Dec 11 (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit accusing him of making defamatory statements during his campaign about five Black and Hispanic men who were wrongly convicted and imprisoned for the 1989 rape of a white jogger in New York’s Central Park.
Trump’s lawyers said in a court filing , that his statements about the men, known widely as the Central Park Five, were legally protected expressions of opinion.
The Central Park Five were cleared in 2002 based on new DNA evidence and another person’s confession. Trump falsely said at a Sept. 10 presidential debate with Democrat Kamala Harris that they had killed a person and pleaded guilty.
Attorneys for Trump said the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment “protects the President-elect’s speech about matters of public concern.”
A lawyer for Trump at Dhillon Law Group declined to comment, and a spokesperson for his transition team did not immediately respond to a request for one. Trump on Monday said he would nominate Dhillon Law Group’s founder Harmeet Dhillon to lead the Justice Department’s civil rights division.
Shanin Specter, an attorney for the Central Park Five — Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Antron Brown and Korey Wise — said they expected Trump’s arguments to fail.
“We look forward to taking discovery and proceeding to trial,” Specter said.
The accusations were made when he wasn’t president.
What happened to “we’re gonna open up those libel laws”.
Textbook: “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
Do you ever get tired of cutting and pasting?
only white&rich people can claim libel
Of course he won’t! Ar least not for free…
