On Wednesday of this week, a judge allowed a lawsuit to proceed against Donald Trump, Jr., a move that might actually hold the former President's son accountable for his lies. The suit is a defamation lawsuit brought by former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship, and revolves around a single, careless word that Junior threw at Blankenship to attack him. Farron Cousins explains what's happening.
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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.
The lies of Donald Trump Jr. May have finally caught up to him this week after a judge ruled that
He could be held accountable. In fact, held liable for the lies
That he is told. This one was actually with regard to one specific lie. Junior tweeted out
In the year 2018.
And that lie was that former Massey energy CEO, Don Blankenship, who was running for a Senate seat as a member of the constitution party in the state of West Virginia, uh, Jr. Tweeted out that blank and ship was a felon. This is not true. Lincoln ship had in fact served a year in prison for a misdemeanor of conspiracy to, uh, basically hide safety problems with Massey energy
From regulators.
And of course, as we all know, the upper big branch mine explosion that killed 29 miners was owned by Massey energy. And that's where these charges came from. They were alleged that a blank and ship and others within the company had conspired to conceal the safety problems, misdemeanor charge convicted year in jail, but not a felony. Therefore by definition, Don Blankenship was not a felon.
And on Wednesday of
This week, a judge ruled you called him a felon. The defamation suit that Blankenship has filed against you is going to move forward. I'm not going to dismiss it, which is what Junior's lawyers had been trying to make happen.
And here's why, let me read part of the judge's ruling here too, please. Actual malice. Therefore,
A plaintiff must plausibly allege that the defendant published the material with the high degree of awareness, that it was likely false recklessness may be found where there are obvious reasons to doubt the veracity or accuracy of information. Plaintiff alleges facts in support of the inference that Trump Jr issued the tweet with knowledge of its falsity. One Trump Jr was involved in high level discussions about the primary campaign in West Virginia two. He made the statements shortly after one such meeting, and three, the comments were made as part of a string of false comments by sophisticated party operatives. And of course, the judge went on to say
That the actual facts were widely available on the internet. So there's no excuse and not to mention it was pointed out as well. He was told this was false people. I monitor the tweet, told them this was false linked to the information, but he never
Issued a correction, never issued a retraction and he let the false statement stand. Now don't get me wrong folks. I am in no way trying to defend Don Blankenship here. Okay, let's get that out of the way right now, do not like the guy, uh, would have loved for him to have been convicted of a felony, but I can't change it. I wasn't involved
In it. It is what it is, but here's the thing. This is actually a pretty serious
Legal issue shoe here. I know it's just a simple defamation case, but trust me over the years over at ring of fire, uh, we have, unfortunately, sometimes our emotions have gotten the best of us and you know, we've referred to somebody as a,
And really when you do that, when somebody hasn't been convicted of something, uh, you would be shocked.
And how quickly the, uh, letters come in from lawyers telling you that you have to remove this information, retract it, correct it, whatever. And that's happened to us. I know at least one occasion where that happened to us and we did it know, we said, okay, whoops, you know, sorry, we messed up. So this is something that the courts do take seriously. And of course, referring to this man as a felon when he was not in fact, a felon from a high profile person, like the president signed,
Absolutely could have helped tank
Blank and ships a Senate campaign. Of course, I'm, I'm sure 29 dead miners probably didn't help him either, but the argument could be made.
And even though this is small, it is
Accountable to a degree. And of course the case
Still has to go forward, right? This
Hasn't even been decided Donald Trump Jr. Has not even lost this case yet. He just lost his, uh, lawyers bid to have it dismissed. But I would like to see some accountability here. The lies from the Trump family are seemingly
Never ending and they do it because they've never been punished for it. So even if it's
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