Appeals court panel rejects Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ defamation lawsuit against CNN

[Thiệu Ngô]

The three-judge panel, which included two Trump appointees, said the network’s use of the term didn’t amount to defamation.

By Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein

A federal appeals court panel rejected an effort by President Donald Trump to revive a “meritless” lawsuit against CNN for the network’s use of the term “Big Lie” to describe his false claims of fraud in the 2020 election.

The three-judge appeals panel, which included two of Trump’s own appointees, ruled Tuesday that CNN’s use of the phrase often associated with Adolf Hitler amounted to First Amendment-protected opinion.

“Trump’s argument hinges on the fact that his own interpretation of his conduct — i.e., that he was exercising a constitutional right to identify his concerns with the integrity of elections — is true and that CNN’s interpretation — i.e., that Trump was peddling his ‘Big Lie’ — is false,” the unanimous 11th Circuit Court of Appeals panel concluded. “However, his conduct is susceptible to multiple subjective interpretations, including CNN’s.”

The appeals court concluded that the network’s description could not sustain a defamation lawsuit because the statement did not amount to a factual assertion.

“CNN’s subjective assessment of Trump’s conduct is not readily capable of being proven true or False,” Obama appointee Adalberto Jordan wrote, along with Trump appointees Kevin Newsom and Elizabeth Branch.

Trump could ask the full bench of the 11th Circuit to rehear the case or appeal to the Supreme Court. A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team signaled the president would appeal, saying he “will pursue this case against CNN to its just and deserved conclusion.”

A spokesperson for CNN declined to comment.

The new ruling Tuesday upholds a July decision by Florida-based U.S. District Judge Raag Singhal, also a Trump appointee, tossing Trump’s $475 million defamation suit against the network. Trump’s lawsuit, filed in 2022 by his then-personal attorney Lindsey Halligan, contended that the term “Big Lie” was meant to evoke comparisons to the Nazis, but Singhal said opinions, even objectionable ones, are not defamation unless they also make false factual claims.

The Atlanta-based appeals court agreed.

“Trump’s argument is unpersuasive,” the panel wrote. “Although he concedes that CNN’s use of the term ‘Big Lie’ is, to some extent, ambiguous, he assumes that it is unambiguous enough to constitute a statement of fact. This assumption is untenable.”

The appeals court’s decision is a blow to Trump’s score-settling legal crusade against mainstream media, which has included lawsuits against TV networks, the New York Times and other outlets that have written critically about him. Trump has had a mixed record in those lawsuits, forging significant settlements with ABC and CBS’s parent company but hitting legal stumbling blocks in cases against the Times and CNN. Trump most recently threatened to sue the BBC over an edit of the speech he gave on Jan. 6, 2021, on the Ellipse before the Capitol attack.