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Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) have filed a defamation lawsuit against the Washington Post for a staggering $3.78 billion.
TMTG, the parent company to former President Trump’s Truth Social, accused the Post of running a "years-long crusade" against the company.
"WaPo has been on a years-long crusade against TMTG characterized by the concealment of relevant information in its possession—a bitterly ironic truth for a publication whose motto is ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness,’" the court filing said.
The suit, filed late Saturday in Sarasota Country, Florida, accused the Post of creating an "existential threat for TMTG, causing enormous loss." The lawsuit put a spotlight on Will Wilkerson, who was one of TMTG’s first employees but claimed the company violated security laws in an Oct. 2022 Post report. The same report also suggested Trump pressured executives to hand over shares to his wife, and featured internal documents that Wilkerson shared with the paper.
Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), the parent company to former President Trump’s Truth Social, accused the Post of running a "years-long crusade" against the company. (Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP via Getty Images)
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"Wilkerson knew that WaPo eagerly published false stories about TMTG, its CEO, Devin Nunes ("Nunes") and, of course, former President Donald Trump. Wilkerson contacted WaPo with a salacious story about a porn-friendly bank and securities fraud. Through a series of meetings and conversations with Wilkerson and his lawyers, WaPo undertook with Wilkerson to publish agreed false and defamatory statements to injure TMTG," the court filing said.
The lawsuit then pointed to a May 2023 Post report headlined, "Trust linked to porn-friendly bank could gain a stake in Trump’s Truth Social," which TMTG’s legal team blasted as false.
"WaPo was not content with publication of the false Statements to its 2,500,000 subscribers and republication to its 20,000,000 Twitter followers. The primary author of the WaPo Article, Drew Harwell (‘Harwell’), republished the Article to his 48,000 Twitter followers, which included correspondents at CNN, New York Times, NBC News, The Atlantic, Huffington Post, the Daily Beast, Business Insider, and the Guardian," the lawsuit said.
"In order to further spread the smear and increase the damage to TMTG, WaPo engaged agents from both within and outside the company to broadly republish the defamation," the suit continued, scolding other Post reporters who shared the article on social media.
Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) filed a defamation lawsuit against the Washington Post for a staggering $3.78 billion. (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo)
The paper, owned by billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, declined comment.
"We are not commenting on pending litigation," a Washington Post spokesperson told Fox News Digital.
The lawsuit accuses the Post of misleading readers into thinking TMTG executives were criminals and painting the company as filled with corporate malfeasance, according to the suit.
"Readers concluded that TMTG and its executives could go to jail because of the non-disclosures described in the WaPo Article," the document said, claiming that the Post has refused to retract defamatory statements.
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"WaPo’s Statements were not published in good faith. The falsity of the Statements is not due to an honest mistake of the facts. There are no reasonable grounds for believing that the Statements are true. Publication of the Statements and republication of the Guardian article was part of a concerted effort to damage TMTG and interfere with its business," the filing said.
TMTG accused the Post of acting "with actual malice and reckless disregard for the truth," and has asked for compensatory and punitive damages totaling $3.78 billon.
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