(GoRealNewsNow.com) – Former President Donald Trump has suffered a legal defeat after a federal judge that he appointed dismissed his defamation lawsuit against leftist network CNN for likening him to Hitler with the term “the Big Lie.”
“The Big Lie” usually describes the Nazi German dictator’s accusations of conspiracy and other wrongdoing against the Jews.
Trump’s lawsuit listed five times in which CNN pundits and reports used “the Big Lie” to describe the former president’s allegations that the 2020 election was stolen from him through voter fraud.
However, according to federal US District Judge Raag Singhal, who was appointed by Trump in 2019, CNN’s commentaries and reports used the historical term as an expression of opinion rather than fact – and, as such, they were not liable under defamation law, The Hill reports.
“Trump complains that CNN described his election challenges as ‘the Big Lie.’ Trump argues that ‘the Big Lie’ is a phrase attributed to Nazi Party politician Joseph Goebbels and that CNN’s use of the phrase wrongly links Trump with the Hitler regime in the public eye. This is a stacking of inferences that cannot support a finding of falsehood,” Singhal wrote.
The judge also declared that defamation is much harder to commit against individuals who are public figures, especially if they are “as prominent as former presidents.”
He argued further the application of the term didn’t necessarily connect the former president to the German Nazis.
“CNN’s use of the phrase ‘the Big Lie’ in connection with Trump’s election challenges does not give rise to a plausible inference that Trump advocates the persecution and genocide of Jews or any other group of people,” Singhal’s decision reads.
“The Court finds Nazi references in the political discourse (made by whichever ‘side’) to be odious and repugnant. But bad rhetoric is not defamation when it does not include false statements of fact,” he elaborated.
The Hill report notes that while the origin of “the Big Lie” is usually associated with Hitler or his top propaganda official Goebbels, it remains disputed.
Many believe it stemmed from a quote attributed to Goebbels: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
Former President Trump had asked the court for $475 million in damages from CNN.
