‘Current libel laws are a sham,’ Trump said. He clearly does not understand them.

The following article by Callum Borchers was posted on the Washington Post website January 10, 2018:

At his first cabinet meeting of 2018, President Trump promised to reexamine libel laws, saying that they aren’t strong enough. (Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

This post, originally published Oct. 11, 2017, has been updated with President Trump’s remarks  Wednesday.

President Trump displayed a fundamental misunderstanding of existing libel standards Jan. 10 when he said during a televised Cabinet meeting there should be “meaningful recourse in our courts” if a news outlet publishes “something that’s totally false and knowingly false.”

“He’s right — and that’s what the law is now,” said George Freeman, executive director of the Media Law Resource Center.

Asserting that “our current libel laws are a sham and a disgrace and do not represent American values or American fairness,” the president pledged to “take a very strong look at that.” Yet these “current libel laws” Trump loathes do not exist — not as he described them, anyway.

“You can’t say things that are false — knowingly false — and be able to smile as money pours into your bank account,” Trump said, as if exposing the way the media works now.

Existing legal standards already prohibit news outlets from publishing harmful claims they know to be false. Trump would have voters believe journalists operate with total impunity, but news outlets that defame or invade the privacy of the people they cover can be sued into extinction. Just ask Gawker, which went bankrupt and shuttered last year after losing a case brought by Hulk Hogan.

Rolling Stone, which already has settled one libel suit resulting from a retracted report about sexual assault at the University of Virginia, put its majority ownership stake on the block in September, two days before a federal appeals court said a second lawsuit could move forward.

The consequences of bad reporting can be severe — contrary to the president’s depiction of a Wild West environment. Even when mistakes are minor and there is no legal risk, news outlets often hold themselves — and one another — accountable.

The president’s remarks Wednesday echoed his October declaration that “it’s frankly disgusting the way the press is able to write whatever they want to write, and people should look into it.”

President Trump said on Oct. 11 that “it’s frankly disgusting the way the press is able to write whatever they want to write, and people should look into it.” (Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Trump revived his long-standing libel grievance one day after his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, filed a defamation suit against BuzzFeed.

Trump’s position on the freedom that the press does enjoy  is there is too much of it. He tweeted in October about challenging NBC’s broadcast license and raised the specter of a congressional investigation of “the Fake News Networks in OUR country.”