CBS News dismisses Trump's legal threat over “60 Minutes” interview

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CNN
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Lawyers for CBS News are rejecting a legal threat from Donald Trump over the network's “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris, telling the former president that his demands were based on a “flawed premise.”

In a blunt letter to Trump's legal counsel on Wednesday, the network said the First Amendment “strongly protects” the editorial judgments of “60 Minutes,” the network's flagship newsmagazine.

“For this reason,” CBS said, Trump has no legal basis to sue, “and I note that you do not cite one,” said the letter from Gayle C. Sproul, senior vice president for legal affairs at CBS News . “There is also no legal basis for your request to provide you with the unedited transcript of the interview, which we refuse to do.”

The interview in question is Bill Whitaker's meeting earlier this month with Trump's opponent, Vice President Harris. When Trump backed out of a planned interview with “60 Minutes,” CBS went ahead with plans to interview Harris and produced a prime-time special without Trump on October 7.

Observers later noted that CBS aired two different answers from Harris to a question about why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “doesn't listen to the United States.”

A preview of the interview on Sunday morning's “Face the Nation” showed Harris responding to the question by defending America's influence and advocacy. In the actual “60 Minutes” segment on Monday, she responded by saying, “We will not stop pursuing what is necessary to ensure that the United States is clear about where we stand on the need to end this war.”

In its letter Wednesday, CBS said Harris' entire response had been broadcast. The first half of her answer aired on Sunday and the second half of her answer on Monday – two parts of the same answer to the same question. Still, the fact that two different clips aired on different days undermined the network's argument that it was a routine editing decision and sowed distrust of “60 Minutes.”

In the weeks since the interview, Trump and his allies have loudly accused CBS of manipulating the interview and covering up Harris. Their response was “completely incompetent,” Trump said at a rally on Monday. “You removed the entire answer and put another answer in there.”

That same day, a lawyer representing Trump, Edward Andrew Paltzik, sent a letter to CBS threatening a possible lawsuit. Paltzik claimed that CBS “intentionally misled the public by airing a cleverly edited interview” that was “aimed at creating confusion among voters about the abilities, intelligence and attractiveness of Vice President Kamala Harris.” .

Paltzik's letter was clearly political in nature. He accused Harris of giving Whitaker a “word salad” response and called the network’s behavior “deceptive.” He said: “We therefore demand that you immediately provide and publicly release the full, unedited transcript” and preserve “all communications and documents” relating to the interview.

In a two-page response obtained by CNN, Sproul wrote Wednesday that Paltzik's letter was “based on the false assumption that '60 Minutes distorted its interview” with Harris “to portray her in a positive light.”

Sproul said “the interview was not fake” and that the newsmagazine “hid no part of the vice president's answer to the question at issue.”

Sproul also cited case law defending editorial and news judgments. “Editing is a necessity for all networks to present the news in the time available, and that's exactly what '60 Minutes' has done here, as it has with its other reports,” she wrote.

Because Paltzik made document preservation claims that could point to a lawsuit, Sproul responded by making such claims of his own and indicating that CBS would mount a vigorous defense if necessary.

From the network's perspective, giving in to Trump's demands to see the unedited interview transcript would be a break with precedent, suggesting that a powerful politician can force a news organization to do whatever he wants.

But the fact that CBS has continued to reject his demand suggests that the network will likely continue to be a target of the Republican presidential candidate.

Trump has brought up “60 Minutes” on the campaign trail at least a dozen times in the past two weeks, repeatedly claiming that CBS should lose its broadcast license. While the network is not licensed by the FCC, local stations are, and a Trump-aligned group has filed an FCC complaint against the network's local station in New York, WCBS, over the editing.

However, the complaint is unlikely to result in any action because the networks have strong First Amendment protections.