, but rather a shifting instinct to protect himself from whatever seems threatening. And since a lot does seem threatening, he lashes out at others a lot.
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