Guilty!

Trump sues New York Times

Donald Trump has threatened to sue the New York Times once again, this time for publishing interviews with two women who say the billionaire groped and kissed them without consent.

. . . .

As a public figure, Trump would have to prove that the newspapers acted with “actual malice,” i.e., the deliberate intention of harming Trump’s reputation. 

While Trump makes this accusation all the time in the press, making it in court is a different story. 

Absent some kind of bizarre smoking gun – an email from a Times editor, for example, saying “we gotta get Trump” – it’s impossible that a court would believe that the newspaper is pursuing a vendetta against Trump, as opposed to reporting on a hot story about a presidential candidate.

That's a joke, right?

Does Jay Michaelson expect us to believe the NYT isn't trying to destroy Trump's reputation among voters?

Would he agree, then, that Breitbart isn't out to destroy the reputation of Hillary Clinton?

Does he really think anyone will believe he has no valid concept of the actual function of the media during political campaigns?

And ruining the reputation of a disfavored candidate and pursuing a hot story are not mutually exclusive, anyway.

There is no doubt at all the attacker wants the attack to be a hot story, and hopes any hot story about his target helps ruin his reputation.

In the present case, the real problem is that to win his suit Trump has to show the accusations are false and the Times should have recognized them as false.

So what are the odds the claims are, each and all, false?

Phooey.