The Daily Mail newspaper has retracted a story about Melania Trump after her lawyers filed a lawsuit in the United States accusing the newspaper and a Maryland blogger of publishing false statements about her alleged involvement with an escort agency.
The retraction published Friday said the newspaper and its popular website “did not intend to state or suggest that these allegations” about the wife of the Republican presidential nominee were true.
“The point of the article was that these allegations could impact the U.S. presidential election even if they are untrue,” the retraction said.
It ended by stating that the editors “regret any such misinterpretations” about the story published on Aug. 20.
Trump filed suit against the Daily Mail Online and a Maryland website Thursday in a Maryland state court.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
Like many Brits I have neither love nor sympathy for the “Mail”. But the “Horn” is telling us part, but not all, of the story. To paraphrase what Allan Chernoff wrote: “It tells you what it wants you to believe”. So I recommend that you read the whole retraction. Note that elsewhere we read:
1. “Asked if the retraction would affect the suit, [Melania Trump’s lawyer, Charles] Harder replied: “It does not.”
2. Harder represented Hulk Hogan in the lawsuit that bankrupted Gawker Media and forced its sale to Univision in August. The suit was funded by Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel (a vocal Trump supporter).
3. The inclusion of the blogger in the Melania Trump suit could be a significant legal maneuver because a filing that adds a minor in-state defendant is a potential flag that they were joined to prevent removal to federal court – and Trump hasn’t had the best of luck in federal court recently.
4. A Maryland defamation statute that might provide a basis for Melania Trump’s suit reads: “A single or married woman whose character or reputation for chastity is defamed by any person may maintain an action against that person.”
5. But Montgomery County has a very high college-educated jury pool, so it is questionable whether such a jury pool would be overly sympathetic to Melania Trump.
We’ll see how it plays out. Perhaps the winners will be the lawyers.
Good for MRS. Trump!!! She’s such a class act. She’s elegant as well as strong. So looking forward to her in the White House as Proggies get the hell on.
If I were to be elected President one of my first acts would be to issue an Executive Order that demanded that all news media must report factual and unbiased news and be able to document its truthfulness. Tell the truth to the American People and let us decide how to react to its content. We are tired and fed up with politicians that refuse to do the jobs that they are responsible for and elected to do and media that directs and censors the information that we receive for their own personal agenda.
As has been said before, you cannot unring a bell. Sorry Daily Mail you are stuck with it and who ever is in charge there should suffer the consequences of the law suit.
They need to put that apology on CNN AND ALL THE OTHER TRASHY NEWS STATIONS!
Hopefully the lawauit will continue forward, with a favorable SIZEABLE judgement to Melania.
Perhaps that would make the slander mavens think twice before a repeat is contemplated in the future.
– assisting the editorial staff of the Daily Mail to be accurate with its journalism would be a useful example to the industry.
“When I agreed to become the next Speaker of the House, I did it for the sole purpose of unifying our great nation and helping preserve it for our children” – declared that RINO Paul Ryan. I do not want to “unify” with the socialists, communists, liberals, progressives, government employees union goons, and the so-called Democrats engaged in building a new “improved” Soviet-like American Gulag. This former refugee from a communist hell wants that scum beaten to the ground – beginning with that Muslim Marxist B. Hussein Obama and his presumed inheritor Hillary (you remember her, the wife of that impeached disbarred felon and serial rapist Bill Clinton) with her own list of unexplained 46 murders. Well – plus those four murdered in Benghazi.
Is this not the same person complaining about being defamed and suing for, God help us, $150 million who recently plagiarized virtually verbatim the president’s wife in the only public speech she has made and blamed others for failing to tell her – can this `smear’ (if that is what it is) referring to this ex-model as having previously been an escort really be worth even a tiny fraction of that amount – and yet sadly experience has shown with the Diane Charity court case and others, woe betide you if as a foreigner and find yourself in contest with one of its American nationals before a US court – judicial perversity rules.
GOOD FOR YOU MELANIA, OR MRS TRUMP. I love your husband for president and want you for FIRST LADY. All we have had was 2 first men and 2 first women. I guess they are. What a bunch of insulting things to do to our country.