President Trump has opened a new front in his campaign to intimidate political foes, threatening a prominent liberal think tank with a $5 billion defamation lawsuit over a report concluding that his deployment of the National Guard to cities across the country has had little effect on reducing violent crime.
The threats against the think tank, the Center for American Progress, were Mr. Trump’s latest effort to use the legal system to punish critics for voicing unflattering facts and opinions generally protected by the First Amendment. And while it is unclear how far any suit the president might ultimately file will get in court, it could force the organization to spend money fighting it off and make it even more of a target of his allies and supporters.
The above excerpt was originally published in The New York Times.
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