A Trump administration official filed a lawsuit against CNN alleging that the network had attempted to slander him by publishing false statements about him, Fox News reported.
Kash Patel, the chief of staff to the secretary of defense, filed a $50 million lawsuit Friday in Virginia’s circuit court against CNN, according to Fox News.
CNN reporters Barbara Starr, Zachary Cohen, Ryan Browne and two others were reportedly named in the lawsuit. (RELATED: CNN’s John Harwood Attacks GOP, Says ‘They Would Go Smack Their Moms In The Face’ If Trump Said To)
Acting US defense secretary’s chief of staff Kash Patel files $50M defamation lawsuit against CNN https://t.co/LSM6N86Pr8 #FoxNews
— Kristina Wong ???????? (@kristina_wong) December 14, 2020
“CNN attacked Kash and published defamatory falsehoods about him because CNN was deeply invested in promoting the Russia collusion hoax and the fraudulent ‘dossier’ manufactured by Fusion GPS for the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee,” Steven Bliss, Patel’s attorney, wrote in the complaint, according to Fox News.
The complaint allegedly targets articles published between Nov. 24 and Dec. 4 against Patel that “contain a series of false and defamatory statements.”
The lawsuit also reportedly cited multiple articles that were considered to be defamatory, including one that allegedly said that the “Defense Department transition office … is led by a Trump loyalist connected to efforts to spread conspiracy theories about the President-elect.”
Patel is seeking presumed, actual, special and punitive damages stemming from the publication of the articles, according to Fox News, on top of a permanent injunction that would prevent CNN’s reporters from repeating the articles.
Patel had previously sued Politico back in 2019 in regards to a story that linked him to a back channel to Ukraine that the White House had used.