Defiant CBS Files Motion to Dismiss Trump $20 Billion Lawsuit: ‘An Affront to The First Amendment’

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

CBS bucked the trend of media companies bending the knee to President Donald Trump, refusing to settle the lawsuit he filed over a 60 Minutes interview of former Vice President Kamala Harris, filing two motions to dismiss in federal court on Thursday.

Trump has been complaining about Harris’ October interview with CBS’ long running Sunday evening program since it aired, filing a lawsuit right before the November election and then amending it to add additional claims and demand a whopping $20 billion in damages, adding Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) as a plaintiff as part of a tenuous effort to support jurisdiction in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, a court favored by forum–shopping litigants like Trump and Elon Musk.

CBS has denied wrongdoing and last month published the full video and transcripts, asserting that the show’s broadcast “was not doctored or deceitful.” That hasn’t stopped the president from continuing to rant about the interview.

Many media observers were curious how CBS would respond, considering the pressure that Trump and his allies like Musk can apply against their critics, through litigation, inciting their supporters to harass and threaten, and by initiating government investigations and enforcement actions. Multiple times in recent months, large media outlets and social media companies have preferred to settle Trump’s lawsuits, despite having the resources to fight and legal scholars scoffing at the merits of the president’s claims. Further complicating matters is the pending merger between CBS’ parent company Paramount and Skydance, giving rise to concerns that Paramount push for a settlement both to cut the financial losses from ongoing legal expenses and to avoid unfriendly Trump appointees at the Federal Communications Commission deciding to derail the merger.

Nonetheless, CBS took a defiant tone Thursday in two motions to dismiss filed with the federal court in Texas.The first motion and memorandum of law challenged the case being filed in Texas, arguing that it should be dismissed on several procedural grounds, or at minimum transferred to the Southern District of New York, where CBS and its parent companies are located:

[N]one of the Defendants is subject to personal jurisdiction in Texas on these claims. CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a New York corporation, CBS Interactive Inc. and Paramount Global are Delaware corporations, and all three have their principal place of business in New York. Accordingly, general jurisdiction does not lie. Specific jurisdiction also does not lie. Defendants did not purposefully direct their suit-related conduct at Texas more than other states: The interview of Vice President Kamala Harris, excerpts of which aired on Face the Nation and 60 Minutes, was not filmed, edited, or produced in Texas, nor was Texas in any way the subject of the interview. If this district has personal jurisdiction merely because CBS programs are broadcast nationwide, so too does every district court in the country. That is not the law.

…even if the Court were to find that the exercise of jurisdiction is appropriate and that this district is a proper venue, the private interest and public interest factors overwhelmingly support transfer to the Southern District of New York under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a). Among other relevant considerations, the evidence and witnesses are in New York, such that litigating there would be far more convenient for the parties, and New York has strong policy interests in regulating the conduct of its citizens and media.

The second motion and memorandum of law spoke directly to the First Amendment issues at the heart of the case.

“This lawsuit is an affront to the First Amendment and is without basis in law or fact,” CBS’ attorneys wrote, arguing that Trump and the Texas congressman were “public officials at the highest ranks of our government” who “seek to punish a news organization for constitutionally protected editorial judgments they do not like.”

Plaintiffs “not only ask for $20 billion in damages but also seek an order directing how a news organization may exercise its editorial judgment in the future,” the attorneys wrote. “The First Amendment stands resolutely against these demands.”

“If the First Amendment means anything, it means that public officials like Plaintiffs cannot hold news organizations like CBS liable for the simple exercise of editorial judgment,” the argument continued, highlighting the “urgent public interest” of the topic and the highest First Amendment protections granted to speech that is part of a political campaign. “Whether Plaintiffs believe the entire unedited Interview should have aired or only edited in a way they approve, they are not entitled under the First Amendment to demand only news that fits their wishes.”