Charles Harder Sends Ridiculous Threat Letter To People On Behalf Of Melania Trump

from the do-you-even-know-what-defamation-means? dept

Oh Charles Harder. You just keep supplying more and more fodder for Techdirt stories. You may remember Harder as the lawyer thrust into the public realm after Peter Thiel allegedly bankrolled him to start a new law firm with a focus on taking on any lawsuit that might help bring down Gawker. Having succeeded in bringing down Gawker through dubious lawsuits, Harder has moved on (well, not entirely) to bigger fish, including Roger Ailes and Melania Trump.

And while Donald Trump has been focusing his defamation threats mostly on the NY Times, Melania and Harder have decided to focus on People Magazine. As you probably have heard by now, among the fairly long list of articles that came out on Wednesday and Thursday involving women saying that Donald Trump sexually assaulted (or engaged in other sketchy behavior) was a really disturbing story at People Magazine, where People writer Natasha Stoynoff wrote about Trump pushing her against the wall and kissing her, while she was there to interview both Donald and Melania. In fact, Stoynoff claims that the assault happened during a break in the interview with the couple, while a pregnant Melania had gone upstairs to change.

Some people had been asking how Melania had been reacting to this story, which (unlike many of the other accusations) much more closely involved her, in that it took place while she was in the home and happened to a reporter who was writing a story on the couple. Well, now we know. Melania tweeted out a retraction demand to People written by Charles Harder. And it's even more ridiculous that Harder's usual threat letters. The crux of it is that Melania denies a few unimportant side details of the article around Stoynoff's claim that she ran into Melania a year or so later, after she'd left the Trump beat (because of Trump's actions). Harder claims that Melaina never ran into Stoynoff:

The following statements in the Story, among others, are false and completely fictionalized. We therefore demand that you immediately and permanently remove each of these statements from the Story, and print a prominent retraction and apology:

1. "That winter, I actually bumped into Melania on Fifth Avenue, in front of Trump Tower as she walked into the building, carrying baby Barron."
2. "'Natasha, why don’t we see you anymore?' she asked, giving me a hug."
3. "I was quiet and smiled, telling her I’d missed her, and I squeezed little Barron’s foot."

The true facts are these: Mrs. Trump did not encounter Ms. Stoynoff on the street, nor have any conversation with her. The two are not friends and were never friends or even friendly. At the time in question, Mrs. Trump would not have even recognized Ms. Stoynoff if they had encountered one another on the street.

Harder then claims that if People does not remove and retract those statements then it "will require Mrs. Trump to consider her legal options."

Let's put this simply: Mrs. Trump's legal options are... nothing. Nada. Zilch. Note that Harder did not claim that any of these statements are defamatory. Because even he must know that they are not defamatory even if they are false. There is no harm in those statements. There is no nothing. They are just someone remembering what may have happened. Even if it didn't happen, that doesn't create any legal liability or problem, and it's certainly not defamation.

As with Donald, it seems like these weak ass legal "threat" letters seem more designed to scare off others with the knowledge that if you come forward or if you publish a story about someone who comes forward, the Trump team of lawyers will hassle you in some manner or another.

But, really, this particular letter is so weak and so empty of any actual issue, that you have to wonder what the hell is going on. Is it that Melania demanded something be done and this was the best that Harder could muster up given the lack of anything legitimate to whine about? Could it be that Harder thinks he can actually bully People into pulling these minor facts? It's not at all clear, and while I guess maybe (?!?) this helps Harder in that clueless censorious celebrities know they can go to him and he'll send clearly ridiculous threat letters on their behalf, for lots of other people, it just undermines any credibility Harder has on the subject of defamation and free speech. He looks completely foolish and petty.

Filed Under: charles harder, chilling effects, defamation, donald trump, false statements, free speech, melania trump, natasha stoynoff, people magazine

Peter Thiel's Lawyer Says He's Stopped 'Monitoring' Gawker, But Still Sending It Bogus Takedown Demands

from the anti-free-speech-nuttery dept

Remember how the billionaire funder of Facebook and Palantir, Peter Thiel, insisted that he was bankrupting Gawker to protect your privacy? Well, the lawyer, Charles Harder, that Thiel set up with a monthly retainer, specifically to focus on lawsuits that could kill Gawker dead, has become something of a "celebrity" in the "let's stomp out free speech" circle of celebrities. Last month, the Hollywood Reporter did a big profile on Harder and his newfound fame (and rapidly growing client list of famous people upset about press coverage). In some "bonus cuts," reporter Eriq Gardner noted on Twitter that Harder told him he no longer "monitors" what's left of Gawker (now called Gizmodo Media, and owned by Univision). Except... Gizmodo is now pointing out that since Univision took over, Harder has sent them five separate demands to take down information because some of Harder's clients were upset about what Gizmodo Media properties had written about them.

In late August, Harder issued several new legal threats against Gizmodo Media Group over stories that were, in some cases, published years ago. One targeted a 2014 Deadspin story about a former ESPN employee named Heather Paskewich, who claimed in a federal lawsuit that her supervisor, Heli Soto, digitally manipulated photos of her to be more “sexually provocative” and posted them online. Harder, who is now representing Soto, listed nine allegedly “false and defamatory” passages from Deadspin’s coverage of the lawsuit.

Each of the passages that Harder describes as defamatory were sourced from Paskewich’s complaint. American courts have widely recognized the right of media outlets to publish and quote from official court records. (According to the case’s April 30, 2015 docket entry, Paskewich and ESPN reached an out-of-court settlement; the terms were not disclosed.)

Harder has also added I’m Shmacked’s Arya Toufanian to his client roster. (I’m Shmacked hosts and films college parties, which New York Magazine has called “an obvious descendent of Girls Gone Wild.”) In his August 22 letter to Gizmodo Media Group, Harder demanded the removal of a pair of Jezebel stories from 2014 about a tweet from the I’m Shmacked Twitter account. It was directed at Business Insider reporter Caroline Moss after she noticed that the account had copy-and-pasted a joke that had gone viral on Twitter. That tweet, which has since been deleted, read:

“They said make fun of I’m Shmacked.”
“What’s the worst that can happen, they said.”

July 23rd. 9:22AM.
Caroline is prepping her anus.

Harder’s letter acknowledges that the original Jezebel post was “based on Mr. Toufanian’s tweets,” but he nonetheless claims that the stories are “false and defamatory” and amount to “libel, false light invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

The article has a few more examples of Harder threat letters to Univision/Gizmodo, but the most ridiculous of all is the most recent letter, sent last month. It's not even about a Gizmodo/Gawker article at all. Rather it's about an article in Forbes (which is not owned by Univision) about Univision's dumb decision to pull a bunch of old Gawker stories over misplaced (and legally clueless) liability worries. In that article, Forbes reporter Ryan Mac got a few comments from John Cook, Gawker/Gizmodo Media's executive editor, who protested the Univision decision vehemently. In the article, Mac quotes Cook saying some things about Harder himself:

“The end goal for Charles Harder is to harm people,” he said. “Whether that’s A.J. Daulerio or Sam Biddle or Nick Denton or me. I do not believe he has his client’s interests at heart.”

That apparently caused Harder's firm (in the form of lawyer Ryan Stonerock, who works for Harder) to send a letter on behalf of Harder himself, arguing that the statement above is defamatory. It's not. But here's what the letter had to say:

The bolded sentence in the Defamatory Statement is false, malicious and highly defamatory. Moreover, both the first and last sentences in the Defamatory Statement constitute tortious interference with contractual relations, namely Mr. Harder’s existing client relationships. The Defamatory Statement also constitutes tortious interference with prospective economic advantage in regard to Mr. Harder’s future clients, among other claims.

Mr. Harder hereby demands an immediate public retraction of the Defamatory Statement and an apology, as well as the payment of damages or an alternative agreeable resolution. If Univision and Mr. Cook fail to comply and respond to these demands immediately, Mr. Harder will not hesitate to exercise his rights in pursuing legal action against Univision, the executives at Univision who are responsible for the hiring of Mr. Cook based upon negligent hiring practices (Mr. Cook has a long line of defamatory activity, and has been sued for it in multiple public lawsuits of which Univision executives have been well aware for months), and against Mr. Cook himself.

This is, to put it mildly, a load of complete bullshit. Harder, who in that profile claims "I believe very strongly in a free press" doesn't seem to understand how the First Amendment works. Cook's statement is clearly one of opinion, and it's clearly protected speech. And despite Harder also saying in that profile that he'd like to change the standard for defamation of public figures, the law as it stands requires not just that the statements be false statements of fact, but also that they be said maliciously. And, yes, Harder is a public figure (remember, there was just a whole Hollywood Reporter feature about him).

What Harder appears to be doing here is little more than threatening a SLAPP suit to try to shut up the press from saying negative things about him. Even the references to Cook being sued in the past are ridiculous, since most of those lawsuits are from Harder himself, and most of them are completely bogus.

So far, it does not appear that Univision is complying with any of these demands (which is good to see). So, let's see what Harder does next. Is he now going to go after Univision too? Will Thiel continue to fund that as well? Because most of the threats seem entirely bogus, and would be laughed out of court.

And, of course, this is yet another reminder of why we really need a federal anti-SLAPP law to stop such bogus threats in their tracks.

Filed Under: censorship, charles harder, defamation, first amendment, free speech, john cook, peter thiel, threats
Companies: gawker, gizmodo media, univision

Roger Ailes Hires Peter Thiel's Favorite Lawyer To Threaten NY Mag For Its Stories About Him

from the just-don't-publish-sex-tapes,-they-said... dept

Remember how lots of people (including plenty of you right here) were saying that it was no big deal that Gawker was shut down due to a campaign financed by Peter Thiel? Remember how people said it wouldn't mean any harm for anyone else as long as they "don't publish someone's sex tape?" Remember how we pointed out that Thiel's funding campaign included plenty of other lawsuits that had nothing to do with sex tapes? Yeah, about that. It appears that Thiel's favorite lawyer, Charles Harder, who he apparently helped set up in his own law firm with ongoing support for a variety of cases to take down Gawker, has now become the go-to lawyer for another famous hater of media: Donald Trump and his friends. Trump, of course, has repeatedly publicly stated that he has sued a reporter just to cost him money. So, Trump and Harder seem perfect together.

Last week, Harder, representing Donald Trump's wife, Melania, sued The Daily Mail and a random blogger in Maryland, claiming defamation. The inclusion of the blogger was weird, but many are saying it was to get the specific jurisdiction they wanted, in Maryland (where anti-SLAPP laws can't be used).

And now it appears that Harder has another big name client closely connected to Trump: former Fox News boss Roger Ailes has apparently hired Charles Harder to threaten New York Magazine with defamation claims. If you're not aware, one of the top reporters for NY Magazine is Gabriel Sherman, who has written extensively about Ailes, including an entire book about Ailes. More recently, Sherman has been basically the go-to source for anything having to do with the litany of sexual harassment claims made about Ailes, including being the first to report on Megyn Kelly's statements to investigators that Ailes had allegedly sexually harassed her, and a massive recent story on "the Fox News women" who took down Ailes.

Ailes has apparently gone on the offensive, having some high-profile lawyers basically start a ridiculous smear campaign against Sherman, which not only seems to call more attention to Sherman's reporting, but also makes Ailes and his friends look desperate. And, of course, the latest move is apparently to hire Harder to threaten New York Magazine and Sherman, because Harder is now making quite a reputation for himself as the guy to go to when you want to burden publications with questionable legal claims.

And NY Mag didn't even publish a Roger Ailes sex tape or anything.

NY Magazine notes (not surprisingly) that the threat letter from Harder didn't include specifics, but rather just asked the publication to retain information for a possible legal action. In other words, it feels like a pretty empty threat.

But, once again, we're reminded of why we need a federal anti-SLAPP law. Thin-skinned billionaires (and not billionaires) are finding it way too easy to burden publications with bogus defamation claims these days.

Filed Under: charles harder, defamation, donald trump, gabriel sherman, peter thiel, roger ailes
Companies: ny magazine

Melania Trump Sues Daily Mail & A Blogger Over Stories, Using Peter Thiel/Hulk Hogan's Lawyer

from the gotta-sue-gotta-sue dept

Last week, we wrote about lawyer Charles Harder -- most well known as the lawyer that Peter Thiel set up with the mission of destroying Gawker -- sending out defamation threat letters on behalf of Donald Trump's wife, Melania Trump. The main threat was to the Daily Mail, for posting a story about a book and magazine article that made some accusations claiming that Melania had worked as an escort via the modeling agency that she worked for. As I noted in the original post, while the story may be false, I didn't see how defamation charges would stick, seeing as the Daily Mail was reporting (accurately) on what the article and book had published, and also noted some inconsistencies and questions about how factual the allegations were. In addition, I still don't see how they could get to the "with actual malice" standard required for defamation of a public figure.

Either way, it appears that Melania and Harder have decided to go for it, and have filed a defamation lawsuit against the Daily Mail, filed in Maryland (for what it's worth, in the comments to our last story, some accused me of being mistaken for using US defamation law, since the Daily Mail is in the UK -- but since it was a US lawyer, it seemed fairly obvious that any lawsuit would likely be in the US -- and that's now been proven true). You can read the filing here.

Trump asserts that the The Daily Mail consciously doubted the truth of the claims in the article, but decided to publish it anyway, and that reporters there can't simply rely on "unsubstantiated" claims and "an unauthorized book written by malicious and bitter 'reporters' who have never met or spoken to Ms. Trump."

"The conduct of Daily Mail was despicable, abhorrent, intentional, malicious and oppressive, and thus justifies an award of punitive damages," states the complaint.

Besides defamation, Trump is also suing for tortious interference, contending that the published statements have gotten in the way of her "numerous" licensing and endorsement deals.

The lawsuit not only targets the Daily Mail, but also a blogger by the name of Webster Griffin Tarpley who had written about Melania Trump as well on his Tarpley.net website. It may seem a bit odd to be going after a random blogger, though from the lawsuit, it seems like the case against Tarpley is at least somewhat stronger. Tarpley seemed to make a number of statements of fact that, if false, may very well be defamatory. What is a bit odd is that Harder had sent a threat letter to Tarpley, and he removed the blog post almost immediately and apologized. That doesn't (in any way) get him off the hook if the article was defamatory, but it's a bit odd to still sue after the removal. Separately, it's at least marginally difficult to believe the claims, as stated in the lawsuit, that this random blog post on a blog almost no one has heard of could somehow "cause substantial damage" to Melania Trump's "business, career, reputation and her actual and prospective economic relationships." What business is not going to do business with Melania Trump because a random blogger made some false statements about her?

It will be interesting to see how this case progresses. At a first pass, it seems like the Daily Mail has a much stronger argument than the blogger, but it's still bizarre that the potential First Lady to be would be spending time suing a random blogger for an article that, from the quotes in the lawsuit, could likely be seen as rhetorical hyperbole. And, really, all that the lawsuit does is bring more attention to the original claims about Trump. It's possible that Tarpley was included just for jurisdiction purposes, to get the case into a Maryland court (notably: Maryland has a famously weak anti-SLAPP law, and efforts to improve it have failed). Still, the whole case seems odd, and seems like, once again, using the courts to bully publications.

Filed Under: charles harder, defamation, donald trump, hulk hogan, melania trump, peter thiel, webster griffin tarpley
Companies: daily mail

Peter Thiel's Lawyer Now Sending Questionable Defamation Threat Letters To Media On Behalf Of Melania Trump

from the billionaires-censoring-the-press dept

Charles Harder is the California lawyer who likely will forever be known as "Peter Thiel's lawyer" after Thiel helped set up his own law firm with the "focal point" of hunting for any lawsuit that might destroy Gawker. It appears that Thiel is happy to share his pet lawyer with his new best buddy, Donald Trump, or Trump's wife, Melania. On Monday the UK's Daily Mail (not exactly known for its accuracy in reporting) received a threat letter from Harder, representing Melania Trump, claiming that its recent article on Melania was defamatory.

I'm not exactly sure where Mr. Harder is looking to sue but, if it's in the US, it's difficult to see how the article reaches the level of defamation by any stretch of the imagination. Melania Trump is, obviously, a public figure and, under US law, for a news report to be defamatory it needs to not only be incorrect and harmful but also published "with actual malice" -- meaning that the Daily Mail would have known that the published statements of fact were false, or they had a reckless disregard for the truth. Reading through the original Daily Mail article, I don't see how that could possibly be the case. The supposed "bombshell" claims in the piece are statements from a couple of different sources alleging that Melania was an escort when she first came to NY (and that may be how she met Donald in the first place). But the Mail is actually (somewhat surprisingly, given its reputation), quite careful with those statements, pointing out that they came from a book, but also noting that there's little evidence to back them up. It also points to a Slovenian magazine article claiming that the modelling agency Melania worked for was actually an escort service, but the Mail only notes that the magazine said this, and then gets a quote from the guy who ran the modelling agency saying (vehemently) that the story wasn't true.

Furthermore, the Daily Mail noted:

There is no evidence to back up these startling claims made in Suzy magazine.

The rest of the article is just kind of weird. Perhaps it's how the Mail normally reports, but much of the second half is stories from a guy who had a crush on Melania when they were both teens.

But, yeah, it's not at all clear how any of this rises to the level of defamation. The Daily Mail doesn't say anything defamatory about Melania at all. It just notes that certain sources (a book written by an anonymous author and a Slovenian magazine article) make these claims (both of which are accurate factual statements) and then notes that there's little actual evidence to back them up. And yes, this is a trashy tabloidy kind of thing to do ("some people say..." to say something mean, rather than making the case themselves), but it's difficult to see how it comes anywhere near the standard for actual defamation.

And it's not just the Daily Mail that Harder is going after. The Guardian reports that Harder has said that Melania may also sue Politico and the Week for reporting on her immigration status a few weeks back. You may remember the story. Politico noted some discrepancies in the timing of when Melania had claimed she had come to America, and the date of some nude photos that the NY Post dug up from a photo shoot in NY. That led Politico to raise questions about whether or not Melania was an illegal immigrant -- a bit of irony considering her husband's hardline stance against illegal immigration.

Once again, going through the Politico story, it's basically ridiculous to argue that anything in there is defamatory. Again: the statements need to be statements of fact (not just questioning things) that were made with "actual malice." There's no way the Politico article reaches that level.

But, again, we're talking about Charles Harder and the Trumps here, and the legitimacy of the case may be secondary to just threatening people. Trump, of course, has a long history of SLAPP-like lawsuits designed to bury journalists he doesn't like. And that's not me just saying that, Trump has flat out admitted to doing this:

Trump said in an interview that he knew he couldn’t win the suit but brought it anyway to make a point. "I spent a couple of bucks on legal fees, and they spent a whole lot more. I did it to make his life miserable, which I’m happy about."

And, again, that's the basis of Thiel's campaign against Gawker, where no matter what you think of the Hogan case, the other cases that Harder has filed against Gawker appear to pretty clearly be basic SLAPP suits designed to burden the company with legal fees.

And, of course, some smaller publications have already been intimidated into silence. The NY Times notes that Harder has contacted other publications as well (mainly those that wrote about the Daily Mail's article) and at least two of them have retracted or apologized for their original stories. Here's the Inquisitr apologizing and retracting its story and here's Liberal America doing the same thing. Liberal America flat out explains:

This is being written under duress because I don’t have enough money to fight a legal battle against the Trump machine.

You can see the full threat letter that Charles Harder sent on behalf of Melania and judge for yourself. Harder claims that he can show "actual malice" in the reporting "by nature of the fact that my client has publicly denied the foregoing statements." That's not, actually, how one proves "actual malice."

Without being able to see the original stories at Inquisitr and Liberal America, I can't say definitively if either one said anything that would be considered defamatory, but it certainly sounds like they were just quoting what was in the Daily Mail article, which does not seem to be defamatory.

So what are we left with? A thin-skinned Presidential candidate who has admitted to happily filing bogus lawsuits to burden journalists whose reporting he doesn't like, whose wife has teamed up with a lawyer who was basically set up in business to "focus" on filing a bunch of lawsuits for the purpose of overburdening a publication another billionaire disliked. People have been disagreeing with me over whether or not the Gawker shutdown is a big deal, insisting that "if you just don't publish private sex tapes, there won't be a problem." Yet, here we have publications already being intimidated into not publishing stories and other larger publications being threatened for reporting which does not appear to be defamatory at all.

Doesn't that seem the least bit problematic to some people?

Filed Under: charles harder, defamation, donald trump, free speech, journalism, melania trump, peter thiel, slapp, threats
Companies: daily mail, inquisitr, liberalamerica, politico

Peter Thiel's Gawker-Killing Lawyer Now Issuing Bogus Defamation Threats Over Story On Donald Trump's Hair

from the this-is-philanthropy? dept

Earlier this week we noted that Peter Thiel's legal vendetta against Gawker went way beyond just the Hulk Hogan case. In fact, it appeared that Thiel not only paid the lawyer, Charles Harder, to set up his own legal practice (without revealing to Holder who was really paying the bills), but basically sought to help pay the bills of lots of folks pushing legal claims on Gawker, no matter how tenuous. That included a questionable labor dispute (where even the plaintiff said he felt used by the lawyer) and a weird defamation case in which the court easily tossed out the defamation claim against Gawker, but the plaintiff, Meanith Huon, settled the claim against Above The Law (where his argument was marginally stronger), but appealed the ruling against Gawker, telling the court that he wasn't concerned about the appeal because he was "getting support from Hulk Hogan's lawyers in California." The deeper you look at the Huon case, the more ridiculous it seems. The Forbes report (adblocker blocker warning) noted at one point:

Harder didn’t even know who was funding the litigation until FORBES broke the news in May. What he surely did know: The checks cleared. And there was presumably more where that came from, if he could find more cases.

It would appear that the checks are still clearing, because Harder is threatening Gawker with yet another defamation lawsuit, this time involving a silly story about Donald Trump's hair. He's not threatening on behalf of Trump, but rather on behalf of the firm that the Gawker piece suggests may be "treating" Trump's hair, a company called Ivari International.

Gawker originally did not actually post Harder's threat letter, because it included a completely bogus claim that the letter itself could not be republished due to copyright:

This letter is confidential and protected by applicable Copyright law, and therefore may not be copied, published, disseminated or used by any person for any purpose, other than internally at your company and its outside legal representatives for purposes of evaluating the claims herein and complying with the foregoing demands.

We see these kinds of notices all the time, and know that you absolutely can republish such threat letters without fear of actual infringement, but as Gawker's reporter rightly notes, doing so might only give Harder yet another opportunity to pile on a questionable lawsuit. After some consideration, however, Gawker changed its mind and posted the letter. It's as ridiculous as you'd expect. It lists out 19 specific statements from the original article, which it claims are false and defamatory. At the very least, that's more advanced than most purely bogus threats that don't highlight exact statements.

Still, the key statements that Harder claims are defamatory are taken directly from other lawsuits against Ivari, and there's what's known as fair reporting privilege, which allows you to quote what's found in a lawsuit and not be liable as if you'd said it yourself. Many of the other statements are minor issues that hardly rise to the level of defamation in any sense of the term, let alone hitting the necessary standards of being done recklessly with malicious intent, as would be necessary for a defamation claim to succeed. Incredibly, in the very first item, Harder even changes a word to misrepresent what Gawker's article said. Here's from the Gawker article:

What’s more, Ivari’s New York location was inside Trump Tower—on the private floor reserved for Donald Trump’s own office.

Note the "was inside" statement? Here's the line that Harder claims is defamatory:

"What's more, Ivari's New York location is inside Trump Tower—on the private floor reserved for Donald Trump’s own office."

Notice a difference? That's right, in Harder's version he changes "was" to "is." Many of the other claims are of a similarly dubious nature.

Separately, Harder's letter claims this is a defamatory statement:

Ivari's business brochure refers to microcylinders as "microextensions."

Except... the Gawker article doesn't actually do that. Rather it just asks a question about whether or not the two things are the same:

At the very least, microcylinders would certainly explain how a 69-year-old man could grow hair with the capacity to effectively wrap itself around the circumference of his head several times over. Without having direct access to Donald Trump’s head, of course, it’s difficult to say for sure exactly how these attachments would function. Are they simply a web of additional hair as described in the Roach lawsuit? Do the microcylinders include what the Ivari brochure dubs “microextensions,” ensuring extraordinary length?

That's not what the Harder lawsuit implies Gawker said at all.

Then there are clear statements of opinion, such as the Gawker author stating that a hair treatment method from Canada "appears to be fairly similar to" Ivari's process. "Appears." In other words, it's an opinion, not a statement of fact. You can't sue over statements of opinion. There's the claim in the threat letter that Ivari "often depicts himself as a doctor." By itself, that claim could potentially be defamatory, but Harder leaves out that Gawker didn't actually say that. Rather it quoted a lawsuit that said that, and that's protected under the fair reporting privilege. The only other claim that could be possibly defamatory is one claiming that Ivari had its license suspended in California for tax-related reasons. Gawker's original story links to the California Secretary of State's website from which it pulled the records. It's possible that Gawker's reporting was wrong from its research, but making a good faith error hardly would rise to the level necessary for a defamation claim.

Gawker has also published its own response to Harder, which is worth a read.

I write in response to your June 9 letter in which you demand that an article about Donald Trump's hair be unpublished. You are requesting the retraction of an investigatory news article revealing information about the presumptive Republican presidential nominee that he might consider unflattering. Yet, you say your takedown demand is made on behalf of Edward Ivari. This is a vastly overbroad demand to be made for Mr. Ivari, who plays only a part in the article about Donald Trump. It's also a surprising demand to be made by Mr. lvari considering that he had ample requests from our reporter to contribute to the article, and because you take no issue with the central thesis of the piece that Mr. Ivari has worked on Donald Trump's hair. Further, you declare as libelous 19 statements in the article, all of which are from "lawsuits" or are innocuous on their face, such as the statement about the location of Mr. Ivari's office. Accurate descriptions from court records and non-defamatory statements do not create viable claims for libel and are not cause to "immediately and permanently" remove a news article.

Gawker also takes issue with the demand that the threat letter not be shared:

You also demand that your letter be maintained in secret. You declare it "confidential and protected by applicable Copyright law," and explain that this means it "may not be copied, published, disseminated or used by any person or for any purpose, other than internally at [Gawker Media] and its outside legal representatives for purposes of evaluating the claims [] and complying with the [] demands." We have never agreed to such confidentiality or to limitations on what purposes we may use your letter. It is understandable, as explained above, why you would want to keep the substance of your letter private, but it is still remarkable that you would try to prevent us from making it public. At least one litigation you are responsible for is part of an admitted effort to use the legal system to destroy Gawker Media, a controversy that has vast public interest and implications. The plan was effectuated confidentially for years until the press brought it to light. We will not voluntarily keep hidden your latest legal effort against us.

Gawker's letter further notes that if Harder provides any actual evidence of false statements, the company will correct them, but they note that nothing in the original reporting is false or inaccurate. Once again, the threat appears to be ridiculous, and little more than yet another questionable lawsuit to toss on the file against Gawker to bury the company in legal fees.

Thiel often claims to be about supporting big disruptions in technology. If he dislikes Gawker this much, why not fund competitors who will drown Gawker out of the market, rather than abusing the judicial system to have regular SLAPP-style threats made against a publication that he doesn't like?

Filed Under: charles harder, defamation, donald trump, donald trump's hair, peter thiel, press freedom
Companies: gawker, ivari

Silicon Valley Billionaire Peter Thiel Accused Of Financing Hulk Hogan's Ridiculous Lawsuits Against Gawker

from the wtf,-peter? dept

So here's a crazy and unfortunate story. On Monday evening, the NY Times posted a rather weird story suggesting that there was someone with a grudge against Gawker funding the various lawsuits against the site, including Hulk Hogan's multiple lawsuits (he recently filed another one, even more ridiculous than the first -- which resulted in a $115 million verdict against Gawker that hopefully will get tossed on appeal). The NYT piece was weird in that it was pure innuendo -- just saying that Gawker's Nick Denton was increasingly sure that someone who really disliked the site was funding the lawsuits. It was surprising that the NY Times ran it given the lack of anything beyond speculation and rumor. And then, about 24 hours later, Forbes publishes a story saying that it's well-known billionaire Peter Thiel funding the lawsuit (warning: Forbes' ridiculous anti-adblock policy means you may not be able to read that article):

Peter Thiel, a PayPal cofounder and one of the earliest backers of Facebook, has been secretly covering the expenses for Hulk Hogan’s lawsuits against online news organization Gawker Media. According to people familiar with the situation who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity, Thiel, a cofounder and partner at Founders Fund, has played a lead role in bankrolling the cases Terry Bollea, a.k.a. Hogan, brought against New York-based Gawker. Hogan is being represented by Charles Harder, a prominent Los Angeles-based lawyer.

First off, it's perhaps no surprise that Thiel is very anti-Gawker. Lots of people dislike Gawker, and many of them have really good reasons to dislike Gawker. Its Silicon Valley coverage, in particular, was often terrible and basically just wrong. Its Valleywag publication often went for snark and conspiracy over reality. In Thiel's case, he has a much more direct reason for hating Gawker. In 2007, the publication outed him for no reason at all other than because it wanted to do so.

That said: this is insane. Thiel has his quirks, and has a reputation for supporting extreme political causes (that then, unfortunately, lead many outside of Silicon Valley to think his views are representative of the Valley), but funding a lawsuit (or possibly a series of lawsuits) that is flat out designed to undermine the First Amendment goes beyond what most people would expect. And that's doubly true given that his lawsuits against Gawker could have serious damage on free speech on the internet. It's one thing to hate Gawker and to wish its demise. It's another thing entirely to fund a series of lawsuits that chill expression online.

For what it's worth, it's also worth noting (as both of the articles linked above do), that the same lawyer who represented Hogan, and who Thiel is allegedly paying, is also the lawyer handling Shiva Ayyadurai's ridiculous lawsuit against Gawker, which cites the Hogan case for support. In our write-up of that ridiculous lawsuit, we noted that it looked like Ayyadurai was inspired by Hogan's victory, but we didn't realize that it was the same lawyer, and possibly funded from the same source.

For what it's worth, there are questions about if other lawsuits against Gawker are also being funded by Thiel, and you have to at least wonder if that includes Chuck Johnson's ridiculous defamation lawsuit against Gawker. As you may recall, Johnson struck out in Missouri, but filed the identical suit in California. Ayyadurai's lawsuit cites Johnson's lawsuit as proof of Gawker's pattern of bad behavior, even though both lawsuits are ridiculous. But it's also worth noting that Johnson and Thiel actually appear to have some political similarities, including both becoming strong Donald Trump supporters (Thiel is, famously, a Trump delegate, while Johnson says he's an alternate).

As a bit of an aside, how much more terrifying is it now when you hear Trump talk about "opening up" libel laws to make it easier to sue the press -- or him praising the district court win by Hogan over Gawker?

Thiel has obviously had quite a bit of success on the internet with Paypal, and then leveraging that into the first money into Facebook, along with helping to found Palantir (though that company is raising questions lately as well). He's also funded lots of other companies and famously supported Ron Paul and certain libertarian causes. But a lawsuit against an online publication solely out of vindictiveness (even if his hatred of the publication is for perfectly valid reasons) is a terrible, terrible idea that seems to go against his supposed libertarian views. It's also just petty and vindictive, and only cements in the misleading idea that Silicon Valley is full of ego-maniacal billionaires for whom the ends always justify the means.

Filed Under: charles harder, chuck johnson, defamation, financing lawsuits, free speech, hulk hogan, lawsuits, peter thiel, privacy, shiva ayyadurai
Companies: gawker