Rep. Nadler reveals an impeachment vote may not happen in a full House vote
July 24, 2019
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DeSantis: There should be a 'presumption of malice' when reporters use anonymous sources
March 23, 2023
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday said that libel laws should be changed so that jurors have a "presumption of malice" against journalists who print inaccurate information based on anonymous sources.
While touting proposed new legislation that makes it easier to sue reporters, DeSantis argued that journalists simply use anonymous sources to "smear" people, despite the fact that some of the most important pieces of investigative journalism, including the Washington Post's Watergate reporting, relied on such sources.
"The question is, if you bring a suit, how can you show that it was malicious?" DeSantis asked rhetorically. "And I think that it was anonymous could be a presumption that that's the case. I don't think it's going to make much of a difference in terms of free speech, I do think it may cause some people to may not to put out things that are false that are smearing somebody's reputation."
DeSantis went on to claim that the current standard for suing journalists is "impossible to meet," although that is not the case given that many legal experts have said that Dominion Voting Systems has a strong legal case against Fox News after finding text messages showing that the network knowingly aired false statements about its voting machines.
IN OTHER NEWS: Trump slams people who 'tell us to be peaceful' while protesting his potential arrest
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TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew battled for the survival of the hugely popular video-sharing app in the United States on Thursday, as he faced skeptical Washington lawmakers over the company's alleged ties to the Chinese government.
The 40-year-old Singaporean addressed the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee for hours of serious grilling by both Republicans and Democrats who fear that Beijing could subvert the site for spying or to push propaganda.
TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is under immense pressure across Western countries, with government officials in Washington, the United Kingdom and Canada forced to delete the app from their devices.
The app's gravest threat is from the United States, where the administration of President Joe Biden has set an ultimatum that the company either dump its Chinese ownership or face an outright ban.
"ByteDance is not owned or controlled by the Chinese government and is a private company," Chew told lawmakers in his opening remarks.
"60 percent of the company is owned by global institutional investors. Twenty percent is owned by the founder and 20 percent owned by employees around the world," he said.
"We believe what's needed are clear transparent rules that apply broadly to all tech companies -- ownership is not at the core of addressing these concerns," Chew added.
A ban would be an unprecedented act on a media company by the US government, cutting off 150 million monthly users in the country from an application that has become a cultural powerhouse -- especially for young people -- and the nation's most viewed source of online entertainment after Netflix.
Despite his assurances, the cards in Washington seemed to be stacked against Chew, with several pieces of legislation, including one bill backed by the White House, already paving the way for a ban of the app.
"Tik Tok has repeatedly chosen the path for more control, more surveillance and more manipulation. Your platform should be banned," Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said as she began the hearing.
The 150 million American users on TikTok, are "Americans that the CCP can collect sensitive information on, and control what we ultimately see, hear and believe," added the Republican, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.
'Stop suppressing'
In the final months of his term, former president Donald Trump also attempted to ban the app, but his effort was ultimately blocked by a US judge.
During that battle, a potential sale to Microsoft or spinoff to Oracle never got off the ground due to opposition in China.
The commerce ministry in Beijing said Thursday that it would "firmly oppose" a forced sale, underlining that any sale or spin-off of TikTok would require approval by Chinese authorities.
"Forcing the sale of TikTok... will seriously undermine the confidence of investors from various countries, including China, to invest in the US," added spokesperson Shu Jueting.
In a TikTok post earlier this week, Chew asked US users to defend their favorite app by sharing "what you love" about the platform with elected representatives.
On Wednesday, a group of around a dozen teenagers, teachers and business owners rallied at the US Capitol to express their opposition to a potential ban.
"Are there other platforms out there? Absolutely -- I'm on them. But none of them have the reach that TikTok has," aspiring soapmaking entrepreneur @countrylather2020 told her 70,000 followers in a video recorded after she arrived in Washington.
A sale, even if all parties agreed, would be very complicated.
The success of the platform is due to its powerful recommendation algorithm, and "separating the algorithm between TikTok and ByteDance is like a Siamese twins operation," analyst Dan Ives of Wedbush told AFP.
TikTok still hopes to appease the authorities.
Chew's testimony will promote the company's elaborate plan -- known as Project Texas -- to satisfy national security concerns, under which the handling of US data will be ring-fenced into a US-run division.
He will tell the lawmakers that TikTok has already spent $1.5 billion on the project and hired 1,500 US-based staff to launch it.
© Agence France-Presse
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Amid rumors of an imminent indictment of Donald Trump by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg over his alleged hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, some New York City attorneys who are no fans of Trump are voicing skepticism about Bragg's chances at winning a conviction, Rolling Stone reported.
“This case is a joke, frankly, and I’ve litigated against that office for 33 years,” said longtime New York criminal defense attorney Jeffrey Lichtman, who represented the former Sinaloa Cartel leader know as El Chapo. “I don’t think that case is winnable.”
Bragg's case against Trump raises two questions: did the payment actually violate any laws, or was it just a business-as-usual attempt to prevent an embarrassing sexual affair from becoming public? Even if laws were broken, it's still questionable if the case is winnable.
Manhattan prosecutors contend that the payment to Daniels, through his then personal lawyer and "fixer" Michael Cohen, was illegal because Trump falsely recorded $130,000 in repayments to Cohen as legal fees for tax purposes -- an offense that is usually treated as a misdemeanor.
READ MORE: Alvin Bragg slaps down Jim Jordan: No 'legitimate basis for congressional inquiry'
"Speculation surrounding prosecutors’ legal theory is that the other alleged crime could be campaign finance-related, given that the payoff happened right before the election," writes Rolling Stone's Victoria Bekiempis. "This is where things get especially thorny: if prosecutors do go the campaign finance violation route, it’s not clear whether they’re going to claim Trump wanted to violate state or federal election law. And if it turns out there isn’t an applicable state campaign finance statute (which there might not be) then the question arises: Could state prosecutors invoke federal law in this type of situation, even though it’s not their jurisdiction?"
Another skeptic of Bragg's case is adjunct professor at Cornell Law School Randy Zelin, who is not a Trump supporter.
“I do not believe, based upon what we know, that the felony charge will stick,” said Zelin.
“What you need to do to elevate the misdemeanor falsification of business records to a felony simply is this—[show] that the act of falsifying the business records was done in furtherance of another felony, another crime, that’s it,” Zelin added.
“I think that the District Attorney’s office in New York County is running a great risk of diluting the strength of other potential cases brought by other prosecutors, because this is a weak case—legally, it is a weak case.”
“Practically, it is really more or less a victimless crime, unless you truly believe that the election was truly influenced by the fact that people didn’t know about the hush money payments,” Zelin told Rolling Stone. “And with all of the stuff that he has said, does anyone really believe that if it got out that he paid Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, that it would have changed the election? Probably not.”
Another longtime New York defense attorney with no love for Trump feels the same.
“I think that the basis for the felony, linking it to campaign finance declarations … It’s a strange way to get to an indictment, especially in a falsifying business records situation that’s often charged as a misdemeanor,” Peter Brill said. “On the one hand, the facts seem fairly damning, but the foundation that they’re built on is weaker than I would hope for in the first criminal indictment or criminal charge [against] Trump.”
Read the full report over at Rolling Stone.
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