YES!! COURTS ALL THE WAY UP THE CHAIN TELL TRUMP TO POUND SALT IN HIS LAWSUIT AGAINST CNN!
I had thought that I’d written about this before, but I can’t find it, so we’re going to start at the beginning – and many thanks to follower Tracey for bringing it to my attention!
You may recall that back in 2022 Trump sued CNN for defamation, alleging that by calling his election fraud claims the “Big Lie”, along with calling Trump a racist, Russian lackey, and insurrectionist, and comparing him to Hitler, CNN had defamed him. (Notes from the Front members, Trump’s actual complaint is included for you and in your inbox now, along with each successive court order. The complaint makes for amusing reading, the court orders make for “Oh yeah, take that!” readings.)
Well, the initial court, the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida (!) was the first to tell Trump to pound salt, although Judge Raag Singhal said it in much more judicial language:
“DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE”
Learn a Little Law with Anne: There are two postures in which a case can be dismissed: without prejudice and with prejudice. Without prejudice means that the plaintiff can try filing the lawsuit again. With prejudice means that the plaintiff *is not allowed to try again*! With prejudice is much less common than without prejudice.
Judge Singhal’s 11-page order (again, included for Notes members) sums it up nicely when he says:
“But bad rhetoric is not defamation when it does not include false statements of fact.”
And concludes:
“CNN’s statements while repugnant, were not, as a matter of law, defamatory. The case will, therefore, be dismissed with prejudice.”
In other words, while CNN may have called Trump racist, etc., those were statements of *opinion*, not statements of fact.
And, as it happens, when one is a public figure, such as is Trump, the bar for finding defamation is even higher than for defamation of a private citizen. In order for someone to be found guilty of defaming a public figure you have to prove not only that they knew that the statement purporting to be fact was actually false – but also that the statement was made intentionally *with malice*.
So, Judge Singhal dismissed Trump’s defamation claim against CNN *with prejudice*. That meant that he couldn’t bring it again. But he *could*, and did, appeal.
The Court of Appeals *also* told Trump to go pound salt, going through all of Trump’s nonsense, point by point, in their 8-page opinion (included for Notes members), with the three judges who reviewed the case concluding with “For all of the above reasons, we AFFIRM the district court’s dismissal of Trump’s complaint.”
So guess what Trump did?
He filed a request with that Court of Appeals, asking for an “En Banc” rehearing, meaning he was basically saying “I don’t agree with you three Court of Appeals judges, I want a panel of *all* the Court of Appeals judges to rehear the case.”
(The number of judges that make up an En Banc hearing depends on which Circuit you are in – in some Circuits it’s all of the judges, in others it’s a subset of all of the judges, but a greater number than the number of judges who initially reviewed the case. In the 11th Circuit it’s all the judges.)
So here’s the thing – in order for there to be an En Banc hearing, one or more *judges* have to request (or sponsor, if you will) the En Banc hearing.
This week the Court of Appeals issued this direct, to the point, “pound salt” to Trump:
“The Petition for Rehearing En Banc is DENIED, no judge in regular active service on the Court having requested that the Court be polled on rehearing En Banc. The Petition for Rehearing En Banc is also treated as a Petition for Rehearing before the panel and is DENIED.”
“No judge”. Not *one single judge* requested that En Banc rehearing for Trump.
I’m guessing that the language in the White House when he got the news was plenty salty.
Notes from the Front members: Trump’s original complaint (for amusement purposes), his petition for an En Banc rehearing (ditto), and each of the three orders of the Courts, are in your inbox for you now.
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https://annepmitchell.substack.com/p/yes-courts-all-the-way-up-the-chain
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