Worth Quoting: Smacking Donald down

When the New York Times published accounts of women who said that Donald had sexually assaulted them, Donald, of course denied it. He also unleashed his lawyers on the paper. It didn’t go well for Donald.

David E. McCraw, Vice President and Assistant General Counsel of the New York Times Company, wrote this stinging reply to Donald’s lawyers:

I write in response to your letter of October 12, 2016 to Dean Baquet concerning your client Donald Trump, the Republican Party nominee for President of the United States. You write concerning our article "Two Women Say Donald Trump Touched Them Inappropriately" and label the article as "libel per se." You ask that we "remove it from [our] website, and issue a full and immediate retraction and apology." We decline to do so.

The essence of a libel claim, of course, is the protection of one's reputation. Mr. Trump has bragged about his non-consensual sexual touching of women. He has bragged about intruding on beauty pageant contestants in their dressing rooms. He acquiesced to a radio host's request to discuss Mr. Trump's own daughter as a "piece of ass." Multiple women not mentioned in our article have publicly come forward to report on Mr. Trump's unwanted advances. Nothing in our article has had the slightest effect on the reputation that Mr. Trump, through his own words and actions, has already created for himself.

But there is a larger and much more important point here. The women quoted in our story spoke out on an issue of national importance – indeed, an issue that Mr. Trump himself discussed with the whole nation watching during Sunday night's presidential debate. Our reporters diligently worked to confirm the women's accounts. They provided readers with Mr. Trump's response, including his forceful denial of the women's reports. It would have been a disservice not just to our readers but to democracy itself to silence their voices. We did what the law allows: We published newsworthy information about a subject of deep public concern. If Mr. Trump disagrees, if he believes that American citizens had no right to hear what these women had to say and that the law of this country forces us and those who would dare to criticize him to stand silent or be punished, we welcome the opportunity to have a court set him straight.

Sincerely,
David E. McCraw

The final paragraph is a particularly important one, because Donald has frequently talked of jailing journalists who dare to criticise him—along with political opponents, of course. So, the New York Times is standing on principle.

But their other point is every bit as important: The paper couldn’t possibly have damaged Donald’s reputation by publishing the newsworthy accounts of women Donald allegedly sexually assaulted because Donald has already created his reputation as a man who engages in unwanted, non-consensual sexual advances, as well as bragging about actual sexual assault.

The fact that Donald is morally bankrupt is beyond dispute. The mystery is how anyone who is not morally bankrupt could ever contemplate voting for him.

The full letter is available as a PDF.