Legal Info

Group Legal documents

“Good Friends”?

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Article in NPR by David Folkenflik, 7/29/25

Headline:  “Trump lawsuit against Murdoch and ‘Wall Street Journal‘ turns personal”

Subhead:  “President Trump’s defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and its powerful owner has taken a personal turn.”

In the legal filings — and on social media — Trump says he personally told media mogul Rupert Murdoch that the racy birthday greeting he had supposedly sent two decades earlier to the late disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein had been faked and did not exist. Murdoch’s Journal reported it anyway, despite Trump’s warning.

Now, Trump is asking a federal judge in Miami to compel the man he once called ‘my very good friend Rupert Murdoch’ to answer his lawyers’ questions under oath within 15 days of the order. Trump’s legal team acknowledges that the ink is barely dry on the lawsuit — there is no schedule of court deadlines yet — but argues that Murdoch is unlikely to testify in person whenever a trial occurs due to his advanced age and health issues. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.npr.org/2025/07/29/nx-s1-5482955/trump-epstein-murdoch-deposition-lawsuit?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

Use Courts to Punish Media?

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Article in Vox by Noel King & Avishat Artsy, 7/25/25

Headline:  “Trump’s media war just got a $10 billion twist”

Subhead:  “It’s his latest move in an ongoing effort to silence critical news outlets and control the narrative.”

“President Donald Trump is using the courts to punish media outlets for publishing stories he doesn’t like.

“The latest example is a $10 billion lawsuit filed in federal court in Miami against the Wall Street Journal and its owners, including Rupert Murdoch, for publishing a story that described a sexually suggestive birthday card Trump allegedly sent to the late Jeffrey Epstein in 2003.

“Trump has made no secret of his disdain for the press. Even before taking office for his first term, he began dismissing the mainstream media as ‘fake news,’ and soon after assuming office he tweeted that the ‘FAKE NEWS media’ is ‘the enemy of the American people’. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.vox.com/today-explained-podcast/421116/trump-sues-murdoch-wall-street-ournal

The Heat is on FCC Chief Carr

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Article in Status by Oliver Darcy, 7/28/25

Headline: “Chasing the Runaway Carr”

Subhead:  “The Freedom of the Press Foundation is turing the tables on Brendan Carr, filing a complaint to investigate and poteitially disbar the FCC chairman over his moves to punisdh Donalt Trunp’s media critics.”

“For months, Seth Stern had weighed whether to take the extraordinary step of filing a disciplinary complaint against the country’s top communications regulator. As director of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, Stern had watched with alarm as Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr repeatedly blurred the line between law and politics—reviving baseless investigations into major news networks, threatening companies over their diversity initiatives, and slow-walking approval of Paramount Global’s merger with Skydance Media while Donald Trump pursued an absurd “60 Minutes” lawsuit against the company.

“The tipping point, however, came last week. Just 22 days after Paramount agreed to pay Trump $16 million to settle the case, Carr approved the $8 billion merger. . .”
Read the full article at:

Goal: Bankrupt Opposition Media?

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Article in the New York Times by Kenneth Vogel, Kate Conger, Ryan Mac; 7/25/25

Headline:  “Under Siege From Trump and Musk, a Top Liberal Group Falls Into Crisis”

Subhead:  “Scrambling to pay legal fees, Media Matters has dialed back its criticism, trimmed its staff and contemplated closing entirely.”

“Media Matters, a nonprofit group that has played a key role in liberal politics, is struggling to withstand months of legal assaults by President Trump’s allies, offering a glimpse of what might be in store for even well-funded targets of his retribution campaigns.

“The organization, which is funded by some of the Democratic Party’s biggest donors, has racked up about $15 million in legal fees over the past 20 months to defend itself against lawsuits by Elon Musk, in addition to investigations by Mr. Trump’s Federal Trade Commission and Republican state attorneys general. . .”Read the full article at:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/25/us/politics/media-matters-musk-crisis.html

Media Political Victim?

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Article in Rolling Stone by Alan Spinwall, 7/22/25

Headline:  “Politics, Not Performance, Killed ‘The Late Show With Stephen Colbert”

Subhead:  “The end of ‘The Late Show With Stephen Colbert’ signals a much bigger shift for late night. But it’s not just about money”

“At the start of Thursday night’s episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, the veteran talk show host announced that on Wednesday, his bosses at CBS informed him that Late Show would be coming to an end next May. As the studio audience booed at great length and volume, Colbert acknowledged, ‘Yeah, I share your feelings.’ Then he inspired additional sympathetic boos by adding, “It’s not just the end of our show, but it’s the end of The Late Show on CBS. I’m not being replaced. This is all just going away. . .”

“. . . A specific merger with Skydance Media was proposed last year, and it is still awaiting approval by the Federal Communications Commission — an agency whose chief reports to the man who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., and who earlier this month received a $16 million settlement in a lawsuit he filed against CBS regarding the editing of a 60 Minutes episode. Colbert has been one of the most vocal critics of the current administration of anyone on television. . .

Read the full article at:

https://au.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-features/late-show-with-stephen-colbert-ending-analysis-80208/

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Article in The Guardian by Adrian Horton, 7/22/25

Headline: “Losing Stephen Colbert and The Late Show is a crushing blow, whatever the reason”

Subhead: “After watching the comedian’s smart and incisive assessment of America’s daily chaos for years, there’s something major to be mourned as he leaves the air”

“. . .or the better part of six years, I have watched every late-night monologue as part of my job at the Guardian (hello, late-night roundup), and though I often grumble about it, The Late Show has become a staple of my media diet and my principle source of news; as a millennial, I haven’t known a television landscape without it. There are many bleaker, deadlier things happening daily in this country, and the field of late-night comedy has been dying slowly for years, but the cancellation of The Late Show, three days after Colbert called out its parent company for settling a lawsuit with Donald Trump, felt especially and pointedly depressing – more a sign of cultural powerlessness and corporate fecklessness in the face of a bully president than the inevitable result of long-shifting tastes. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/22/stephen-colbert-cancelled-trump-late-night

Outfoxed by Epstein?

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Article in The Washington Post by Jeremy Barr, 7/21/25

Headline: “As Trump comes for Murdoch media, Fox News faces a bind”

Subhead: “The network has sparingly covered the defamation lawsuit the president filed against its corporate sibling News Corp. and the Wall Street Journal.”

“On Fox News, the network’s pro-Trump opinion hosts often trumpet the president’s latest attack on the mainstream media. That got a bit more complicated on Friday, when the president sued the Wall Street Journal, another part of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.

“President Donald Trump filed suit in federal court in Florida, arguing that he was defamed by a July 17 story in the Wall Street Journal reporting that he sent a “bawdy” letter to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein in 2003 to mark his 50th birthday. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/07/21/fox-wall-street-journal-lawsuit-trump/

Senators ask FCC to end Hunt?

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Article in Reuters by David Shepardson, 7/16/25

Headline:  “Senators urge FCC chair to end probes into CBS News, other media outlets”

“Two Democratic U.S. senators on Wednesday urged Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr to end investigations into CBS News and other media outlets.

“Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Ed Markey, in a letter to Carr first reported by Reuters, urged the commission ‘to end its partisan attacks on CBS and cease interfering with the judgment of independent news organizations. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/senators-urge-fcc-chair-end-probes-into-cbs-other-outlets-2025-07-16/

Evangelists Destroy Rt. Wing Network?

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Article in Raw Story by Matthew Chapman, 7/3/25

Headline:  “Dr Phil sues televangelist network for ‘sabotaging’ his bankrupt media company”

“Daytime talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw’s startup right-wing cable network is declaring bankruptcy — and he’s suing a prominent televangelist broadcast network he had partnered with to get it set up.

“According to Variety, “Merit Street filed for bankruptcy and the related lawsuit naming TBN [Trinity Broadcast Network] as a defendant with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Northern District of Texas on Wednesday (July 2). The complaint alleges that TBN, which was Merit Street’s broadcast partner, reneged on its obligations and instead ‘abused its position as the controlling shareholder.’. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.rawstory.com/dr-phil/

Blackmailing the Media

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Article in The Washington Post by Sara Ellison & Jeremy Barr, 7/2/25

Headline:  “How Trump’s media war brought Paramount to its knees”

Subhead:  “Tuesday night’s $16 million settlement with Trump followed months of tension between CBS’s journalistic mission and its corporate interest.”

“The breaking point came on a Saturday night in the middle of May. CBS President George Cheeks called news division chief Wendy McMahon with a suggestion: “It’s probably time.”

“Two days later, McMahon announced her departure.

“The forced resignation marked a turning point: The network of Edward R. Murrow, which stood against McCarthyism and once defined American broadcast journalism, was capitulating to White House pressure as its corporate owner sought approval for a lucrative merger. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/07/02/trump-paramount-cbs-settlement-media/

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Article in The Washington Post by Eric Wemple, 7/2/25

Headline:  “Paramount betrays ‘60 Minutes’ and the rest of us

Subhead:  “Parent company caves to baseless suit by Donald Trump.”

“. . .On Tuesday night came the news that Paramount had agreed to pay $16 million to settle the suit, which stemmed from a ‘60 Minutes’ interview with then-vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. The money, which covers the president’s legal fees and costs, will go to his future presidential library.

What happened between disputation and capitulation? . . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/07/02/paramount-settlement-trump-betrayal/

Changing Media Horses?

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Article in Status by Jon Passantino, 6/28/25

Headline:  “Gavin Takes Off the Gloves”

Subhead:  “Gavin Newsom spent months cozying up to MAGA media – now he’s suing Fox News for $787 Million, signaling a sharp break from his flirtation with the far right”

“After months of cozying up to the far right—hosting MAGA extremists on his podcast where he offered them praise, and trying on a strange ‘reach across the aisle’ persona—the California governor made a sharp reversal. On Friday, the likely 2028 contender filed a defamation lawsuit against Fox News, alleging the network manipulated video footage to falsely portray him as lying about a phone call with Donald Trump. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.status.news/p/gavin-newsom-fox-news-lawsuit