Trump is not Putin's puppet and here's why

Trump has been trying to erode Russia's monopoly over Europe's gas market for the past few year.

President Trump’s reelection campaign filed a lawsuit against the New York Times on Wednesday charging that a column it published in 2019 libeled the president when it said his 2016 campaign was working with Russia to defeat Hillary Clinton.

The lawsuit says the column, published on March 27, 2019, falsely stated the “campaign had an ‘overarching deal’ with ‘Vladimir Putin’s oligarchy’ to ‘help the campaign against Hillary Clinton’ in exchange for ‘a new pro-Russian foreign policy, starting with relief from … economic sanctions,” Jenna Ellis, senior legal adviser to Donald J. Trump for President, Inc., said in a statement.

“The statements were and are 100 percent false and defamatory. The complaint alleges The Times was aware of the falsity at the time it published them, but did so for the intentional purpose of hurting the campaign, while misleading its own readers in the process,” the statement said.

The lawsuit was filed in New York State Supreme Court.

The column, written by former Times executive editor Max Frankel, was headlined “The Real Trump-Russia Quid Pro Quo.”

“There was no need for detailed electoral collusion between the Trump campaign and Vladimir Putin’s oligarchy because they had an overarching deal: the quid of help in the campaign against Hillary Clinton for the quo of a new pro-Russian foreign policy, starting with relief from the Obama administration’s burdensome economic sanctions,” the Times column alleged. “The Trumpites knew about the quid and held out the prospect of the quo.”

The lawsuit says the article fails to point to proof of a “quid pro quo” or a “deal” between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

Instead, it “selectively refers to previously-reported contacts between a Russian lawyer and persons connected with the Campaign” and “insinuates that these contacts must have resulted in a quid pro quo or a deal.”

The lawsuit goes on to say that the newspaper failed to acknowledge that “extensive reporting,” including in the Times, showed that the meetings did not result in a deal.

“The Times’ story is false. The falsity of the story has been confirmed” by then-special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, the suit says.

The Trump campaign is seeking compensation the court “may deem proper.”

Read more:

https://nypost.com/2020/02/26/trump-campaign-sues-new-york-times-for-libel/

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